Rawhide - John Duffey version

I've been thinking about this tune for a while and worked out some of John Duffey's version from the Country Gentlemen's Smithsonian Folkways live CD "On the Road (And More)", which I recommend to all bluegrass fans.

I tabbed out his first break from that, and played it slowly - I'm doing it about 105 bpm here, Duffey plays it at about 165bpm. Monroe played this up to about 190bpm. Those speeds are the true technical challenge of this tune and I'll try to work up to them and post a fast version some day. Working on tunes like this really helps when you have to play breaks in fast banjo tunes like Shuckin the Corn.

Here's the tab.



And look, here's me playing it now at a reasonable speed with the Buncombe String Band (July 2010)

I Am A Pilgrim

I did this version of I Am A Pilgrim the other week on the Mandolin Cafe Song a Week group, and SteveJ from there was kind enough to tab out what I played over the first verse, so I thought I would post it here along with the tab. I also made a backing track mp3 you can download.