Wanna Suggest some songs for my mandolin/guitar duo?

[Alex Orr]

I've been jamming with a buddy who is a pretty good guitar player for a few years. When we started I'd basically just started playing mando, and I'm still the less technically accomplished player. However, we've been working through a number of songs long enough that we've given some thought to trying to expand our repertoire a bit and playing out some this summer, basically bars, coffee shops, open mics, etc... nothing too serious (personally I'm not that interested in playing out, but I don't really care either way) So far, this is what we have for tunes that we have confidently down:

Old Joe Clark
Arkansas Traveler
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Blackberry Blossom
Eight More Miles to Louisville
Church Street Blues
Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar
All The Good Times Are Past and Gone
Last Train From Poor Valley
The Old Home Place
Hard Times
L.A. Freeway
Sing Me Back Home
Wagon Wheel
Wayfaring Stranger
Coal Dust In My Soul

In addition to mando I play guitar on some songs. I've become the de facto singer, and while I can do a serviceable job on vocals, I'm not a powerhouse singer, nor is it a role I particularly relish (okay, there are a handful of those tunes that I honestly do love to sing).

We figure we could add a few more fiddle tunes and I'd like to do a few songs that are more blues-y. We're trying to stay away from things that are typical "two dudes with guitars stuff" (i.e., no Dylan, Dead, or Neil Young) but we'd like to get an Uncle Tupelo song in there, or maybe something off the first Son Volt album, as well a few more older country songs.

Anyone else play in a mando/guitar (sometime two guitar) duo setting?

[Aran]

Hi Alex,

Yes I play in a duo but we often have other pickers join us with banjo, bass & fiddle especially if it's for a festival gig.

Anyway we have a few of our duo rough cuts on myspace (the link is in my signature below)

We do The Old Home Place too!!

Have you got any recordings? I would love to hear how you approach things!!

Anything from Jerry Garcia & David Grisman (Dawg) is ideal really...

[Jon Hall]

I occasionally play in a guitar / mandolin duet.

Tennessee Stud
Soldier's Joy (fiddle tune)
St Anne's Reel
Pancho and Lefty

[MandoNicity]

I like your song list! Here's a few that seem to fit into your taste:

Ginsing Sulivan
Midnight Moonlight
My Back Pages

[300win]

Queen Anne's Reel, Dusty Miller, Cattle In The Cane,[ Knoxville Girl, Little Sadie, Pretty Polly] { the three horrid crime songs }, Katie Dear, Little Rosewood Caskett, theres a few, if ya'll enjoy picking together and it sounds like you do, heck man, just pick anything thats fun to you both. But these are some of my favorites through the years that works for guitar and mandolin.

[Mark Gibbs]

Texas Gales makes a wonderful back and forth for mando and guitar. Here is how Doc and Chet do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi4TKuBHV-Q

[Mandoist]

My grandfather used to ask, "Can you play 'Far, Far Away'?"
Still can't find the sheet music for that one.


:))

[Nolan]

Do you have the Skaggs and Rice Cd? Lots of good examples there.

[Dave Gumbart]

Great Atomic Power gets you the Uncle Tupelo/Louvin Brothers two-fer. With A Gun by Steely Dan (Pretzel Logic) is a good one. And for out and out fun, if you don't mind the subject matter, try Henry by the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

[lenf12]

Pick up the Tone Poems book from Mel Bay. There's a lot of great Grisman/Rice material to work on in that book and CD, and the John Carlini transcription of the mandolin parts is pretty darn good. I'm playing through a few of these songs with a guitarist with good results. I like the above Skaggs/Rice suggestion from a previous post. We also do a few jazzy tunes like So What, Well You Needn't, Bernie's Tune and St. Thomas. We have a lot of fiddle tunes and some trad Irish stuff as well. We like to mix it up.

Good luck,
Len B.
Clearwater, FL