Sugar Baby (old-time three-finger picking demonstration)

Someone asked for some tips on playing this, so I made a short video to demonstrate. I got it from Dock Boggs and although I aim to have it sound close to his, I didn't try to replicate it exactly. I play it through a few times slowly and then up to speed. Banjo's tuned gDGCD. There's a link to a rough tab of it here (scroll down, under the 'Sugar Baby' video there): http://hunterrobertson.com/banjoframe.html

Keep an eye peeled for a recording of this with fiddler Casey Joe Abair on our new album coming end July '09 "If You Want to Go to Sleep, Go to Bed" (Yodel-Ay-Hee 074).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• dock
• boggs
• sugar
• baby
• old-time
• banjo
• three-finger
• picking

[DottyWang]

A very good teaching video, especially if copied and slowed down. I think some called this tuning "mountain minor" - I watch fascinated as my niece Dulcie - the only Chinese singer of old-time Appalachian songs I know - learns this down-picking, but doesn't yet move her thumb off the drone string.

[HunterRobertson]

Thanks. In the new lessons I'm working on we've added a section that's slowed to 50%, makes a big difference.

I think Pete Seeger called it mountain minor, sawmill's another common name.

That's cool about your niece!

[deadstrings01]

Tuning?

[HunterRobertson]

gDGCD

[homipieceofCP]

could you possibly send me tabs?

[HunterRobertson]

There's a link to a rough tab of it on the "Banjo Tips" page on my website (hunterrobertson-dot-com), under the Sugar Baby video there.

[Darin847]

Anyone know "Railroad Tramp" banjo tabs by dock boggs?

[Pfranklin28]

Love these songs played slowly , they seem much more somber. The Civil War always comes to mind. Sweet ,but Sorrowful. Thanks. P.S. That Banjo sounds Great.

[writerrad]

The late Stu Jamison, banjoist, scientist, grew up in China. his father and grandfather were missionaries in Western China. His grandfather set Chinese words to shape note hymns he had learned in North Carolina in the 19th century. 1990s. These hymns continued in the underground churches. A scholar who heard recordings Stu made in the 1990s said these people are singing tunes no one living in the united states has heard

[homipieceofCP]

alright thanks