This tune has become the theme song of my column, "Banjos at the Border." When I first started to get the hang of the banjo, I was fortunate enough the meet the dulcimer and banjo player, Lorraine Hammond, who taught me the tune “Cold Frosty Morning” one afternoon when she was visiting from Boston. Her fingers flew across the whispering dulcimer strings as she patiently went over the song again and again. But when I went down to the creek that weekend and played it on my banjo, my fingers rebelled and followed a pattern of their own making. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a new tune had slipped through the wire fences of the old, and I had no choice but to lay my arms over the banjo rim and watch it hop away. I now play the two tunes—“Cold Frosty Morning” and “Cold Frosty Evening”—together as a medley, a reminder of the twilight borderland between tradition and individual talent that the banjo inhabits.
Frosty Morning and Evening (gGBCD)
Frosty Morning and Evening (shorter version)
I learned this tune from Diane Jones, the subject of my article called "The Art of Listening" in the October 2003 issue of BNL. She listens to other banjo players, but generally does not take the tunes from what they do, preferring to listen to fiddlers she has known, like Melvin Wine and J. P. Fraley, and the field recordings of earlier fiddlers. Her version of "Yew Piney Mountain"—a particularly lovely modal tune—comes from a recording of Harvey Sampson. Although she claims her version is “very close” to the original, she admits that her rendering is “not exactly” like Sampson’s. “Yeah, this is me,” she explains, admitting the sounds have been internalized in the listening process. You can hear Diane's version of the tune on the Banjo Newsletter homepage or on her CD with the Reed Island Rounders called "Goin'Back." This is my version of the tune.
Yew Piney Mountain (gGBCD)
Yew Piney Mountain (shorter version)
I learned "Katie Morie" from Reed Martin when I took his class at the John C. Campbell Folk School. He, in turn, learned it from the storehouse of tunes that come to us from Doc Watson's family. It is a haunting mountain ballad in c-minor tuning. I couple it with the lovely John Playford dance tune, "Childgrove," which also sounds haunting in the c-minor tuning. The medley serves as a reminder, I think, of the strong connection between the music of ancient Britain and old Appalachia.
Childgrove-Katie Morie (gCGCD#)
Childgrove-Katie Morie (shorter version)
I wrote this tune while I was writing "The Bard's Banjo" which was one of my first articles for Banjo Newsletter. The name comes from a small town near Asheville.
Three Forks of Ivy (gCGCD)
Three Forks of Ivy (shorter version)