Old-Time Festival Tunes

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Old-Time Festival Tunes, by Dan Levenson

This two-volume set is available for clawhammer banjo in one volume and fiddle/mandolin in the other. Both books contain the same repertoire of 117 tunes, in a “basic” and “advanced” arrangement in standard notation and tab. In the fiddle/mandolin book, the mandolin tab is for the basic arrangement only, with standard notation for both arrangements; in the clawhammer book there is tab for both but standard notation for the basic arrangement only. Each book comes with two CDs containing recordings of each of the tunes played once through in the basic arrangement. The fiddle/mandolin book comes with fiddle recordings, but you can download mandolin recordings from Mel Bay. You can also download fiddle recordings of the advanced arrangements.

Having basic and more complicated arrangements for each tune is a nice touch, and lets you see how a tune can be given some ornamentation while keeping the bones the same.

These are the tunes included:

  1. Banjo Tramp
  2. Big John McNeal
  3. Big Scioto
  4. Bill Cheatem
  5. Billy in the Lowground
  6. Black Eyed Susie
  7. Black Eyed Suzie-anna
  8. Blackberry Blossom
  9. Boatman
  10. Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine
  11. Bonaparte’s Retreat-1
  12. Bonaparte’s Retreat-2
  13. Breakin’ Up Christmas
  14. Broken Down Gambler
  15. Buffalo Gals-in A
  16. Buffalo Gals-in G
  17. Bull at the Wagon
  18. Camp Chase
  19. Candy Girl
  20. Cherokee Shuffle – aka Lost Indian
  21. Chinese Breakdown
  22. Cindy
  23. Colored Aristocracy
  24. Cotton Eyed Joe
  25. Crow Creek
  26. Cuckoo’s Nest
  27. Cuffy
  28. Dinah
  29. Dry and Dusty
  30. Durang’s Hornpipe – old fiddlers’ version
  31. Durang’s Hornpipe – festival version
  32. Ed Haley’s Lost Indian
  33. (Mr.) Fischar’s Hornpipe
  34. Flop Eared Mule
  35. Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss aka Suzanna Gal; Western Country
  36. Flying Indian
  37. Georgia Railroad
  38. Grasshopper Sitting on a Sweet Potato Vine
  39. Green Willis – aka The Raw Recruit
  40. Half Past Four
  41. Hangman’s Reel – in A
  42. Hangman’s Reel – in C
  43. Hollow Poplar
  44. Icy Mountain
  45. Indian Eat the Woodchuck
  46. Jaybird
  47. Jeff Sturgeon
  48. Jenny Git Around
  49. Jimmy in the Swamp
  50. John Brown’s Dream
  51. John Brown’s March
  52. John Henry
  53. John Lover’s Gone
  54. John Stenson’s #2
  55. Johnny Cope
  56. Johnny Don’t Get Drunk
  57. Joke on the Puppy – aka Rye Straw
  58. Julianne Johnson
  59. Jump in the Well My Pretty Little Miss
  60. Jump Jim Crow
  61. June Apple
  62. Kansas City Reel
  63. Kitchen Girl
  64. Leather Britches
  65. Liberty
  66. Little Billie Wilson
  67. Little Rabbit
  68. Liza Poor Gal
  69. Logan County Blues
  70. Lost Indian – 1 – straight major version
  71. Lost Indian – 2 – crooked modal version
  72. Lost Indian – 3 – in D – crooked
  73. Magpie
  74. Martha Campbell
  75. Mole in the Ground – aka Tempy
  76. Monkey on a Dogcart
  77. Muddy Roads
  78. New Five Cents
  79. Nixon’s Farewel
  80. North Carolina Breakdown
  81. Old Bunch of Keys
  82. Old Joe Clark – 1 – major
  83. Old Joe Clark – 2 – modal
  84. Old Mother Flanagan
  85. Pike’s Peak – aka _Rat Cheese_ or Natches Under the Hill
  86. Possum in a Well
  87. Possum on a Rail
  88. Quince Dillon’s HIgh D
  89. Rachael – aka Texas Quickstep
  90. Ragtime Annie
  91. Railroading Across the Rocky Mountains aka Marmaduke’s Hornpipe
  92. Red Haired Boy
  93. Reuben’s Train
  94. Rochester Schottische
  95. Rocky Pallet
  96. Roscoe
  97. Rush and the Pepper
  98. Saint Anne’s Reel
  99. Sally Anne Johnson
  100. Sandy Boys – Burl hammons’ version
  101. Sandy Boys – Edden Hammon’s version
  102. Sandy River Belle
  103. Sarah Armstrong’s Tune – aka Old Reel
  104. Shuffle About
  105. Smith’s Reel
  106. Staten Island Hornpipe
  107. Sugar in the Gourd
  108. Texas Gals
  109. Tom and Jerry
  110. Too Young to Marry – aka – Sweet Sixteen; aka – My Love is But a Lass
  111. Wake Up Susan
  112. Walking In My Sleep
  113. Washington’s March
  114. Ways of the World
  115. Whiskey Before Breakfast
  116. Whistling Rufus
  117. Yellow Rose of Texas