The Becky Buller album is a good one, "The Barber's Fiddle" melody is amazingly similar to the Bragg tune of our discussion. Here is Mary Bentley giving "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key" the full bluegrass treatment:I love that song, and know it well!The first is "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key" by Billy Bragg (backing band is Wilco, with Natalie Merchant on harmony). This song has an interesting history as the lyrics were from none other than Woody Guthrie with Billy Bragg and Wilco providing music for the album "Mermaid Avenue":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHVo-UKogBsA long-time host for the Wednesday morning rush hour program on a local college radio station played whole sets of Billy Bragg pretty regularly for years and years. This was always my favorite BB tune. Natalie Merchant's harmonizing is really nice. It's hard for me to believe, but I actually never realized the backing band was Wilco.
After 20 minutes of BB tunes, I could find the thick accent a little tiresome, but I think the accent adds a lot to that particular song.
Hope you don't mind a random comparison, and you might not be into bluegrass, but Becky Buller wrote a great song with a very similar melody. They're completely different tunes in tempo, mood and subject matter, but the primary melody is similar enough that whenever I hear either one of these two songs now, I think of the other.
The Barber's Fiddle · Becky Bullerhttps://darkshadowrecording.com/track/2 ... r-s-fiddle"The Barber's Fiddle" is a song that tells a story of bluegrass music being passed on throughout generations. Becky says that this single is rooted in the tradition of fiddle playing in barbershops and based on the true story of a young man picking up a fiddle for the first time, discovering the magic of bluegrass music for himself. Becky wrote the song with Lynda Dawson, and there are 18 award-winning fiddlers featured on this track, including Shawn Camp, Jason Carter, Laurie Lewis, Kati Penn, and Sam Bush on vocals and fiddles, Michael Cleveland, Johnny Warren, Stuart Duncan, Deanie Richardson, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Jason Barie, Fred Carpenter, Tyler Andal, Nate Lee, Dan Boner, Brian Christianson, Laura Orshaw and, of course, Becky.
That whole album is really great. Beautiful songs, singing and playing. Mix of traditional bluegrass and contemporary compositions, with a (nice) country tinge. I'm very impressed with Becky Buller. (Another "BB.")
Sorry for the digression...
A long-time host for the Wednesday morning rush hour program on a local college radio station played whole sets of Billy Bragg pretty regularly for years and years. This was always my favorite BB tune. Natalie Merchant's harmonizing is really nice. It's hard for me to believe, but I actually never realized the backing band was Wilco. 
After 20 minutes of BB tunes, I could find the thick accent a little tiresome, but I think the accent adds a lot to that particular song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn0KwlzMM_Y
As an aside Wilco has one of the 2 best songs on the album "Mermaid Avenue" ( the other being "Way Over Yonder...). Music written(I think) by the band, with lyrics from Woody Guthrie, "California Stars":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWQ4IPPXz2k
Statistics: Posted by novicemoney — Tue Oct 22, 2024 1:00 am — Replies 7081 — Views 809896