Orange Blossom Special on the Mandolin

[Bernie Daniel]

Certainly high on almost everyone's list of fiddle tunes is the Orange Blossom Special written by Ervin Rouse in the late 1930's. Many consider this tune to be the fiddler's national anthem.

But since the mandolin is tuned like the violin it is certainly possible to attempt the piece on the mandolin but the Hokum Bowing (triple shuffle) effect or sound is certainly not easy to duplicate with a pick!

But occasionally you hear it on the mandolin.

Today, I was looking at the web site of a local luthier I know, Bruce Clark (Nichols Road mandolins) and found an example in his video section by mandolinist named Wayne Haddix. Here Wayne takes a whack at the Orange Blossom Special on Bruce's new 2014 mandolins.

It sounds great to me. I was thinking it might be interesting to see if we could find other examples of this consummate fiddle tune played on the mandolin.

[Bernie Daniel]

Here is a pretty cool mandolin version of OBS with a bit of Rossini and the Pondarosa added in -- who needs a scroll?

[Bernie Daniel]

OK this one is incredible!

[Bernie Daniel]

It just gets better and better - I had no idea there were these video out there in YT land!

[mandolinlee]

Bernie -

Thanks for posting these videos of the OBS.
I play my rendition of it on mandolin, but not quite as well as the ones you posted.
I don't have a recording, so can't post it.

Thanks, again,
Lee

[Marty Jacobson]

This one's pretty good:
(Yeah, I know, the only mando content is Ronnie chopping)

[sgarrity]

I hate to be the contrarian but this is just about the worst tune in bluegrass. It's a show off tune for fiddle players for audiences that don't know what good fiddling really sounds like. I'd rather hear Freebird or maybe even Rocky Top. Well, on second thought......LOl

[AlanN]

The back end of the 2nd generation mandolin pickers took this one into performance as Orange Blossom Mandolin. Lawson, Gaudreau, Allred, others would showcase the mandolin with it, as many of the bands back then carried no fiddle. They all pretty much did the obligatory parts, very deftly. I dug it. And they would quote other tunes during it, like the theme from Bonanza and Dixie.

Coincidentally, chatted with Bill Yates at the Willow Oak fest yesterday (before the tornados). What a fun guy to talk to. All there, has the stories and still sings great. Doesn't play bass in the Tribute band, but holds it all together on stage. And saw Alan Bibey, awesome as always.

[Bernie Daniel]

I hate to be the contrarian but this is just about the worst tune in bluegrass. It's a show off tune for fiddle players for audiences that don't know what good fiddling really sounds like. I'd rather hear Freebird or maybe even Rocky Top. Well, on second thought......LOl

Actually I think you LOVE been a contrarian . I'm glad you had second thoughts about Rocky Top (actually I rather like it)

BTW I agree OBS IS a fiddle "show off" piece but the point I was trying to make here and as these videos show mandolin players can work up something well worth listening to?

Not to hi jack my own thread but isn't Foggy Mountain Breakdown a banjo "show off" and ditto Rawhide for the mandolin?

[Bernie Daniel]

The back end of the 2nd generation mandolin pickers took this one into performance as Orange Blossom Mandolin. Lawson, Gaudreau, Allred, others would showcase the mandolin with it, as many of the bands back then carried no fiddle. They all pretty much did the obligatory parts, very deftly. I dug it. And they would quote other tunes during it, like the theme from Bonanza and Dixie.....

Thanks for the info -- did any of them record the tune that way of an LP?

[Roland Sturm]

As impressive as the techniques displayed are in those videos (or similar fiddle videos), Orange Blossom Special is more like a novelty number than a tune. So I don't find anything worth listening to here. It is a reliable audience-pleaser, and a very frequently requested piece. But other novelty tricks work just as well as audience pleasers, standing on your head, playing the instrument behind your back, climbing on the upright bass, two people share one instrument. OBS is ok if you are the fiddler, wears thin for any other musician very quickly (I've had to play it way too many times). Pump out the E-chord while one person makes random noises. Many actual fiddlers dislike having to play OBS as well.

Not to hi jack my own thread but isn't Foggy Mountain Breakdown a banjo "show off" and ditto Rawhide for the mandolin?

Foggy Mountain has a nice melody and Rawhide has two well defined melody/chord parts. So while they fall into the same genre as showoff tunes/audience pleasers, they are much more bearable because there is no annoying "make random noises over an E-chord as long as you want" part and as a consequence don't last that long.

[Bernie Daniel]

As impressive as the techniques displayed are in those videos (or similar fiddle videos), Orange Blossom Special is more like a novelty number than a tune. So I don't find anything worth listening to here. It is a reliable audience-pleaser, and a very frequently requested piece. But other novelty tricks work just as well as audience pleasers, standing on your head, playing the instrument behind your back, climbing on the upright bass, two people share one instrument. OBS is ok if you are the fiddler, wears thin for any other musician very quickly (I've had to play it way too many times). Pump out the E-chord while one person makes random noises. Many actual fiddlers dislike having to play OBS as well.....

I'll throw this out. I agree that it is kind of a fiddle trick -- that syncopated triple shuffle (Hokum Bowing) -- but that is not true when playing it on the mandolin where you have to make like a "shuffle" with a pick so I give a lot of credit to folks who do it on other instruments?

There other tunes like this --in the Celtic world some consider the Glasgow Reel (Tam Lin) also to be a fiddle trick but the fans love it and that's the important for a musician right?

......Foggy Mountain has a nice melody and Rawhide has two well defined melody/chord parts. So while they fall into the same genre as showoff tunes/audience pleasers, they are much more bearable because there is no annoying "make random noises over an E-chord as long as you want" part and as a consequence don't last that long.

[ralph johansson]

I used to play the Special a lot in my Bluegrass days (late 60's). I did want to get away from train effects and I don't think the triple shuffle translates well on the mandolin - crosspicking is a poor approximation. So I played the first A part without syncopation.
Here is a live version recorded in May 1969 (I believe I started playing the mandolin in 1967)
http://www.mandohangout.com/myhangou...1928&archived=
(hey, maybe there is some crosspicking in the middle somewhere)

and a home recording from Spetember 1969:
http://www.mandohangout.com/myhangou...1934&archived=

I do think the live version is more coherent and economical, but the home version has fewer mistakes and better time.
I don't envy the rest of the band, don't know why the banjo player didn't insist on a solo.

I can't play this fast today, at almost 70, but I do think I have better taste and rhythmic imagination.

[Mike Bunting]

I hate to be the contrarian but this is just about the worst tune in bluegrass. It's a show off tune for fiddle players for audiences that don't know what good fiddling really sounds like. I'd rather hear Freebird or maybe even Rocky Top. Well, on second thought......LOl

It's sorta like Stairway to Heaven or Sweet Home Alabama, exceedingly trite.

[mandobassman]

I hate to be the contrarian but this is just about the worst tune in bluegrass. It's a show off tune for fiddle players for audiences that don't know what good fiddling really sounds like. I'd rather hear Freebird or maybe even Rocky Top. Well, on second thought......LOl

Thank you! I can't think of many tunes that would like to either play or hear less than OBS. One of the most boring tunes ever.

[Bill Snyder]

Nice job with it Ralph.

[ralph johansson]

Nice job with it Ralph.

Thanks. But I wouldn't attempt anything like that today. I used to do it on guitar, too, an amplified archtop, with drums and electric bass. This the first version I ever heard of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJCMFhXziro

They don't make much of the E section; on the A section I like the use of the dim chord.



As for OBS being "boring" - a tune is raw material for a performance, it's what you put into it. Richard Greene (following Scotty Stoneman) put in some wild and intriguing stuff on the open section. On the TV recording with Muleskinner Grisman takes off on both the E and the A section.

As for the other "show-off" pieces. Foggy Mountain Breakdown is a tune I would have refused to do, and it's really simple, simple enough to be used as the first example on Scruggs picking in Seeger's book. There is really nothing flashy about Scruggs; he excels rather in groove, precision and articulation. Raw Hide? We used to do that one, and it had room for the banjo. But the 16-bar blues part just rattles away in Monroe's rendition, the main interest is in the "Rhythm" bridge. Played "as is" it's not very difficult, just fast. It's all in the right hand.

After being exposed to an overdose of Bluegrass in 1969 I got tired of this 160 bpm 2/2 stuff so I decided to try slowing Raw Hide down and create a little more rhythmic variety. Here is a version I recorded in 1972 and posted on Flatpicker Hangout 40 years later:

http://www.flatpickerhangout.com/myh...9816&archived=

I abandon the melody after one or two bars. In order not to offend anyone I titled it "Variations on a Theme by W S Monroe". It's not entirely serious, as the ending shows, and I believe it demonstrates that my main instrument was, and is, the guitar. The guitar solo starts with almost 4 bars of silence - it took that long to switch instruments.