One Man Band

My playing's Kenny Baker-based,
although I lack his tone and taste

So maybe more like Bobby Hicks
Except I don't know any licks

I pick guitar like Tony Rice
But I can't do it half as nice

I sing a bit like Bill Monroe
but Bill sang high, and I sing low.

Truly Sick Fiddling

As best I can tell, the guy on the left who dances is Monte Gaylord, and on the right is Dale Morris. This is an excellent demonstration of the power of dancing. Enjoy.

A Paragus

We saw a sign in front of us
It advertised "a paragus"

I gaped, and said aloud "Good Lord,"
"I'm glad that's all they could afford"

For if they had two paragii
The two might mate and multiply.

Guitar Pickin'

My main man, Tyler Grant, shows you how it's done:

Peepers

As we turned off the blacktop at 3am coming home from California, I opened the window to get some air and heard the first peepers of the year (for me anyhow.)

It's a sound that's so ubiquitous in rural WbgVa (West by god Virginia) during the spring and early summer that I don't think I had ever consciously noticed it until Emily asked me what it was one time.

To really appreciate it fully you should drive around some back roads at 35mph with all the windows down. The Doppler effect of the moving car gives the pitches extra variety and you get that special "the martians are landing" sound.

Here's a video of one of the little buggers:

Bluegrass Champs

Scotty Stoneman is one of my all-time fiddling heroes. The recording of him playing Live in L.A. with the Kentucky Colonels might be my favorite CD ever. Nine out of ten fiddle albums is basically boring, but I don't think Scotty ever played a boring note in his life. I read Ivan Tribe's biography of the Stoneman Family a few years ago, and learned that one of the reasons why they played as if their lives depended on it was because at times it basically did.
Anyway, here he is with the Bluegrass Champs, including his sister Donna, who steals the show, on mandolin and tenor vocals.

Jerry Reed

If you draw a straight line from Roger Miller to the Nappy Roots, and another one from Ray Charles to Brad Paisley, where those lines cross you will find Jerry Reed. Devilishly handsome, freakishly talented and all too quickly forgotten. Until recently I (like most people) mainly remembered Jerry Reed for "East Bound and Down" and his role in "Smokey and the Bandit." I also knew that he was a great and idiosyncratic guitar player, a fingerpicker in the self-taught tradition of Chet Atkins.

I didn't know he wrote this little ear worm which has been rattling around my head basically since birth.


I didn't know he played lead guitar on Elvis records, or that he acted in "the Waterboy."

Here he is playing and singing the hell out of an old standard.


And here's another classic, performed in the 1970s, when less was less, and more was most definitely more.

Dolly Parton II

Dolly Parton can kill with a look.
With a chop, or a stab, with an axe or a hook.

Dolly Parton can penetrate steel,
with a laser she keeps in her four-inch-high heels.

Porter Wagoner once made her mad
the worst idea that he'd ever had.

She boxed on his ears til she made his face skinny,
Then stretched out his arms while he bawled and he whinnied

She stepped on his toes and she kicked at his crotch,
and she ratcheted up his whole stature a notch.

Then she stood with her foot on the small of his back
and said "tell me some more of those cold hard facts."

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton appeared in my dream
this wasn't nearly as nice as it seems
the one thing I clearly remember she said
was "Boy, I am going to cut off your head."

I know that she's small, and I wouldn't be scared
but god only knows what she keeps in her hair
it could be a knife, it could be a sword
one blow, she could send me to meet with the lord

Dolly is small, but she's hardly a trifle,
you bet on your life she can handle a rifle
when Dolly appears to deliver a threat
you should square your affairs, you should settle your debt.

the Red Hot Poker Dots

These guys rocked my world last summer at the Albino Skunk Bluegrass Festival. I think they ruffled a few feathers with some of their song lyrics though.
Here they are in their native Australia performing Australian Horseback Bass Yodeling. Apparently it's an important part of their traditional mating ritual.

Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon gets nervous. I know the feeling.

New Year

Good Morning, good cheer, and a happy New Year,
I hope you had fun, and you drank too much beer.

I hope you composed a good new resolution,
And fired some crackers or guns... noise pollution.

Now go eat whatever you eat for good luck,
to ensure that the rest of the year doesn't suck.

Found Poem

FOR SALE: BUTANE LIGHTER Monogrammed "Marion". 269-xxxx

The Prospector, Buckhannon, WVa dec. 23, 2010

---
Yes, it's a ready made country song,
and yes, I already wrote it.

-Jesse

Game Plan

Fix me up a double shot
Two barrels of espresso, hot
Pour it down my throat at dawn
And drag my ass out on the lawn
Stick a shovel in my hand
I swear I'll till up half the land

Mack the Nerd

Mack the Nerd was a man of few words,
his wife was a woman of plenty.
Wherever they went he would nod his assent,
and speak two or three words to her twenty.

-Jesse