Seeger, Mike, and John Cohen, eds. 1964. The New Lost
City Ramblers Song Book. New York: Oak Books.
Here's a brief list of tunes in the NLCR songbook that
Garcia is known to have played. This does not include the Elizabeth Cotten tunes (I have considered them separately) and has not been carefully vetted, since pre-Dead is beyond my ken. Sharp-eyed readers may spot more.
I
Truly Understand
When
First To This Country
Red
Rocking Chair
Little
Maggie
Billy
Grimes, the Rover
Nine-
Pound Hammer
Walking
Boss
Hopalong
Peter
Man
of Constant Sorrow
Hot
Corn
Three
Men Went A-Hunting
I'll
Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms
Salty
Dog Blues
Shady
Grove
Crow
Black Chicken
Arkansas
Traveler
Ain't
No Bugs on Me
White
House Blues
Note
also:
Lady
of Carlisle
Hog-eye
Don't
Let Your Deal Go Down
I am not saying the NLCR
Song Book, records or combination of them was the only source that Garcia
would have encountered for lots of these songs – everybody knew and did a bunch
of these. In my rummaging around some, well, folkways, I have come across all
kinds of "floaters", fragments of idea, characters, narratives, or
scenes that appear and reappear throughout the folk tradition. But an awful lot
of Garcia et al.'s pre-Dead repertoire
is reflected in the NLCR Song Book, a
lot more than the Smith Anthology. Whether it was Hunter, Nelson, Leicester,
Pigpen, Garcia, any or all of them together, they were certainly drawing from
this source.
They'd continue to do so: David Grisman had a copy handy when he and Jerry were working up the material that would appear on Not For Kids Only (Acoustic Disc ACD 9, 1993): of the twelve songs on that release, one of the finest explicitly white roots engagements of Garcia's career, seven figure in the list above (see Smith 1994 for Grisman discussing this). But, really what we see here is the core of Garcia's acoustic repertoire, as played from folkie days before the Dead through Old And In The Way, Great American Music/String Band, Garcia-Kahn, Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band (JGAB), and Garcia-Grisman.
BTW, love these headings: Old Love Songs, Dance Tunes, Take Warning, News & Occupational Hazards, Lonesome Blues, Bible Tales, Wild Men & Murder, Songs, Whoop 'Em Up, Rave On, The Great Depression.
They'd continue to do so: David Grisman had a copy handy when he and Jerry were working up the material that would appear on Not For Kids Only (Acoustic Disc ACD 9, 1993): of the twelve songs on that release, one of the finest explicitly white roots engagements of Garcia's career, seven figure in the list above (see Smith 1994 for Grisman discussing this). But, really what we see here is the core of Garcia's acoustic repertoire, as played from folkie days before the Dead through Old And In The Way, Great American Music/String Band, Garcia-Kahn, Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band (JGAB), and Garcia-Grisman.
BTW, love these headings: Old Love Songs, Dance Tunes, Take Warning, News & Occupational Hazards, Lonesome Blues, Bible Tales, Wild Men & Murder, Songs, Whoop 'Em Up, Rave On, The Great Depression.
