FLATPICKING COLLECTION,1998 ANNUAL EDITION. CD TABLATURE

FLATPICKING COLLECTION, 1998 ANNUAL EDITION. CD TABLATURE

Solos by Some of the world's greatest guitarists

Introduction

Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, in conjuction with Mel Bay Publications, is proud to bring you this sampler of flatpicking guitar music from twenty-two of the best bluegrass guitar players in the business. This CD project, the second in an annual series, originally grew out of requests we received from our readers regarding an audio reference for the material we present in the magazine. AlI of the tunes on this CD have been transcribed in both standard music notation and tablature within the pages of the second volume of the magazine (six issues).

After we produced the first flatpicking CD sampler in 1997, Bill Bay of Mel Bay Publications approached us about publishing a book that would include all of the transcriptions as well as some information about each of the artists on the CD. That book, published in 1998 by Mel Bay Publications, Flatpicking Collection: 1997 Annual Edition, contained all of the transcriptions as they appeared in our magazine during our first year of publication.

That first book and CD were so well received, we decided to make it an annual event. What you are holding in your hands is the second in this flatpicking series.

On the majority of the cuts on the CD the artists play more than one break to each song, however, in most cases you will only find one of those breaks transcribed here. For the most part, the biographical material presented in this book was extracted from more complete articles that were published about these artists in Flatpicking Guitar Magazine.

Please support the artists that appear on this sampler by purchasing the source CDs. If you have any trouble finding these CDs, give us a call and we will help. We owe a special thanks to all of the artists on this CD for their time, effort and talent; their record companies for allowing us to use this material; Mel Bay Publications for publishing the book, and Bill Wolf for mastering the CD.

I dedicate this book in memory of my friend, mentor, and teacher, Charles Sawtelle. After a five year struggle with leukemia, Charles passed away on March 20, 1999. He was an outstanding guitar player and an extraordinary human being.

Dan Miller Flatpicking Guitar Magazine

Book Contents:

20 Title - Artist

Lonesome Reuben - James Alan Shelton

The Girl ILeft Behind Me - Dan DeLancey

God Rest Ye Merrie, Gentleman / Joy to the World - Dan Crary

Roan Mountain Rag - Richard Bennett

Shady Grove - Charles Sawtelle (with Hot Rize)

Big Sciota - Russ Barenberg

Cross the Bridge - Sean Watkins (with Nickel Creek)

Danny Boy - Larry Sparks

Luke's Rainbow - Richard Starkey &: Mark Cosgrove

Shenandoah Valley Breakdown - Luke Bulla

I Don't Remember - Craig Vance (with The McKrells)

Whing-Ding - Adam Granger

Black Eyed Susie - Jimmy Haley

Saturday Night Ramble - Jeff Autry

Nashville Blues - Chris Jones

Take Me Back to Tulsa - Orrin Star

Sally Goodin - Jim Nunally & Dix Bruce

Belfast - John McGann

Santa Fe Railroad Line - Mike Maddux

Keep a Light on in the Window - Joe Carr &: Alan Munde

Dan DeLancey ..

The Girl ILeft Behind Me

Written by Dan Miller

Kansas City native Dan Delancey says that he likes to think of himself more as an "arranger" than a "hot lick" player. Listening to him play at the flatpicking guitar competition at Rocky Grass in 1997, it was certainly evident that arrangement is something he does very well. His arrangements were interesting, exciting, tasteful, and well performed. The fact that he did not win the contest that year was not of great concern to Dan (he did come back and win it in 1998). He likes the experience of the contest and he likes the interaction with the other pickers. A veteran of about fourteen Winfield competitions, he says, "I started going to contests because I didn't have anybody to compare my playing with at home. I would go to the contests just to see what the other guys were doing and where they were learning their stuff. I would pick up their licks and see what they thought of me. I just wanted to compare myself." He continues, "I don't believe that contests always judge a persons talent fairl. You win some and you lose some." With the release of his new CD Flatpick Guitar - A Few Favorites, Dan is ready to see what the rest of the flatpicking world thinks about his playing.

Dan says that he didn't have a "big" interest in the guitar until he was about fourteen years old and his parents bought him his first "good" guitar (a Yamaha FG-160). However, prior to that time he had bought a "cheap" guitar by himself, using money he earned mowing lawns, and had taught himself a few chords. Dan had been exposed to bluegrass music because his uncles, on his mother's side played bluegrass and his grandmother kept a stack of bluegrass records. He said he would spend six or seven hours everyday in the summer, during his junior high school years, playing rhythm to records at home. Dan says, "There was a great fiddle player in Kansas City named Lyman Enloe. He cut about three albums and I learned to play back-up to every tune on those albums. That really helped

my timing when I started flatpicking."

Dan's interest in flatpicking lead guitar breaks was sparked when, bored one summer day while sitting around the house, he was flipping through the radio dial and landed on a public radio station that played Doc Watson's "Black Mountain Rag" followed by Dan Crary playing "Huckleberry Hornpipe." Dan was hooked. He says, "When I heard that I knew that I wanted to play more than just chords on the guitar."

Dan says that back during the seventies there were not many books or tapes available for learning how to flatpick the guitar. He states, "I had a local guy show me how to flatpick one tune. Once I had that foundation, I went from there and figured out how to do it. I listened to Norman Blake, Doc Watson, Dan Crary and had all of the albums. Sometimes I would spend a whole year trying to learn a tune off of the record." Dan also says that he ordered one of Russ Barenberg's early Homespun lessons and learned some things from those tapes that also helped him.

From the time he was a teenager in the 1970s up until about five years ago, Dan says that everything he had learned on the guitar had been pretty much self-taught. It was at a workshop in Elkins, West Virginia, that he first met Steve Kaufman. Dan spent a week there and says "Steve took me under his wing and really payed a lot of attention to me that week. I came home with a good direction, a lot of good ideas, and a better guitar player." Since then, Dan has taken a number of private lessons with Steve and has attended the first two of Kaufman's flatpicking camps. In 1997 Dan placed second in the camp's first flatpicking guitar contest.

When asked about the most valuable lessons he learned from Kaufman, Dan replied, "The single thing he helped me with the most was arrangement. He taught me to first get the basic melody down and then work out variations that flow into each other. He taught me how to create passages and runs which connect variations together smoothly." Dan says that it might take him a full year to put three or four variations to a tune together.

After playing on the Yamaha guitar for a number of years, Dan saved his money and bought a new Martin D-18, after that he bought a 1979 Martin HD28, and then he played a Mossman guitar for a number of years. Last year he bought a 1957 Martin D-21 which was restored by Marty Lanham of the Nashville Guitar Company. When he bought the guitar, the entire top from the bridge forward (on both sides of the soundhole) was covered with an enormous pick guard. Dan has pictures of the guitar when he bought it and this pickguard would make Lester Flatt's and Larry Sparks' pickguards combined look tiny in comparison. Dan says, "Marty Lanham took the guitar apart, put it back together, and made it like new. He put it in good shape."

Dan says that over the years he has spent quite a bit of time working on his tone and technique. When asked to elaborate on his experiences he says, "I discovered early on that the way you hold the pick, the way the pick strikes the string, the way the pick rolls over the string, it all effects the tone of the guitar immensley. If you strike the string with the flat of the pick it is a crisper sound, I like the mellower sound, so I tilt the pick forward."

Another interesting discovery Dan made was that the use of jumbo frets on his guitar helped with his speed and economy of motion in his left hand. He says, "The large fret keeps the flesh on the end of your finger from touching the fingerboard. Your finger never touches the wood." By allowing the player to

Dan Crary ..

God Rest Ye Merrie, Gentleman / Joy To The World

Dan Crary is an imposing figure-both literally and figuratively. At over six feet tall, his eyes peering out behind tinted glasses, his thinned gray hair pulled back into a tight, small pony tail and his gray beard neatly trimmed, Crary speaks with a resonant baritone voice that commands attention. It's fitting then, that, until his retirement last year, Crary had spent much of his time teaching Communication Sciences at Cal State Fullerton.

As a guitarist, Crary, indeed casts a giant shadow. In 1970 Crary released the first bluegrass album built around the guitar aptly called Bluegrass Guitar. In the liner notes to the CD reissue of Bluegrass Guitar, Tony Rice states: " ...the idea of lead guitar standing alongside mandolin, banjo and fiddle is relatively new and Dan (Crary) along with Doc Watson, Clarence White, Norman Blake, Larry Sparks, and others, made it happen ...Crary's direct approach makes for a wonderful sound and fully developed aesthetic all it's own."

Crary's influence as a guitarist reverberates with any guitar tune picked at ajam session. As Rice so simply stated, Crary is among the founders of the form. Crary is one of the architects of flatpicking guitar. Listen to Bluegrass Guitar and one is struck with the selections-virtually all standards today. Many of them, "Gold Rush," for example, presented as guitar pieces for the first time.

One measure of Crary's influence might be the legion of fans he commands. In a recent concert, Pat Flynn, (formerly of the New Grass Revival and an award winning studio guitarist), dedicated a hot fiddle tune to Dan Crary and Doc Watson describing them as "two of the guys on the Mount Rushmore of bluegrass guitar." Steve Kaufman, himself an astounding guitarist who has also helped put the language of fiddle tunes in the hands of guitarists worldwide, credits Crary with "talent, genius and a genuinely kind soul" in his eloquent notes to the re-release of Crary's Lady's Fancy.

Talking to Crary, you get the feeling that his college lectures are as dynamic and fluid as his guitar playing. A passionate guitar advocate, Crary readily shares his opinions which are always carefully worded and constructed, and well thought out (much like his guitar playing). Crary has combined his academic background with his passion for guitar in his educational work, both at college and his workshops. He has contributed to various music publications and has researched the role of music as communication in society. He is fond to recall a Bill Monroe story about watching a circa '68 hippie and redneck jam on a fiddle tune. Good music bridges barriers. One hopes Crary will devote some time to a book, sharing his accumulated knowledge about the guitar and music in general. He has stories to tell.

In workshops-and as a Taylor endorsee, he's done many-Crary recounts his growing up in the musical void of Fifties era Kansas City. He animatedly covers the rise of the guitar, crediting Elvis Presley to the dominant position the instrument holds worldwide today.

Crary possesses a midwestern work ethic and the need for social responsibility. He will talk guitar with anybody and love it. Crary prefers not to teach a specific version of one of his solos. Instead, he tells students, with a nod to Segovia, that they are all self taught. He then goes on to cover ways we can better teach ourselves. His main refrain is how to best structure a practice.

With concepts and the emotional delivery of a sales training or motivational seminar, Crary advises to define attainable goals for each practice session and write them down. Then go ahead and tackle the challenge-it can be the rhythm, the way you finger a particular note- virtually any of the actions that create your music. Just running through repertoire does not constitute practicing Crary emphasizes.

Once you've reached a particular goal, Crary recommends you share your success with someone for positive reinforcement then define your next goal. He readily admits that this method was the way he finally over came some problems working out his famed version of "Lime Rock." The reasoning is simple, it's easier to conquer small hills than giant ones, and success feels good. Sounds trite, but it's true.

Dan Crary is a unique man, not just for his dual career path, but for the sheer power of his conviction and faith in the guitar and music and for the humility with which he views his role in the history of guitar, "That's for other's to decide," he says flatly.

This cut, "God Rest Ye Merrie, Gentleman/Joy To The World," is from Dan's Sugar Hill Release Holiday Guitar (SHCD-3871).

CD Contents

1. Lonesome Reuben - James Alan Shelton

Traditional

Source CD: Road To Coeburn· James Alan Shelton

1997. Copper Creek Records (CCCD-0154). P.O Box 3161, Roanoke, VA 24015

James Alan Shelton - guitar. Ralph Stanley II - rhythm guitar, John Rigsby - mandolin,

Ben Isaacs - bass. Steve Sparkman - banjo. James Price - fiddle

2. The Girl I Left Behind Me - Dan DeLancey

Traditional

Source CD: Flatpick Guitar: A Few Favorites· Dan Delancey

1997, OED 1097

Dan Delancey, 7911 Hunter, Raytown, MO 64138 (816) 356-1879

Dan Delancey - guitar, Scott TIchenor· mandolin, Ronnie Delancey - bass

3_ God Rest Ye Merrie, Gentleman/ Joy to the World - Dan Crary

English 18CITraditionai

Source CD: Holiday Guitar-Dan Crary

1997. Sugar Hill (SHCD-3871). Sugar Hill Records. P.O. Box 55300, Durham, NC 27717

Dan Crary. guita.r

4. Roan Mountain Rag - Richard Bennett

Richard E. Bennen, Indian Gap Music· BMI

Source CD: Walking Down The Line - Richard Bennett

1997, Rebel Records (REB-CD-1738) Rebel Records, P.O. Box 3057, Roanoke, VA 24015

Richard Bennett - guitar

5. Shady Grove - Hot Rize (Charles Sawtelle - guitar)

Traditional, arr. Wernick

Source CD: Hot Rize in Concert· Hot Rize

1984, Fiying Fish Records (FF 70107)

Flying Fish Records, 1301 W. Schubert, Chicago, Il 60614

Charles Sawtelle - guitar, TIm O'Brien - mandolin and vocal, Nick Forster - bass and vocal,

Pete Wernick - banjo

6. Big Sciota - Russ Barenberg

Traditional

Source CD: Skip, Hop, & Wobble· Douglas, Barenberg, & Meyer

1993. Sugar Hill (SHCD-3817), Sugar Hill Records, P.O. Box 55300. Durham, NC 27717

Russ Barenberg - gullar. Jerry Douglas - dobra, Sam Bush - mandolin,

Edgar Meyer- bass

7. Cross the Bridge - Nickel Creek

(Sean Watkins - guitar)

Traditional

Source CD: Here to There - Nickel Creek

1997, Nickel Creek, 1205 Doran Rd. Murray, KY 42071

Sean Watkins - guitar, Sara Watkins - fiddle, Chris Thile - mandolin, Scott Thile - bass

8. Danny Boy - Larry Sparks

Traditional - Arr. Larry Sparks

Source CD: Blue Mountain Memories - larry Sparks

1996, Rebel Records (REB-CD-1726) Rebel Records, P.O. Box 3057. Roanoke. VA 24015

larry Sparks - guitar, mandolin

9. Luke's Rainbow - Richard Starkey and Mark Cosgrove

Richard Starkey

Source CD: Richard Starkey and Mark Cosgrove

1998. Richard Starkey. 174 Newport Ave, Nazareth. PA 18064

RIchard Starkey - lead and rhythm guitar. Mark Cosgrove - lead and rhythm guitar

10. Shenandoah Valley Breakdown - The Bullas (Luke Bulla - guitar)

Bill Monroe/Champion Music, BMI

Source CD: Set Apart - The Bullas

1997, Dominion Records, PO Box 179. Northport, WA 99157

luke Bulla - guitar & fiddle. Brad Bulla - banjo. Jenny Anne Bulla - mandolin,

Carol Bulla - bass

11. I Don't Remember - The McKrells (Craig Vance - guitar)

Kevin McKrell, ASCAP

Source CD: Better Days - The McKrelis

1997. Woods End Music Group, Greenfield Center. NY 12833 (518) 584-4431

Craig Vance - guitar & vocai, Kevin McKrell - lead vocal & rhythm guitar, Rick Bedrosian -

bass, Chris Leske - banjo, mandolin, Joyce Anderson - fiddle & vocal

12. Whing-Ding - Adam Granger

Adam Granger (BMI)

Source CD: Of Mice and Men - Adam Granger

1998, Jeep Records (JEEP-T42), Box 26115, Shoreview, MN 55126 (800) 575-4402

Adam Granger - guitar

13. Black Eyed Susie - Baucom, Bibey, Graham & Haley (Jimmy Haley - guitar)

Source CD: Baucum, Bibey, Graham & Haley

1998. Rebel Records (REB-CD-1743) Rebel Records, P.O. Box 3057.

Roanoke, VA 24015 Jimmy Haley - guitar, Terry Baucom - banjo,

Alan Bibey - mandolin, Randy Graham - vocai & bass

14. Saturday Night Ramble - Jeff Autry - gutiar

Joe Maphis (Silver Hill MuSIC - BMI)

Source CD: Bluegrass '98

1998, Pinecastle Records (PRC 1079), PO Box 456, Orlando, Fl 32802

Jeff Autry - guitar, Scott Vestal - banjo, Aubrey Haynie - fiddle, Mark Schatz - bass

Wayne Benson - mandolin, Randy Kohrs - resophonic guitar

15. Nashville Blues - Chris Jones

Alton and Rabon Delmore (Unichappell MusicNidor Pub - BMI)

Source CD: Follow Your Heart· Chris Jones

1998, Rebel Records (REB-CD-1749) Roanoke, VA 24015

Chris Jones - guitar, Mike Compton - mandolin, Ron Block - banjo, Paul Brewster - tenor

vocals, Ron Stewart - fiddle, Darrin Vincent - bass

16. Take Me Back To Tulsa - Orrin Star & the Sultans of String

Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan - Anne-Rachel Music, BMI

Source CD: Sultans Live! - Orrins Star & the Sultans of String

1998, Good Ear Music, (800)

Orrin Star - guitar and lead vocal, Bob Green - fiddle and harmony vocals,

Greg Vongas - bass and harmony vocals

17. Sally Goodin - Jim Nunally & Dix Bruce

Traditional

Source CD: Untitled 2nd CD from Dix Bruce & Jim Nunally

1998, Musix, PO Box 231005, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523

Jim Nunally - lead guitar, Dix Bruce - rhythm guitar

18. Belfast - John McGann

John McGann and Chris Moore, luminous Bloom Music, ASCAP

Source CD: Rust Farm

1998, Daring Records (CD 3032), PO Box 793. Marblehead. MA 01945

John McGann - guitar, Chris Moore - mandolin, Jim Whitney' bass

19. Santa Fe Railroad Line - Mike & Bertye Maddux

B. MadduxlLittie Birdie Music, BMI

Source CD:  Banjo - Mike & Bertye Maddux

1997, T-GAP Records, PO Box 3097, Colorado Springs. CO 80934

Mike Maddux - guitar and vocal, Bertye Maddux - mandolin and vocal

Phile Easterbrook - banjo, Rick Desko - bass

20. Keep a Light on in the Window - Joe Carr & Alan Munde

Ed Marsh/Mountainside Music, Inc . 8MI

Source CD: Welcome To West Texas - Alan Munde & Joe Carr

1998, Rounder Records (CD FF 669), One Camp St. Cambridge, MA 02140

Joe Carr - guitar. mandolin, lead vocal, Alan Munde - banjo, Ed Marsh - bass and fiddle