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Granny Went To Meeting With Her Old Shoes On
Traditional Old-Time breakdown- USA, Ky.
ARTIST: Learned by Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Judd ("prosperous Kentucky farmers") around 1900.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: Early 1900’s
RECORDING INFO: Recorded Anthology of American Music, 1978 - "Traditional Southern Instrumental Styles." Rounder SS-0145, Mr. & Mrs. Vernon Judd - "Traditional Music on Rounder: A Sampler" (1981).
OTHER NAMES:???
SOURCES: Liner notes from: That’s My Rabbit, My Dog Caught It:
Traditional Southern Instrumental Styles; New World NW 226
NOTES: Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Judd, banjos; Mrs. Judd, vocal. Recorded March, 1973, in Irvine, Kentucky, by Mark Wilson. The first minstrel banjoists, and presumably their black predecessors, played the banjo in what they called "stroke" or "thimble" style (a thimblelike pick was worn on the playing finger for volume). This style is heard here in a recording made nearly one hundred forty years after the first printed reference to stroke playing. Mountain performers generally call the style "clawhammer," "frailing," or "rapping." Using a clenched hand, the performer strikes two successive notes with the nail of his index or middle finger and rings the drone fifth string with his thumb, in a rhythm q q_q. The pattern is executed quite rapidly, resulting in a characteristic "galloping" effect. A skilled performer will vary the basic rhythm by striking secondary notes with the thumb on the inner strings ("drop thumbing"), striking full chords ad libitum, picking melody notes upward on the first strings, and by many other devices. An excellent introduction to these techniques can be found in Old- Time Mountain Banjo (see Bibliography). Over the years each region of the South has developed quite different approaches to this fundamental style. In Virginia and North Carolina, players aim for a smooth and melodic flow of notes. (A stunning example of such a musician is Wade Ward of Galax; see Discography.)
In eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, the style is often wilder and more rhythmically punctuated. The present selection, from the bluegrass region of Kentucky, is more relaxed in tempo and represents a typical "banjo tune," a simply developed melody with nonsensical words. Mr. and Mrs. Judd are conservative farmers of the old school—they still cook by a wood stove and plow with a team of mules. In spite of this they are quite prosperous, and when Mr. Judd decided he wanted to take up the banjo again after many years of hard farming, he was able to purchase the flashiest, most expensive bluegrass banjo on the market. Nevertheless, he still plays only the tunes he learned as a young boy just after the turn of the century.
LYRICS:
Granny went to meeting with her old shoes on,
She came back with a new pair on.
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