Back in the old days, let’s say twenty-five, thirty years ago, if you heard a bluegrass song you liked on, say, a Jimmy Martin album, and wanted to learn it, you’d play it over and over and over again until every word was transcribed…..hopefully correctly. Not so anymore. Today you can find a treasure trove of bluegrass, old-time and gospel lyrics on the world wide web. No, we’re not crazy enough to try to list every web site with lyrics in our genre here on the Learners page, but we have culled out a few you might want to look at. A couple warnings. First, don’t automatically assume that the lyrics you find for a song are necessarily correct. Remember, in pretty much every case, someone has sat down and done the best transcribing they could do; and some transcribers are better than others. Second, if you find a site that you absolutely LOVE….that has the lyrics to a ton of songs you’d like to learn, don’t make the mistake of thinking the page will be there the next time you visit. These sites come and go. If you see songs you know you want, save them. Again, the following is anything but a complete listing of what’s out there. If you find a web site not listed here that you like, we’d like to add it to the list. Just click here to let us know. The ToneWay Project–Here’s a collection of nearly 400 old, traditional songs-bluegrass, old-time, western, you name it–compiled by our CBA pals the Abbotts. Just a wonderful compilation. Traditional Music Library–An interesting library of old-time songs pulled together by our colleagues in Britain, the collection let’s you know who wrote the song (when that’s known) and who recorded it. BluegrassNet–This is truly a big, fat set of bluegrass lyrics. Nothing fancy but a TON of songs. Bluegrass Messengers–This is a phenomenal web site-so much information, including recording information, history, deep, deep background and, of course, lyrics. Can you believe 11 different versions of Diamond Joe? Babcock’s Home Page–A collection of all gospel songs, you’ll find some bluegrass, a little old-time. The page has got a build in player. Barb Diederich’s Bluegrass Lyric Index–We don’t know who Barb is, but she’s put together a solid anothology of bluegrass and western swing songs. Navigation is a little touchy. BluegrassLyrics.Com–A pretty substantial collection, the site contains a good number of hard to find songs. Some writer/recording information. Song Pages–Not really old-time, and certainly not bluegrass, we’ve included this site anyway because it’s presents such a wonderful collection of songs popular in the first quarter of the twentieth century……After the Ball, Bill Bailey, Danny Boy, Dow Yonder, and the list goes on and on. Oh, and there’s a cool player called ‘Crescendo’ that’ll play the song for you if you don’t know the tune. Bluegrass Song Book–Huge collection with over 1,000 lyrics. A gem.
