Oul' Johnny Doo aka The Little Beggarman. Played on a 1924 Bacon B Tenor Banjo.
Just picked up this plectrum banjo last weekend and enjoyin' the beejeebers out of it.
Martin, That tune sounds good on your new banjo. Thanks! Eric
Love the sound of your new banjo, Martin, and I can tell you're really having a good time with it. What fun! As Steve Martin says, "The banjo is such a happy instrument. You can't play a sad song on the banjo."
Well, Martin, your banjo inspired me to get my new banjo mandolin out of its case and give this tune a try. Ukulele accompaniment is provided by my tallented husband Jeff.
Cool Marcelyn! Those banjo mandos are so cute!
Ah Ha .. we all wax lyrical about the Jolly Little Beggarmen ... until they knock on our door!
I don't think I've ever been to a jam where we didn't play this.
super-late entry, but I just joined the group this weekend and already had the tune sitting in my youtube vids, so why not?
Better late than never. I played this Bluegrass style with my friend to get a little differenct flavor, plus it was fun! We both started playing instruments at about the same time (3 years) and we've both come a long way. Jim
Jim, I sure enjoyed your tune. It looks like you guys are having a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing.
Awesome, Jim; mighty fine picking. You two are great together. It's wonderful to have someone to play along with!!
Your having to much fun Jim. Your mandolin sounds better every week. It's opening up nicely. Gary
Again, lots of variety in the instruments and in the interpretations of all the players. Here is my belated attempt, recorded on my refurbished 1928 Vega tenor with guitar backing. I also know this tune under the title "The Roving Journeyman" which is a Scottish version in which the roving man in question ends up in Glasgow courting the Lord Provost's daughter!
Very nicely done! I've always played this tune coming at it from the bluegrass tradition, which is to say, as fast as humanly possible and then some. It's nice to hear it at a speed that lets all the beauty of the melody shine through. I'm going to slow my version down and see what part of the melody is still there...
Nice job John. Micheals right. As mandolin players many of us learn a new song and right away take it up to warp speed. Keep checking our BPM's to see if we can get a little faster. We forget there is a song in there somewhere.
Just making up for lost time...
And again on the mandola...
I spotted this thread rising from the past and thought, what the heck, why not... So here's a version I did in 2007 with tenor banjo (fingerpicked), guitars and acoustic bass guitar. Taken at a very steady speed with a bit of a swing... Cheers, Will
Will, I like that tempo. It is a very melodic tune that loses a little something when played as a reel. It's originally a hornpipe after all, I believe. Nicely done.
Great version, Will. Relaxed and letting the tune come through well. I like the banjo and guitar alternating the melody.
Just filling in a few gaps -- I picked up this version of Red-Haired Boy from a Mandozine TEF file, with a fairly strong swing and a few triplets thrown in. It was marked "Bluegrass version", but to me this sounds more Irish (and more hornpipe than reel). Played on my Ajr, and listening back to it, I should probably slow it down a bit to give the tune more air to breathe. Still, it's a fun version and I particularly like those triplets. Martin
Hello everyone! I joined this group a long time ago, but have been a lurker until now. Practice time has been rare for me, and practice time in front of a computer even less frequent. Tonight I had a chance to get started so I picked one of the tunes I already know. I had to play a little quietly, since the family is all tucked in for the night, but hopefully the video comes out OK. I'm playing a Breedlove Quartz FF, and this is a version I learned partly from Chris Thile's Homespun video and partly from others - like Banjo Ben. This group is a great idea! And kudos to all of you who have been posting for all the weeks before! Thanks, Alex Edit: added the video....
Good one Alex, solid timing, and from your performance I'll say that complaint about practice time is all made up Playing quietly in front of an over-sensitive microphone is a tightrope walk, volume-wise. You should try and find some daytime slot where you can bang away - you will make that instrument show its full potential, too.
Apologies for reprising a thread that has been slumbering for over a year. I might dust off another few SAW's if I can find the time
I do envy your ability to play the banjo..and you do it SO well!! Great work!!
My take on a Kentucky mandolin
Way to go Dusty! Nice playing
Thanks Luurtie, Fun one to play.
I gotta get me one of those tenor banjos, all those versions sound so cool.
Bluegrassers like Tony Rice play this tune at breakneck speed. Knowing that I cannot compete with this, I tried a little different approach. I play it as a slower hornpipe with classical guitar accompaniment, my banjos are nylgut-strung, and the mandolin-part is played by my new ukrainian type domra.
Nice version, Crisscross! The banjo sounds interesting with the nylgut strings and it suits your playing of the tune. I like your tempo too!
Wow, what a lovely version. This sounds so relaxing!
There was too much snow to do any other tunes, so I went and recorded this one as a farewell to autumn. Winter is here. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/v5XfoRJwvvg
Nice, enjoyable multi-track version and good video editing.
Simon, where do you live with that much snow - looks like my own area of the province. Also I like the outside video going in and out of the music, very creative.
I live in a tiny village to the west of Lyon, which is quite far south, though we are at an elevation of around 1200 feet with ridge lines another 1400 feet above us. So it can even be quite hot here in the winter and sometimes it’s 15+ centigrade colder down in the fog soup over the city. The snow we are having is part of the air mass that travelled across the US recently. We occasionally get hot air/winds from the deserts of North Africa which are VERY humid and turbulent once they cross the Mediterranean, with spectacular storms. But usually here it’s either very hot and dry, or very cold and dry! -I messed up with the percussion by the way. I used a recording of an Indian tabla BUT I had to speed it up. With the speed it sounds less like drums and more like horses, clattering down the street! And the transitions of multi track audio and visual are problematic with the software I use, difficult to get a graded transition... but fun!
Simon, this is a fine rendition of the music, and I too, like Ginny, think the opening and closing exterior footage adds to the atmosphere.
Nice video, fine playing Simon!
Thanks Frithjof, Ginny, John and CC, it’s funny but I thought about going for a hike today and taking the octave along with me to get a real atmospheric vid. (I have a great pair of cycling gloves that I can wear while playing) But it was pretty windy.
Here’s a quite different version, ‘Red Haired Boy’s holiday in North Africa’. It’s in D harmonic minor...
A really interesting twist on this popular tune, Simon. Definite Middle-eastern/North African feel to it, I'd say. What next, I wonder?
Thanks John, I was thinking perhaps he could go and stay for a while in New Orleans? -I tried double harmonic minor too, it may be better in some ways. And now I’m thinking that with the above version, it may have been good to resolve back to the major key towards the end.
Great experimental version, Simon. I had a nice time switching between both your recordings every eight bars.
Interesting idea Simon, though beeing honest, I prefer the original version.
Thanks Frithjof, I’m thinking now that I should have played four or eight measures of each in turn and then finished on the major. Or even sort of degenerate into a harmonic minor uncertainty and then triumphantly return to the major paradise. Thanks CC. Your reaction is quite understandable. The other slight issue is the name of the tune that I’m pulling apart. Of course there’s no other deeper meaning. I just chose it because it’s well known. I’ve found that if play it in harmonic minor and then in the major key straight afterwards it sounds REALLY sweet, like back home. A bit like the way jazz can sometimes be uncomfortable and then resolve. It’s really more of an exercise and I’m doing this with other keys, modes, blues, as well. I’ve found that I’m starting to think a lot more in big blocks rather than individual notes. And STRANGELY, I’ve found that I can now play other tunes quite a lot faster! On The Squirrel Hunters (D-U, D-U) I was keeping up with Sharon Gilchrist! Also I can sense, a little bit, what type of spice each extraordinary note will give. -but at the end of the day, I prefer it in major, almost every time.
Working on getting my Go Pro camera working.
Does Pro Go camera make the real colours disapear and replace them with brown to white tones? Anyway, your mandolin still sounds colourfull, great playing Michael!
Sweet!! Nice hopping, foot stomping, knee flexing energetic performance Mike and nice to hear you posting. -and you look so much younger now! You’ve been fishing and bathing in the waters of youth?
Ha ha! As per the GoPro colors, those are all my incompetence. I'm learning. : ) I just watched a video about using LUTs in postproduction. Will try that next. Apparently those are magic color-correction profiles. As for the fountain of youth, Simon, thank you very much. I've decided being sleep deprived isn't really a badge of courage. Also went vegan -- not for any special reason -- and am feeling basically amazing.