Tim Eriksen: Wayfaring Stranger

http://timeriksenmusic.com/

By request, from a midnight concert in the church on the square in Namest nad Oslavou, Czech Republic, July 24-25, 2009. There's an exterior shot of the church and square at the end of the video.

This is one of those songs that's been done to death, but it's still pretty great. I sing it most often out of the Sacred Harp, but I performed it with Dirk Powell and Riley Baugus as part of our set on the Great High Mountain Tour a couple years back. Jack White joined us when we played the Fox Theater in Detroit, which was fun.

In pop music circles, wobbly singing is understood to signify honesty, authenticity and a connection to "everyman," a term T Bone Burnett used in describing Jack's voice when we were working on the film Cold Mountain. I don't mean to dis either of them- they're both perfectly suited to their own areas of work, much of which I think is really excellent. But when it comes to folk/traditional/Americana/roots or whatever I'm looking forward to a time when it's no longer generally assumed that in the old days the regular people, whoever they were, must have sung in a kind of wobbly monotone, perhaps as a result of a rocking chair injury or all the grainy black and white barn photographs to which they had been exposed.

The image at the beginning of the video is a stand of beeches in the White Carpathians near Veseli nad Moravou.

The banjo is an extremely ornate and well made open back by the Czech maker Jarda Prucha. http://www.pruchabanjos.cz/

Thanks to Dusan Sviba for getting hold of it and to Vlada Ptacek and Eliska for bringing it to the festival and letting me play it all week!
http://www.ptacekbanjo.com/index_eng....

I think the Czechs have as much a claim to bluegrass as we do by now. It's played such an important role in their recent cultural history...

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[Jodiro2000]

Thank you for introducing me to such fine music!

[batfancy]

you're welcome!

[Luca Andermatt]

Is that a normal 5 string bluegrass banjo?

[batfancy]

It's a 5 string open back banjo made in the Czech Republic. A really nice instrument.

[Scottie H]

Tim, your music fills my soul - many many thanks, brother!

[Gabe Lanciano]

The preservation of art is paramount to the study of history. What you can learn in books about great battles and kings is only one perspective of the highest cultural stratum. Through Art and Music we can plunge through time and connect to those who did not have privilege and titles. Their struggles are our struggles and their loves are parallel to ours. Too often Historians look at the past ages with dispassionate eyes and forget that it was our forebears playing out their own heart.

[Lynn Nickerson]

Love it!!!



[BoyFromTheOtherSide]

It's times like these I wish I could claw-hammer that well...!!

[ebb1501]

Wow, this is so fascinating! How well did the Czechs like the music that you played?

[Krysta Hoselton]

the High Lonesome sound? check out Roscoe Holcomb here on you tube if you appreciate this music.

[elzicsfarewell]

Whoops, meant f C F Bb C

[elzicsfarewell]

I know this is a very late reply, but it sounds like sawmill taken down a step, f C F Bb F

[WoodsLesnik]

You should play in Polan