Trippin...in more ways than one-

Saturday night here is a fun time we always tune in PBS and the Songs of the Mountain followed by Woodsong Old Time Radio Hour, then Lyrics n Legends...since our roots are from East Tennessee and the Appalachia region we love the blue grass and the great talent of the people of the region.  (although modern country music is not my cup of tea I love the OLD STUFF) Each Saturday night we settle down to be entertained by the great harmonies and the sounds of mountains...

  If you're not into old style ballads, folk, and unplugged music you may not enjoy it..But the simplicity of it is what really draws my interest. No fancy tricks-just play by ear muscians.

Did you ever watch a banjo player?  They can be so stoic and it seems they move only their fingers holding it out in almost "claw" fashion and fingers pickin' a mile a minute--I like that.  The fiddle is not one of my favorite instruments, but some of the fiddlers are awesome.  Diana had an awesome fiddler in her blog playing the Orange Blossom Special, he was really good at it too!  I play the guitar, but for the past 5 yrs its been very sporadic--I would love to get a brand new cut away slim sided Martin- this (photo) is my old guitar Ive had it since--*yikes* 1979? (wow) Its still a good guitar, its a Goya apart of C F Martin is what is says on the label but I researched it and the Goya originated in Sweden in the 1950's then made its way to NY.  The company was called Levin at that time, but after an American market was found the name was changed to Goya...Then I also found out Goya was outsourced by Martin and was part of their line up in the 60/70's & 80's so I assume they bought out the Levins.

  I did not pay a lot for this old guitar..But it sure brought me many hours of enjoyment as I struggled to learn how to pick the Wildwood Flower and other favorites of mine.  I wrote a few songs of my own and enjoyed singing to myself when I felt I needed to be alone...I just pulled out the old guitar and soon everyone would leave the room...HA-Ha

One of my very favorite tunes to play at holiday time was Christmas For Cowboys which I heard performed by my very old favorite John Denver. (gone but not forgotten) My sister wanted to learn to play and she got a guitar and we played this one together she played the rhythm and I played the lead, and we harmonized quite well That was one of my fondest holiday memories...

Another favorite of mine from JD is Darcy Farrow which is a very old ballad--John recorded it and I enjoyed that so much.  I even learned how to play Rocky Mt High...which was not an easy one to learn..Somewhere along moving Ive misplaced my John Denver Songbook...grrrr I guess I should check out Amazon..
So I brought this up today cause I pulled the old guitar out of the closet and hope to brush up on my "riffs" and harden up those callouses again.  At one time I could play the guitar part of Dueling Banjos...that was hard to do..but a wonderful challenge.
Tomorrow we head upstate to the foothills of SC to dog sit for my sister and her husband.  Old time songs have origins in small mountain towns such as some of the ones in the wild n wholly parts of northern SC.  So the fam is going out of town for business for 9 days and we are headed up a day early to beat the SNOW they say is coming this way--Should be an interesting week!