Seasons of the Ukulele

A weekly song challenge for ukulele players - all welcome. Find out more here

Season 717: Big River – A Johnny Cash Low G tribute

UkeCan1

potmo My wish list:

Wendy achieves a round-the-world by giving us a Johnny Cash song from the list of 193 available.

Didn't I already achieve a bingo? Doesn't that qualify as a round-the-world? Or does round-the-world require a separate song for each category?

PS, I like these new distinctions - they give the more prolific among us some new games to play, especially after the standard 24-hour twofer period expires.

DelGriff

potmo My wish list:

Delgriff delivers on his "Beat boxing" multi-track promise/ threat

Hahaha - for better or worse, here it is!

Thanks for hosting, David - I suspect, on the evidence so far, that you’re really enjoying your debut! :-)

In your introduction you suggested you might ruffle a few feathers. I must admit that your multitrack restrictions did initially ruffle a few of mine. And Johnny Cash wouldn’t be one of my favourite artists either. However… I did a bit of digging and was shocked to discover he had actually covered a song by one of my fave bands of all time, namely Depeche Mode. But I really wanted to set it to a rhythm track. Negotiations with our host resulted in a fair compromise - I would have to produce the drum sounds vocally - I’d have to try my hand (or rather my mouth) at a bit of beatboxing! Yikes!

Anyway, here is the result. And yes - all the drum/percussion sounds are produced vocally. And it can’t be that bad - my teenage daughter, who is always my fiercest critic, didn’t say she hated it when I played it to her earlier!!!😲

Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode cover (SOTU 717)

UkeCan1

Okay, okay … is this the first ever official Seasons round-the-world?

Clearly, Chili, my Mainland Chili Pepper Uke, needed to make her appearance, since the song compares flaming hot love to a pepper sprout.

"Jackson" by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash

Joko

Okay, this is the third time I've tried to write a description of this video - and each time - the forum ate my two-paragraph comment - grrr… also, it looks like the military government firewall has blocked flarum - I needed a VPN just to get in here.

So without further description - Big Bad Bill

UkeCan1

Gosh, it's awfully quiet here.

"River" by Bill Staines

YorkSteve

Thanks for hosting!

Here's a Johnny Cash song, very much borrowed from a Leadbelly one.

potmo

UkeCan1 OK, so once again, far be it for li'l own me to have any final say on these matters as a two month veteran in a world of ten year veterans, but maybe I can throw around extra clout for the last few hours of my reign as host. With that said, here is my personal interpretation of the terminology:

twofer – the song fits two consecutive season themes. Normally these only "count" on Sundays, but I extended the courtesy to making them for the whole week, selfishly thinking that this would afford me some time to actually learn a twofer song. I did suggest (I think) that we could have a term such as "threefer" or "fourfer ".

Double Dip – The song covers more than one of multiple options provided by the host. Example "Waist deep in the Big Muddy" by newcomer and sister @Xamar.
Triple Dip/ quadrulple dip/ bingo. Covers more than two topics in one song (or purists might insist that a bingo include all topics
Around the world – the seasonista has done a song on each topic. This need not be all done in one song.

So there you have it. Your Rio Grande song was possible a triple dip/ bingo since if we consider the Spanish translation, you covered the word meaning river, the word meaning big and a song about a river by name.

However, you only achieved the "round the world" award, following your adding Johnny Cash to this week's playlist. Just my take which shall remain law until Monday, Nov 17 at 10:00 am Hawaiian time.

CanadaJim

BIG JOHN - Jimmy Dean

This is not the Rebel Without a Cause, but the Jim Dean who used to flog sausages on TV.

There was some hesitancy, by radio stations back in the day, to broadcast this song, so Jimmy Dean recorded a radio-friendly version with the last line:
"At the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man."

UkeCan1

potmo So there you have it. Your Rio Grande song was possible a triple dip/ bingo since if we consider the Spanish translation, you covered the word meaning river, the word meaning big and a song about a river by name.

I thought "Old Cowhand" qualified as a bingo because Johnny Cash also covered it? If an around-the-world can be achieved by a single song, than any song that is a bingo would also be an ATW, no? Anyway, you know by now I am obsessive enough to bend to your will and bring you a second song that is more directly associated with Johnny Cash than that one, which is more incidental. All in good fun!

One more coming your way at midnight Hawaiian….

UkeCan1

Someone got swept away this afternoon. It wasn't me, honest!

River does seem like the obvious crossover for a twofer, but I went with Big.

"Big Trouble" by Trout Fishing in America

potmo

Well the volume has subsided but more great submissions. @UkeCan1 @delgriff and @joko, all faced their individual challenges head on and did stupendously. I got my requested Johnny Cash tune AND a tremendous teenage approved beatbox track to go with a great song. In spite of technical difficulties, Joko weathered the storm, played a new song and did a great job, complete with images and kazoo.
Steve gave us a beautiful rendition of a great Johnny Cash tune touching on his favorite "I am a criminal and now i am in jail" theme.
Last day! Will my dream of a brave, generous soul delivering with an eleventh hour rendition of "Big River" come to pass? Fifteen hours to go!

dr_mitch

Sorry for being quiet this week, but here's one for me (which also works as a twofer). It's Big River Blues from the Delmore brothers in 1933.

potmo

dr_mitch Glad you made an appearance! Better late than never. Nice double-dip twofer! I probably should have saved this comment for this board instead of youtube, but I guess I am OK with confusing the one person who sees my comment. You do seem to have a typo, unless bliues has some secret meaning I am unaware of…

OnlyUkeThatMatters

After reading potmo's original post, I typed "river song" into youtube search, listened to this beautiful Dennis Wilson song for the first time, grabbed my low G ukulele, and started learning.

Turned out that that the bass in Wilson's lovely tune peddles on Bb under a few of his melodies - just right for my little low G ukulele, actually low Ab with a capo on the first fret 😉

And nah, I didn't quite learn Wilson's little symphony, though I had a lot of fun trying…

potmo

Knoxville Girl.

One of my best friends, Chuck Mead, is an almost famous musician. He formed a band in the nineties called "BR549" after the phone number on hee-haw). They performed "old school" country i.e Hank Williams era. They liked to think of themselves as "Beatnik Hillbillies". They played a mix of classics and originals. Before signing a record contract, they played at a Western wear store in Nashville's lower Broadway for tips. They basically turned "lower broad" into a hopping place.
Their first albume went gold (probably platinum now), they got nominated for a Grammy, appeared on Letterman and Conan O brien…
Some time in the mid nineties, they had the honor of opening for Dylan for his US tour. I was being nomadic myself at the time, and got to catch several of these shows with awesome seats or back stage.

Chuck made me realize that country music was a lot more than what you might be led to believe listening to crappy country radio. This is one of the songs they covered.
Chuck is still a well known fixture in Nashville and has some notoriety among the Americana crowd. He is now the front man of his own band, "The Grassy Knoll Boys". Anyway, I Think a lot of you might really dig them if you haven't heard of them.

Oh and one of the songs they did was this traditional bluegrass tune.

MsBean

Thanks for hosting, David!

I picked an American tune this week. The arrangement is by Roger Ruthen, and you can find this and other linear uke tabs on his website,

https://pdfminstrel.wordpress.com/baritone-and-low-g-tabs/traditional/

https://pdfminstrel.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/bonaparte_crossing_the_rhine-.pdf

UkeCan1

Oopsie - I recorded this a couple hours ago as a twofer - then got swept away down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about all things Native American / American Indian … and now I'm a few minutes late for 717! (But I really did record it in plenty of time! 😥)

Thanks to my new YouTube fan Old Natty, who has no clue about the Seasons and yet has somehow been peppering me with excellent suggestions for songs that just happen to be great twofers! I'd never heard this one, or knew about its subject, an American Indian man who is featured prominently in the iconic photo of the flag raising on Iwo Jima.

"The Ballad of Ira Hayes" by Johnny Cash

In it, Ira gets swept away by war, racism, and multiple forms of liquid.

potmo

UkeCan1

26 MINUTES LATE !!!!!! HOW CAN I POSSIBLY FORGIVE SUCH A CRIME? OK you are on the playlist and I will consider the above all caps reprimand to be your punishment. Thank you for all 6 8 of your submissions! I enjoyed every one of them.

potmo

Thanks to one and all for making my first season hosting so much fun!

I will have a full season recap later.

I believe that every song is on the playlist with the exception of JOKOs first take of Sam Hall. Please let me know if you are not included on the list.
So I made a few requests which got mixed reviews. I'd love to hear any feedback positive or negative about what you thought of this season and what you did and didn't like about it.
For that matter I also very much like constructive feedback on my play too. I am not a big fan of the whole "safe space and no negativity" ethos extending to useful critiques.

I hope putting the playlist link in my signature made my tendency to blab a lot tolerable.

This Season's playlist (Eventually I will remove the playlist link from my sig so …)

UkeCan1

potmo Thank you for all 6 of your submissions! I enjoyed every one of them.

6?! I did 8. You missed "River" and "Big Trouble" (after "Jackson" - scroll up ^^^).

Thanks for a wonderful first hosting, David!

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