Going Down the Road Feeling Bad -> orgin of song?
Kyleolso
Brad Sondahl
first to record it...
Brad Sondahl
Kyleolso wrote:
> Anyone have an idea where this song came from?
--
For original art, music, pottery, and literature, visit my homepage
http://sondahl.com
To reply to me directly, don't forget to take out the "garbage" from my
address.
Paul Mitchell
> Well, like a lot of old tunes, I think the Carter Family was probably
> first to record it...
Unlikely, Brad. Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers parody it quite often
in their Corn Liquor Still in Georgia skits ("let's sing Going Down the
Road Feelin' Good", etc.)
Wish I was home to check Gus' text, but my bet is if you accept the
Lonesome Road Blues as being the same tune, then recordings by Clark
Kessinger, Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters, and Ernest Stoneman
might predate the Carters as well.
Paul
Kaallen
cousin to Going Down the Road Feeling Bad, on April 23, 1924.
That's a pretty early recording of a related sing. But where Going Down the
Road Feeling Bad actually came from? I don't know.
Kellie Allen
Carl Baron
reference suggests, 1918).
from The Fiddlers Companion <http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc/>
LONESOME ROAD BLUES. AKA and see "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad."
Old-Time, Song Tune. USA, North Carolina. The song is widely known and
recorded as "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad," locally called "Lonesome
Road Blues" in the Round Peak, North Carolina, region. Tommy Jarrell
remembers the tune "coming 'round" to the area about 1918 or so. County
778, Tommy Jarrell - "Pickin' on Tommy's Porch" (1984).
LukeHiNite
Kellie Allen
That's a winner. Recorded just slightly before a Tanner/Puckett
session...although released after...Samantha & Eva might be the
first "stringband" vocalists to record.
(and just 2 fiddles don't count)
pvc
susquehanna hat record co.
box 541 rochdale NY 11434
Joseph Scott
> Anyone have an idea where this song came from?
The way you usually hear it, it largely all goes back to Henry
Whitter, who first recorded it in '23.
But Henry's song was apparently part of a '00s-'10s family of 16-bar
blues/proto-blues songs about going here and there, such as "Going
Away From Home" by John Snipes (John sees "trouble," Samantha's
"worried" -- all the same general thing, feeling blue), which was all
part of a larger family of not-necessarily-"the-blues"-as-such 16-bar
I-I-I-I-IV-IV-I-I-IV-IV-I-I-V-V-I-I-or-similar repetitive-lyric songs
along the lines of "Banjo Picking Girl" and "I Don't Like The Blues No
How" and such.
Joseph Scott
PaulH
Bad, and/or its close cousin, Lonesome Road Blues?
In writing this the version that popped first into my head is the fine
one done by the contemporary piedmont blues musicians John Cephas &
Phil Wiggins (on "Living Country Blues").
Paul
Paul Mitchell
> Does anyone have a favorite recording of Going Down the Road Feeling
> Bad, and/or its close cousin, Lonesome Road Blues?
Fiddlin' Fred Cockerham and the Camp Creek Boys.
Paul
Lyle Lofgren
> Does anyone have a favorite recording of Going Down the Road Feeling
> Bad, and/or its close cousin, Lonesome Road Blues?
>
If you enjoy banjo, you could do a lot worse than Wade Ward's "Chilly Winds."
Lyle
Jack Aldrich
week period I saw the NLCR (at the 1st Topanga contest) and heard Wade paly
"Chilly Winds" on the Library of Congress record. I started plying old time
banjo and never looked back. It's wonderful.
"Lyle Lofgren" <lofg...@maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
news:d62330a3.04060...@posting.google.com...
Joseph Scott
> Bad, and/or its close cousin, Lonesome Road Blues?
Three of my favorites are Leftwich and Lilly, Cowboy T. Burks, and Cliff Carlisle.
Joseph Scott
LukeHiNite
If you enjoy banjo, you could do a lot worse than Wade Ward's "Chilly Winds."
Lyle
That's also a great point to bring up;
both Bumgarner and Ward seem to
be unique in a low-bass regular G tuning
(the low D run down one octave). Wade
-if i remember correctly- used it on the
"unissued" OKeh (?) test from 20s when he was still singing the song, but opted
to run it back up by the time of the more
familiar AFS version a decade later.
To me it seems that the old archaic low
bass tuning was more suited to the
open-back "peanut" banjo (assuming
Samantha used an open back too). But it
does create an amazing effect on a resonator banjo. By the time he dropped
the habit of singing the words, it became
one of his showpieces. It's also addicting
to play.
Seven Inch Dilly
Lucky for you. The first one that popped into mine was the Weavers.
-Dilly
David Sanderson
Yes - the Leftwich recording is a must-hear.
--
David Sanderson
East Waterford, Maine
**** NEW EMAIL ADDRESS ****
Joseph Scott
way he makes IV last exactly two and a half measures each time
through. There were others who did that 2 1/2 thing on blues sometimes
too, including Lightnin' Hopkins, so it was probably fairly well-known
across the South back in the '10s.
Joseph Scott
Peter Feldmann
wrote:
>
>To me it seems that the old archaic low
>bass tuning was more suited to the
> open-back "peanut" banjo (assuming
>Samantha used an open back too). But it
I remember Tom Ashley using the term "peanut bnajo", back in
'63. It was his first banjo "come through a bill of peanuts, or
somethin'". Anybody know more about where this term
originates?
--
Peter Feldmann
http://www.bluegrasswest.com
Bands, bookings, & etc. for old time and
neo-classic country music.
LukeHiNite
>I remember Tom Ashley using the term "peanut bnajo", back in
>'63. It was his first banjo "come through a bill of peanuts, or
>somethin'". Anybody know more about where this term
>originates?
I think Wade was referring to the banjo
as a prize he won for some kind
of contest involving peanuts. Picking?
If it was a trade, must have been alot
of nuts around.
Bill Dillof
inimitable Kahl Brewer on fiddle. WRD
"Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:a2d52481.04060...@posting.google.com...
David Sanderson
> Naturally, I will always favor Ernest Stoneman's rendition, with the
> inimitable Kahl Brewer on fiddle. WRD
The world could do with a Kahle Brewer collection, it strikes me; he was
a remarkably fine musician.
Joseph Scott
> remembers the tune "coming 'round" to the area about 1918 or so.
I just remembered that Elizabeth Cotten suggested somewhere that she
was playing this particular song when she was around 12, which would
get us back to around 1907. Jarrell knew it as a 12-bar song, right?
Broonzy (who didn't necessarily know it when he was young) did too. In
my opinion it was likely a 16-bar tune first, before some shortened it
to 12 -- that would parallel some other songs such as "See See Rider,"
"Poor Boy A Long Ways From Home," "Steamboat Whistle Blues"/"K.C.
Railroad Blues"/"Frisco Blues," and "Red River Blues" where it seems
the older musicians knew them as 16-bar more and the younger musicians
knew them as 12-bar more.
Joseph Scott