Vernon Dalhart

Rural Roots of Bluegrass

By Wayne Erbsen

His name was Marion Try Slaughter, but he took the name Vernon Dalhart from two Texas towns where he had worked as a cowhand when he was a boy. Born in Jefferson, Texas, on April 6, 1883, before he died on September 14, 1948, he had used at least 100 pseudonyms. His grandfather, Marion Try Slaughter I, had been a Confederate soldier who joined the KKK after the Civil War. Dalhart’s father was killed in a barroom knife fight with his brother-in-law, Bob Castleberry, while Dalhart was still a boy. By the time he was 12 or

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Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers

Rural Roots of Bluegrass

By Wayne Erbsen

There are so many stories about Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers, that it’s hard to know where to begin. As one of nine kids, Charlie dropped out of school so early that he only learned to read and write as an adult. Growing up in the Haw River area of North Carolina, he was known as a prankster and a scrapper who never shied away from a fight. He was arrested so many times for his wild drinking and fighting that he was on a first-name basis with the local police. Many times when the

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Eck Robertson, Master Fiddler

Rural Roots of Bluegrass

By Wayne Erbsen

Eck Robertson was a true fiddle master. Fortunately, he was unafraid to step up to the plate and say so.

The story begins shortly after the turn of the twentieth century when Amarillo, Texas, fiddler Eck Robertson honed his fiddle chops enough to start winning fiddler’s conventions. Competition at Texas fiddle contests was notoriously fierce, and winning any of them was no mean trick. One story has Robertson in a showdown playoff with the father of legendary fiddler Bob Wills. In a last-ditch effort to give himself an edge, legend has it that he broke off a

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Eck Robertson and the story of Sally Gooden

Eck Robertson and the story of Sally Gooden

By Wayne Erbsen

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the photograph. By the next year he established the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company to sell record players in furniture stores across America. Improvements by such inventors as Alexander Graham Bell and Emile Berliner helped to make “gramophones” coveted items for home entertainment. Sales of records went to 4 million units in 1900, up to 30 million in 1909, and over 100 million by 1920. By 1922 alone, consumers could purchase such hit records as “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” “Carolina in the Morning,”

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The Cuckoo

Oh the cuckoo is a pretty bird,
And I wish she was mine.
She never drinks whiskey,
She only drinks wine.

Gonna build me a cabin
On the mountain so high.
So I can see my Polly,
As she goes riding by.

I’ve gambled in England,
And I’ve gambled in Spain.
I’ll bet you five dollars,
I’ll beat you next game.

Jack of diamonds, Jack of diamonds,
I know you from old.
You’ve robbed my poor pockets,
Of my silver and my gold.

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Cluck Old Hen

Clawhammer banjo for the complete ignoramus cover

My old hen’s a good old hen,
She lays eggs for the railroad men
Sometimes one, sometimes two
Sometime enough for the whole dang crew

Cluck old hen, cluck and squall
You ain’t laid an egg since ‘way last Fall
Cluck old hen, cluck and sing
You ain’t laid an egg since ‘way last Spring

My old hen, she won’t do
She lays eggs and taters too
First time she cackled, she cackled in the lot
Next time she cackled, she cackled in the pot

I had a little hen, she had a wooden leg
Best darn hen that ever

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Who Moved My Cheese?

By Wayne Erbsen

Many people don’t like change. They don’t want their cheese moved, as the book says. I’m more guilty of this than almost anyone I know. Once I discover something I like, I tend to do that thing from that day forward, without wavering one iota.

In bluegrass music, most traditional players don’t want their cheese moved either. They think, if Earl, Don, Carter, or Bill played a lick a certain way, by God, that’s the way I’m going to play it too, or try to. Now, I can’t really fault that way of thinking, because I’m as

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Log Cabin Songs

By Wayne Erbsen

I have a thing for log cabins. Always have. To me, they symbolize almost everything I’m trying to say when I play old-time mountain and bluegrass music. In fact, that’s why I named the band of students I work with the “Log Cabin Band.” 

Log cabins have long been a symbol of frontier America. Their sturdy construction of handhewn logs are a true representation of the tough and independent pioneers who built them.

One of the strongest and most enduring themes of traditional bluegrass music has been the lost son who wanders back to the old log

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The Simplest Harmony Part in Bluegrass Music

By Wayne Erbsen

Singing harmony is one of life’s truest pleasures, right behind pie and sex. For the moment, I’m not going to give you a complete lesson on singing harmony. You can find that in my book, The Bluegrass Gospel Songbook. Instead, I’m going to give you a partial harmony lesson and show you the simplest harmony part in bluegrass music. Why am I so sure that I’ve found the one song that surpasses all others in its simplicity? For the simple reason that the harmony part I’m about to show you has only one note. Yes, that’s

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The Dreaded Count-In

By Wayne Erbsen

Perhaps you’re a lurker at the bluegrass jam or pickin’ session. Sometimes you’ve heard the musicians count at the beginning of the songs with “one, two, three” or “one, two, three, four” and wondered how and why they’re doing that. You may have been in a position of having to start a song in a jam, and you’ve dreaded having to do the count-in. In either case, read on.

When it’s your turn to start a song in a jam, the surest way to get the other musicians to come in at the right place is to

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