Rapahanock Jig

July 31, 2015 5:59 AM

A fun one by James Buckley, 1860. Solo gourd banjo, eAEG#B tuning.

(Title is as originally printed, but is almost certainly a reference to the Rappahannock river; either a typo or spellings were a bit more fungible back then.)

posted by usonian (2 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite

Really nice. I'm enjoying this collection you're building up here. It's great stuff.

We were recently flying out of Kelowna and while we were waiting for our flight, a WestJet pilot pulled up a chair at the gate and pulled out his fretless open-back banjo. A gate agent left the gate phone off the hook in front of him to give him some PA amplification and he sat there playing for a good twenty minutes.

There were a few people scratching their heads over the instrument, but they were clearly enjoying it.

It's such an organic sound. Your playing is great.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:25 PM on August 2, 2015


Thanks MC! I've been on a bit of a roll lately. The person who *really* has an epic collection of this stuff is Tim Twiss - I believe he's got over 1000 clips on his YouTube channel, and he has single-handedly recorded a complete aural record of every known mid-19th century banjo instruction book. And he's an all-around good guy.
posted by usonian at 6:02 AM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


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