I got in a bluegrass jam the other day at a party. It occurred to me that this was the first casual jam I had been in in many months. In recent years we’ve gone to a few festivals every year and try to make a short appearance at the campouts (spring and fall they conflict with an important semiannual meeting we need to attend) but mostly I play with my band, I always play banjo, and I play what the band plays.
I know a lot of songs and I’m pretty good about remembering lyrics. What is hard lately is remembering the titles of songs to sing. And so it was last weekend; an embarrassingly long wait ensued several times while I tried to conjure up a tune from my rusty mental rolodex.
There are some great songs that come to mind immediately but I don’t like to do them because they have been rather beat to death. These are songs that everybody learns in their first few months of trying to learn to play. Murphy Henry, bless her heart, has taught so many students they would make a line from here to her home in Virginia. But the downside is they all sing “I’ll Fly Away” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” every time they get together. Great songs to be sure but I only sing them at funerals, or if I am a volunteer at music camp.
I’m not trying to be some sort of bluegrass elitist; I just want to play songs that are slightly less universal. Bill Monroe, Lester & Earl, the Stanley Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Mac Wiseman — their recordings are a treasure trove of well-known but not too-well-known songs. In a more modern vein, James King has some great stuff and Hot Rize has done some classics that everybody knows but that don’t get over-sung. The recent album by Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick of Vern and Ray songs is a gold mine. Alas I’ll need to work on those Vern & Ray songs a bit as they are almost all tunes that I can sing the chorus of, and maybe one verse, but aren’t really in my repertoire (yet).
I really should keep a notebook or a file card or two in my instrument cases with a list of good tunes, or at least look through my CDs before I leave and note a few favorites. And I guess it wouldn’t hurt to seek out a few jams near my home town where I could exercise my bluegrass brain a bit.
Gotta do something before I forget how.
