Season 322 Ukuleles ARE allowed in Bluegrass (one week only)

Another Bluegrass waltz. I like Norman and Nancy Blake's version best and tried to do something in that vein, but is this still Bluegrass?
 
Season 322. Submission 1. "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" (Written by Roy Turk and Lou Handman in 1926 and famously recorded by Elvis Presley)

Thank you for hosting, Trent, and your fine theme. ALERT: I am so out of my comfort zone with bluegrass that I readily admit what follows may not even be close to what you hoped to find this week! My apologies! But I did want to give it go for you.

tenor ukulele, soprano banjolele here


 
I've done this one before but probably in another key (C?). Charlie Poole wrote and recorded it before bluegrass became a thing, but Bill Monroe included it in his playlist (and even claimed authorship at one point ... Bad Bill! Bad!) No matter how much you slow the tempo, it's still a very fast five-verse song.

 


Ok, last one today, I promise. I hope that it counts as bluegrass. It’s on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, so I guess I just assumed it was.
 
Happy to be able to sneak another one here for you Trent! This one is a Graham Parsons composition, but I discovered it being done by a bluegrass singer named A.J. Lee playing along with a very talented family of musicians called the Tuttles. I highly recommend you check out their stuff on Youtube. Anyway, it's called Hickory Wind. . . Linda is going to try and add something and if she can we'll submit a duet of this one.

 
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I'm sure Trent is familiar with Jimmy Martin, but others who are not familiar with bluegrass may not have heard of him. He's one of the great bluegrass musicians, so you should check him out. This song is from his album Sunny Side of the Mountain, and you can listen to that whole album on youtube.

Multi-tracked banjo uke and Merlin stick dulcimer.

 
Happy to be able to sneak another one here for you Trent! This one is a Graham Parsons composition, but I discovered it being done by a bluegrass singer named A.J. Lee playing along with a very talented family of musicians called the Tuttles. I highly recommend you check out their stuff on Youtube. Anyway, it's called Hickory Wind. . . Linda is going to try and add something and if she can we'll submit a duet of this one.

I get a message saying the video is unavailable....
 
A recent song by Nelson Hopwood

The pigeon hole genre police probably haven't put it in a hole yet but I can certainly hear it done by a crazy talented bluegrass crew. (Bluegrass folk can really play)
You just get me though.....
 
Ok, I think I figured it out. Try it again when you have a chance and let me know. Thanks Trent!
 
TCK did a song by Old and in the Way, and I felt a bit guilty because I had forgotten all about them. I played and played Old and in the Way when it came out. I saw in more recent times that it was the top selling bluegrass album of all time. I don't know if that is still true now, or even if it was true then, but I loved it. This one was written by Peter Rowan, a member of Old and in the Way, who was supposed to come to Australia just recently, but cancelled due to health problems. I hope he is on the mend

 
Alternative Bluegrass...Still bluegrass? I don't know but I have found a ton of new music this week. Introducing The Hackensaw Boys.

 
As promised here is my adaptation of a song that was on my Dad's favourite album:
"Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys".

The original was a 19th C. British Music Hall song. It was adapted by Monroe and given a rather mawkish third verse in which the girl he finds via the footprints dies and goes to heaven. I wonder if that was influenced by Monroe reading about Dickens' Little Nell dying. I always hated that verse.

In the pre-Internet (for me at least) early 1990s, I was in a Country Band here in Catalonia and wanted to play this song, but didn't remember the words. So I simply rewrote them and left out the mawkish verse. Using the internet today, I discovered that my rewrite is closer to the original, in that the narrator lives happily ever after with his Nelly. Oops spoilers! :)

I am only on P.6 of this week's season, so no idea if anyone has done this before yet.

 
Also, since were posting bluegrass versions of stuff that isn’t bluegrass, you’ve all heard of Steve’n’Seagulls, right?



Maybe disqualified because of the drums. I like this one because I have a soft spot for AC/DC, but they have some other stuff up on YT that’s just banjo and upright bass.


Seeing this made me realize this thread needs to see the o.g. AC/DC bluegrass cover band, Hayseed Dixie:

 
The original was a 19th C. British Music Hall song. It was adapted by Monroe and given a rather mawkish third verse in which the girl he finds via the footprints dies and goes to heaven. I wonder if that was influenced by Monroe reading about Dickens' Little Nell dying. I always hated that verse.

https://youtu.be/lBm367ElcoE

Maybe Hans Christian Andersen's little match girl. She froze to death and went to heaven. I had a 78 with the story being read and an accompanying book. Looking back it's pretty mawkish but I liked it at the time (aged about six). I remember the narrator would tell you to turn the page at appropriate places in the story.
 
I'm putting myself out there with this one. I recently started learning how to play mandolin, have taken a few lessons, but I'm green as a gourd on it. I've never been able to hold a pick, always played bass, and now ukulele, with my fingers, so just holding and playing with a pick is a big challenge for me, along with everything else unique about mandolin. I just turned the recorder on here and went, so this has plenty of warts. I was practicing making and changing the mandolin "chop chords" here some too, and I'm not that good at changing them back and forth yet. The two fingered chords I can do a lot better at this stage. The first song I did here is "Ol Slewfoot", one of my all time favorites, and always a crowd pleasing tune, I followed that with some of an instrumental I've been working on called "June Apple".

 
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