The Paint Branch Ramblers (my current old time, bluegrass, and jug band) now have a blog to call their own over at http://paintbranchramblers.wordpress.com/. News, show listings, and free downloads can all be found there — so get thee there. Our next show is this Friday, June 6, opening the “cabaret” portion of the 2008 Mid-Atlantic Ukulele Invitational (M.A.U.I.), and playing as the warm-up and pit band for the evening’s performance of Saturday, June 7. See here for details.
In the meantime, please enjoy this scratch track we’ve been using to practice some of the entr’acte music we’ll be playing as the pit band. In this case, what you’re hearing is Cue #2 for the “Paint Branch Ramble.” Pick up a comb and wax paper and play along.
I just discovered that someone named Lyndon Johansen had left the following message for me on April 4 as a reply to a February 2007 post.
I found The Viper & His Famous Orchestra while searching iTunes > ukulele. I’m a mandolin picker attempting to play tenor ukulele. All new to me. Does the “Reply” reach anyone that can provide me with a chord changes for Hey! Rounder? It’s a great song but a bit difficult to figure out. Thanks, Lyndon
This was nice to get for a couple of reasons: 1) it means our stuff made it through CD Baby to iTunes! and 2) it means someone wants to sing lines like:
Hot butter in the pan
Hot baby in the diaper
All for the man
And none for The Viper
So I sent him the following reply today, and I’m going to paste the chord changes below just in case anyone else might want to play along too:
Hey! Rounder,
I just saw the comment that you left on my Viper blog (as you can maybe tell, my blog and I aren’t on the closest of terms) about “Hey! Rounders.” I’m flattered that you’d like to be able to play it, so I’m attaching the basic chord changes for it.
By way of explanation, each cell of the table represents a four-beat measure of the music, so if two chords are in a given cell, then each gets 2 beats. The degree symbol after a chord means a diminished chord (e.g. C dim = C+Eb+F#+A, which are actually the same notes as F# dim) — you probably already know that. In actually playing, I sometimes substitute 9th or 13th chords for the D7 and G7 chords, and C6 for C.
In the recording on “Everything for Everyone,” I’m playing a baritone ukulele, which is tuned D G B E. (How are you tuning your tenor ukulele?) You’re also hearing a trombone, double bass, and suitcase.
So here’s a recording, and the chord changes to go with it:
The Paint Branch Blue Boys recently completed a demo recording of three tracks, produced through the Herculean efforts of James Key in his home office, from which the following recording of “Everybody’s Truckin’” is drawn.
The lyrics we’ve devised for this Western Swing standard stay just this side of clean. Peter Jensen came up with my favorite pair, which is “Everybody’s nippin’ and tuckin’ / Everybody’s liposuckin’.”
The line-up for this recording is as follows: Mike Paul, vocals and blue-blown comb; Peter Jensen, violin and vocals; James Key, bass and guitar; Ryan Jerving, banjo ukulele, jug, and vocals; Michael Sevener, banjo. Though all three demo songs were recorded in multi-track style, with each musician recording their part separately, this is the only song on which we actually did overdubs that we couldn’t reproduce if we were playing the song live. In particular, listen for the solo section in the middle in which James brilliantly brought things down to just comb (Mike), banjo ukulele (me), and jug (me again). This is our Sgt. Pepper’s moment.
HOMEGROWN COFFEEHOUSE, ACCOKEEK, MARYLAND
April 19, 2008 — 6:30-10:00
I’ll be playing about 10 minutes of material — yet to be selected — at the 8th Annual Talent Night of this venue at the National Colonial Farm on the Moyaone Reserve that the Viper has haunted for a number of years now, intermittently. I will likely go on sometime between 8:00 and 9:00.
The whole evening will feature a large slate of performers and poets. The flyer for the event remarks: “Donations appreciated — be a supporter of Local Artists and the Homegrown Coffeehouse).” For further information on the show or site, see the directions and contact information below the following listing of performers.
Dinner music provided by The Mozart Orchestra of Kay Budner’s Violin Studio
Beverly Woods (Storyteller and Poet)
Kevin Dudley (Singer-Songwriter)
Rey Robles (Guitarist)
Diane Parks (Poet)
Celtic Trio: Sarah & Laura Carts, & Keely Hollyfield (Hammered Dulcimer, Harp, and Violin)
Terri Purcell-Diehl (Poet)
The Viper (Ukulele Rhythm)
Tom Seaton (Classical Guitar)
Amy Lynn (Vocalist)
Cliff Lynn (Poet)
Rocky Jones (Poet)
Directions from the Capital Beltway: Take Beltway (495) going South: Take Exit 3A (Indian Head Highway, Route 210). Follow 210 south for approximately 9.2 miles. After you pass Farmington Road, you will take the next right onto the Bryan Point access road, (look for the National Colonial Farm sign), go left at the first stop sign, and right at the second stop sign onto Bryan Point Road. Follow approximately 4 miles to the end. National Colonial Farm, Educational Building. 3400 Bryan Point Road, Accokeek, MD. Follow signs for the Visitor’s Center; follow road to the right, parking on the left. For more information: 240-305-0876 and 301-283-3246.
In belated honor of Presidents Day, 2008, here’s a song written in tribute to two of our forgotten, and worst, presidents. It’s called “The Fillmore & Buchanan March” and it goes like this:
This piece was written for the Paint Branch Blue Boys, first under the title “The House of James March,” after the home to which bassist James Key so generously invites the lot of us to practice most Monday nights. I found myself playing the tune on the mandolin while attempting to come to terms with “Under the Double Eagle” (which likewise shifts between keys) and the mandolin more generally. It is my virgin tunesmithing effort on the mandolin.
The piece was renamed “The Fillmore & Buchanan March” in the midst of all the 2008 Presidents Day excitement, as a way of remembering the unelected signer of the Fugitive Slave Act and failed Know Nothing candidate, Millard Fillmore, and along with him, James Buchanan, the “doughface” bachelor president whose bronze and granite memorial residing near the Southeast corner of Washington, D.C.’s Meridian Hill Park is among the least-visited and least-well-loved statues in our nation’s Capital. I have contributed information on this memorial to the Wikipedia entry on Buchanan (and really should get around to uploading a photograph of it as well).
CHORDS AND MELODY
If you’d like to play along with the recording above (which you can also download here), the chord progression follows the basic march/polka/ragtime formula (e.g., “Under the Double Eagle,” “Roll Out the Barrel,” “Tiger Rag”), though it shifts between the keys of C and G. Each slash represents a 2/4 measure.
C / / /
C / G7 /
G7 / / /
G7 / C G7
C / / /
C C7 F /
F / C D7
G7 / C /
G / / /
G / D7 /
D7 / / /
A7 / D7 /
G / / /
G G7 C /
C / G A7
D7 / G /
If you’d like to play the melody, you can download a PDF of my handwritten manuscript for it. The recording was made first (recorded using the built-in microphone of my Dell laptop), as a scratch track for band reference. The written version simplifies the rhythm for adaptation for other instruments, and improves somewhat on the turnarounds you’ll hear in the recording.
