Author: Annie Erbsen

Bury Me Beneath the Willow on Ukulele

We have some exciting news… our newest ukulele book is at the printer, and we should have it in our hands sometime in early August 2022! It’s by our best-selling authors Ted Parrish & Wayne Erbsen and is called “Ukulele Tunes, Tips & Jamming“… sign up to be notified when it’s out by clicking HERE.

In the meantime, we thought we’d give you a sneak peak at one of the songs in this book: “Bury Me Beneath the Willow,” one of our all-time favorites to pick on our log cabin’s front porch. We love to hear your

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Nine Pound Hammer on Bluegrass Banjo

Today I got into splitting some firewood for my log cabin’s wood stove and ran into some especially gnarly oak butts that were still waiting to be split and stacked on the woodpile. Since one particular round was putting up a pretty good fight, I brought out my favorite steel wedge and my heaviest maul, an 8-pounder. As I was slamming the maul into the wedge, I got to thinking that the maul was pretty dang heavy. As I was pounding away, I started singing that old bluegrass song, “Nine Pound Hammer.” The first verse suddenly became very real:

“Nine
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Welcome to Our New Website

We’re happy to launch our brand-new site!

So, what did we change? Most importantly, we’ve improved the product search so it will be easier for you to browse our books and recordings. You’ll find it easier to locate the specific book you’re looking for. We also upgraded the process for placing individual and wholesale orders.

We also made sure that the free stuff — the articles, tabs, and videos that were on our previous site — are all still available for you.

Thanks for stopping by! We hope you enjoy the new site.

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Jimmie Brown The Newsboy

“Jimmie Brown, the Newsboy” has long been a favorite of mine, as recorded by Flatt & Scruggs and Mac Wiseman. Recently, I got to pondering its origins. After some digging, I discovered that the song was composed in 1875 by William S. Hays. Over the years, Hays’ name has largely been forgotten and now people either refer to “Jimmie Brown, the Newsboy” as a Carter Family song, a Flatt & Scruggs song or even a Mac Wiseman song. Let’s go back to an earlier time and look at where the song came from and discover some startling controversies

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