When Joy Kills Sorrow

Today I learned an old tune with a really cool name.  It might be one of the coolest names ever in my opinion.  It's so cool that it is the inspiration for the band Joy Kills Sorrow, which is a very good band.  Also, it's the name of one of Bela Fleck's recordings, and some people think he wrote the tune, but he just Bela Flecktified it beyond recognition as is his way.  I was just informed that Bela Fleck did in fact write this tune!  My bad!  Stupid internet, with all its internal dissonance.

Leather Britches

Old-time/Bluegrass!  Sometimes I wish I could put my life on hold for 6 months and just practice and learn Old-time tunes.  I love these styles of fiddling!  I've done Irish fiddling all my life so I play bluegrass fiddle with an Irish accent.  :)

Billy in the Lowground

Here's a reel that I've mostly only heard in bluegrass jam situations but there's a recording of Frankie Gavin playing it all Irish-like.  So here's that version.  I'm sure this American tune is derivative of a really old Scottish tune but I don't know the history.  I could make it up... after all, this is the internet!

Cherokee Shuffle

I'm on an American kick still with new tunes.  Today I learned a standard bluegrass jam tune.  It's on a list I have somewhere of the 50 Fiddle Tunes You Have To Know or something like that.  So voilà!

Big Sciota

So I was raised on Irish music.  Mostly.  Some Klezmer, maybe.  But mostly Irish and other Celtic traditions like Scottish and Cape Breton.  The only bluegrass I heard was the opening and closing seconds of 5-string banjo on NPR's Car Talk.  But living out West, when I told people I played fiddle, they automatically assumed "bluegrass," so I got requests all the time for bluegrass show-tunes.  "Oh, you play fiddle?  Can you play The Devil Went Down to Georgia/Orange Blossom Special/Cripple Creek/etc.?"  And I would say, "Uh sure..." And thusly I began faking bluegrass.