Casey Henry

I know that Red shared the big news yesterday, but today I have pictures! Dalton was born August 31st at 7:41 p.m. and weighed in at 9 lbs 7 oz, 22 inches long.

The proud mama and grandparents with the new addition to the Henry family. Dalton is almost exactly 48 hours old in this shot.

And here Dalton gets his first view of banjo picks, courtesy of Ned Luberecki. He doesn't look that impressed...

Casey Henry

As I count the days past my due date (just two days overdue at this point…) I’m keeping busy doing the custom lessons that I warned people I may not have time to do if the baby arrived early or on time. Lucky for these people the baby seems like he’s pretty comfortable right where he is, so I might have time to get those last five songs on my list finished…

• Beautiful Star of Bethlehem (I) Watch clip. – This is one of my favorite bluegrass Christmas tunes and very possibly the first one of a second volume of Christmas custom lessons.
• Fox on The Run (I) Watch clip. – I’m pretty surprised it took so long for someone to ask me to do this popular song. In the lesson I give you what Bill Emerson played on the Country Gentlemen’s recoding of it.
• Glendale Train (Backup in D) (A) Watch clip. – People are always wanting more backup stuff. So here’s some backup in the key of D. It’s not easy, but if you’re ready for it, it’s really useful.
• Long Skinny Lanky Sarah Jane (I) Watch clip. – This is such a funny song that Ralph Stanley recorded. The break is very straightforward Stanley style.
• Lorena (A) Watch clip. – One of John Hartford’s signature songs. He didn’t write it, he just played it a lot. This is what he played on the “Gum Tree Canoe” album.
• Love is A Rose (I) Watch clip. – The second Linda Ronstadt song to be added to the list. There’s a banjo on her recording of it and this is what he plays.
• Mole in The Gound (I) Watch clip. – This is an old-time tune I was only passingly familiar with until Marty Bacon asked for this lesson. Played in drop-C tuning it has a nice drive to it.
• These Thousand Hills (I) Watch clip. – This is from a Christian band called Third Day. Goes quite well on the banjo, even though their recording is all electric guitars and drums and stuff.

All these can be ordered from my website. $30 each.

Casey Henry

Here is my periodic update of the new additions to the custom lessons list. These are the ones I’ve gotten done in the last two or three weeks. Some interesting songs here. “Gentle On My Mind” is a challenge because the melody mostly consists of only two notes. “Ring of Fire” is Earl’s break from when he recorded it not too many years back on that CD called “Earl Scruggs and Friends.” Billy Bob Thornton is singing lead on this cut. Not one of my favorite versions of the song, but Earl’s break is dead-on and it was fun for me to sit down and figure it out because I haven’t studied that much of his later period stuff. Very syncopated.

These lessons can be ordered from my website here.

The complete list of all the lessons available is here.

• Cherokee Shuffle (I) Watch clip.
• Gentle On My Mind (I) Watch clip.
• Lonesome Old Song (I) Watch clip.
• Polka On A Banjo (A) Watch clip.
• Ring of Fire (Earl’s arrangement) (I) Watch clip.
• Snowbird (I) Watch clip.
• Tennessee Waltz Backup (A) Watch clip.
• When My Mama Sang to Me (Murphy Henry original song.) (I) Watch clip.

Also, I added guitar practice tracks for the following tunes:

Dear Old Dixie
Wabash Cannonball in G
Redwing
Bells of St. Mary’s
Clinch Mountain Backstep in A

And if you don’t know what the deal is with these guitar tracks you can read about it here.

Casey Henry

At one of my baby showers the party activity was onesie decorating. I was extremely impressed by everyone’s artistic talent, which was much greater than my own! But a few weeks after the party I got a belated addition to this outstanding onesie collection from my friend and fellow banjo teacher Ned Luberecki. I had to declare it the most awesome onesie in the entire history of onesies. See the below and I think you’ll agree:

Ned Luberecki's "No-Tab" Onesie

In case you don’t recognize what’s in the middle of that Ghostbusters-like red circle (because I KNOW none of you have ever seen, much less USED it ), it is tablature (forward rolls…).

There were tons of other cute ones, but I’ll limit myself to posting the bluegrass-related ones. The runners-up in the awesome onesie contest were these:

Kelley Luberecki's Onesie

I told Kelley (the gracious party hostess) that she could produce these and sell them to numerous bluegrass parents/grandparents!

Connie Garrett's Onesie

Connie is the clawhammer player for our informal and sporadic jam group At Least We’re Hot. I was super impressed that the baby actually looks like a baby and you can totally tell he’s crawling on the banjo head!

I think this one came from the hands of Rebecca Frazier.

Rebecca (flatpicker extraordinaire) was super helpful to me in assembling my baby registry list. (Note the “H” on the peghead.)

This one is unsigned, but my guess is Missy Raines!

This one is also annonymous.

And last but certainly not least, this one is courtesy of Missy Daley.

Missy is married to Sim Daley, who makes mandolins, and she also threw in a little shout-out to Megan Lynch, whose FiddleStar logo you see there. Megan couldn’t make the shower because she was hosting a kids fiddle camp at her house.

I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll see more pictures of these outfits, occupied by a bouncing baby boy, at some point in the not-too-distant future, so stay tuned!

Casey Henry

It has been so long since I’ve posted a Custom Lesson update that I have a TON of new songs to add to the list. It’s much harder for me to find the time to record these lessons during the summer since I’m away from home so much, but I still think this is a pretty respectable list for two months of work. All of these can be ordered from my website.

• Ashes of Love (B) Watch clip.
• Banjo Road (I) Watch clip.
• Bear Creek Hop (B) Watch clip.
• Coal Tattoo (I) Watch clip.
• Come Unto Me (I)
• Come Unto Me (backup) (I)
• Emergency Pulloff (Ned Luberecki tune) (A) Watch clip.
• G-C-D Songs Backup (I)
• Going to Work in Tall Buildings (A) Watch clip.
• Gum Tree Canoe (I) Watch clip.
• Leather Britches (lead) (I) Watch clip.
• Leather Britches (backup) (I) Watch clip.
• Lonesome Banjo (from Merle Watson) (B) Watch clip.
• On Christmas Eve (A) Watch clip.
• Pullin’ Time (Steve Huber tune) (RA) Watch clip.
• Tom and Jerry (I) Watch clip.
• Under the Double Eagle (John Hickman’s version) (RA) Watch clip.

(The complete list can be seen here.)

Here’s a funny custom lesson story. The wife of one of my semi-regular students ordered him a couple of custom lessons for his birthday. One of these lessons was “Jerusalem Ridge,” which is a really hard, really long tune. I burned the lessons to a disc, sent them off and thought no more about it. A couple weeks later Clay emails me to say:

“You must have sent me an unedited version because about 2 minutes into the lesson you lost your place, muttered something evil sounding, and ….well, you should watch it for yourself!  I’m still laughing hysterically – even made Cindy come upstairs to see this.”

So I went back and watched the lesson and when I was playing the song through slowly I mess up and practically growl at the camera, then give myself a countdown and start over. Whoops! That certainly wasn’t supposed to end up in the final version!

I wrote Clay back and said “Oh My Gosh!! I can’t believe that I let that slip in there. And furthermore I can’t believe that the person I recorded it for didn’t tell me about that!! I’m just glad it wasn’t a long string of profanity, which I’m sure it would have been by the end of that particular very long lesson.”

I think over all the lessons I’ve recorded that’s the only outtake that has made it in by mistake…at least the only one that I know of at the moment! (I’ve edited it out now, so don’t be thinking you can order the lesson and see it!)

Casey Henry

Here’s a link to a post on the No Depression website about a project that both Murphy and I participated in. Previously we’ve posted the videos (here and here and here and here) that Dyann Arthur filmed of both of us, but this nice little article has an overview of the whole project as well as some of the clips of the other women that she recorded.

Dyann Arthur and the MusicBox Project’s Americana Women

Casey Henry

We’ve spent the last two days filming a new DVD, which you all are going to be pretty excited about, I think. It’s on banjo backup for fiddle tunes, that is, banjo/fiddle duet style. Think Earl Scruggs and Paul Warren. Funnily enough, this is not the first time we’ve taped this particular video. About eight years ago Murphy got together with the great Chattanooga fiddle player Fletcher Bright and recorded almost all of a project on banjo backup for fiddle tunes, but we never released it. When last year’s Fancy Banjo Backup DVD sold so well and got such good reactions I had a hankering to go back and revisit this project and see if we could resurrect it.

Red pulled the footage that they had taped way back when off of the VHS tape backup, which was apparently the only surviving copy. He burned me DVDs and I watched it through, taking copious notes. Since this was the backup copy (no telling what happened to the first camera tapes…), it had run continuously, so not only did it have all the playing and teaching, it also had Murphy and Fletcher sitting and watching the playback of what they had just played and commenting on how good they sounded! Totally cute.

Although the content of that footage was great, the quality wasn’t quite up to modern-day standards, especially since it was filmed onto VHS and now everything is digital. For that reason we decided to re-record it rather than editing the older tape.

We called in my great friend and most excellent fiddle player and teacher Megan Lynch, who kindly consented to drive up to Winchester from Nashville (ten hours) to film with us. In two days we got the whole project in the can, and for the most part filming went really smoothly. Before we even got started we had some banjo technical difficulties (I’ll leave those to Murphy to relate…) but once we got rolling (no pun intended there) the material went down really easily.

We teach backup for four songs: “Sally Goodwin,” “Turkey in the Straw,” “Old Joe Clark,” and “Leather Britches.” Then we demonstrate (NOT teach) a few more, just to give you a chance to hear some more free-form backup (not necessarily using just the licks that we teach): “Sugar in the Gourd,” “Grey Eagle,” “Cherokee Shuffle,” and “Paddy on the Turnpike.”

We’re looking at a fall release for this one, so it will be a little while before you can get your hands on it, but I think you’ll really, really like it when you do!

Casey Henry

So I’m here in Maryville, Tenn., for one more day. This morning we have all to ourselves because the campers are doing the band scramble. The previous years I’ve taught her at Kaufman Kamp I’ve been in charge of the Scramble, so had to get up extra early on this day. But I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying being able to get some work done in my room this a.m.

My concert spot was last night and I asked some absolutely wonderful people to accompany me: Jim Hurst on guitar, Andrew Collins on mandolin, Adam Masters on fiddle, and Kathy Chiavola singing harmony (she would have been playing guitar as well except that she broke her left hand and it’s in a cast!). Jim, Kathy, and I had a great little trio going and we gave the campers some plain-old traditional bluegrass which, as it turns out, is not heard much on the concerts here. Here was the set list:

Wandering Boy

Turkey in the Straw (banjo-fiddle duet)

Weary Heart You Stole Away

Dixie Breakdown

East Virginia Blues

The audience here is great and pretty much loves everything everybody does. It always makes you feel good! No doubt pictures and/or videos of the songs will pop up on the internet. I’ll post them when I find them.

Then a little later on in the night I played a banjo-fiddle tune medley with Stacy Phillips, who is teaching bluegrass fiddle this week. It was “Elzick’s Farewell,” “Farewell Trion,” and “Tennessee Waggoner.” (I’m not really sure about the spelling of any of those!) The first tune was in A minor, the second two in C. There was a funny little moment when I joined Stacy on stage. It was just the two of us, sitting kind of facing each other. As he was introducing me he said “I’d like to ask two people to accompany me on this next tune.” In my head I was thinking, “But we only practiced it with just fiddle and banjo…who else is going to play…and there are only two chairs…” and then Stacy continued: “One of them doesn’t do much, just gets carried around all day.” And then I got it! He was talking about my Little Boy bump and it was really funny!

But the whole point of this post was supposed to be to post the instructor photos from the week, which are below (click on pictures for larger versions):

That's me in the front row between Janet and Gary. Front Row Left to Right: Janet Davis, Casey Henry, Gary Davis, Barry Mitterhoff 2nd Row: Mike Kaufman, Mike Witcher 3rd Row: Conny Ottway, Keith Yoder, Stacy Phillips, Kathy Chiavola, Jeff Scroggins 4th Row: Joel Landsberg, Jens Kruger, 5th Row: Jim Hurst, Emory Lester, Adam Masters, Andrew Collins 6th Row: Steve Kaufman, David Harvey Back 2 Rows: Ivan Rosenberg, Don Stiernberg, Jeff Jenkins, Uwe Kruger, Mark Cosgrove, Dan Crary, Clint Mullican, Alan Bibey and Beppe Gambetta

And here we are being silly. It was a couple years ago that we started doing a silly instructor picture. Don't know whose idea that was...

Casey Henry

I come to you yet again from the campus of Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, where I’m teaching at Kaufman Kamp. It’s my eighth year here (I think…it’s a little hard to keep track…) and this year I got a promotion from banjo/mandolin/fiddle/guitar 101 instructor and slow jam leader to regular banjo instructor. For the first time this year I get to see all levels of banjo students and it is great!

Yesterday I saw the beginners and the advanced class. (I so want to call them the “advanceds.” I don’t think that’s really a word but it should be.) I taught the beginners the high break to “Boil Them Cabbage Down” and then we vamped to it. I taught the advanced class a slightly obscure Earl Scruggs tune called “Silver Eagle” (he recorded it with the Scruggs Revue) and we vamped to that, and then talked about some little backup licks they can throw into their vamping to spice it up a little. Unfortunately “Silver Eagle” is not on any of the Murphy Method DVDs, so no potential sales there, darn it, but they all seemed to like the tune.

Here's some impromptu bulletin board art that I noticed yesterday in my dorm while I was waiting for the elevator. I didn't make this thumbtack banjo, but I thought it was pretty cute!

Today I see two intermediate classes and, as usual, although I see them in a mere 75 minutes I have not yet decided what we’re going to do. I typically make that decision once I see who is in the class and what they already know. I have some possibilities in mind, though, that include a high break to “Blue Ridge Cabin Home”,  “Salty Dog,” maybe some simple backup licks. You’ll notice that all those choices ARE on the DVDs. I think people like to be able to take home with them the things that they’ve learned at camp. And I like them to buy DVDs, so that’s a win-win right there.

It was three years ago, from this very dorm building, that I wrote our very first blog posts. In the three years since we’ve written about everything from banjo lessons and jamming to gigs and touring to mandolin bridge making and flying airplanes. You’ll do doubt have noticed that we’ve lost a little steam in the last few months. We’ve gone from posting to every single day (how did we DO that??) to three days a week, to once a week if we’re lucky. One reason for this is that we’ve already written a LOT about the topics relevant to teaching and learning bluegrass by ear, so we don’t want to repeat ourselves. Another reason is that summertime is just SO busy it’s hard to make the time to sit down and write. And as I pointed out to one of our students, no one pays us to blog, so everything we do that someone is giving us money to do (like record lessons and send out orders and play gigs and write magazine columns) gets done before blogging. But we certainly have no plans to discontinue blogging, so we’ll keep on posting sporadically with news and tales from our playing and teaching experiences and we hope that you’ll keep on reading!

Casey Henry

I’m busy this morning updating the complete list of custom lessons that I have available with the ones that I’ve done in the last couple of weeks and I realized that I haven’t done a separate post announcing additions since March–and there have been a bunch of them. On the list now is my fiddle-backup lesson for “Sally Goodwin.” (That’s banjo backup to play behind fiddle tunes a la Earl Scruggs and Paul Warren.) Also Earl’s backup for the song “Blue Ridge Cabin Home.” There are three modern country songs now (“Without You” from Keith Urban, “If I Die Young” from The Band Perry, and “Landslide” from the Dixie Chicks). They’re not exactly my taste, but they sure are getting a lot of comments over on YouTube.

Completely new are some guitar rhythm tracks someone requested that I do. Info and ordering for those is over at my website.

As always, to order, just email me what you want. Or now you can order directly from my website.

So, here’s what’s new:

• Angeline The Baker (Sammy Shelor’s arrangement) (A) Watch clip.
• Blackbird (the Beatles song) (I) Watch clip.
• Blue Ridge Cabin Home (backup) (I) Watch clip.
• Dueling Banjos (movie soundtrack version) (I) Watch clip.
• I Saw The Light (high break) (I) Watch clip.
• If I Die Young (The Band Perry song) (I) Watch clip.
• I’ll Fly Away (high break) (A) Watch clip.
• Knee Deep In The Blues (I) Watch clip.
• Landslide (Dixie Chicks song) (I) Watch clip.
• Man In The Middle (Hot Rize version) (I) Watch clip.
• Me And Jesus (I) Watch clip.
• Prayer Bells of Heaven (I) Watch clip.
• Ready for The Times to Get Better (I) Watch clip.
• Sally Goodwin (banjo backup to play behind the fiddle) (I) Watch clip.
• Shuckin’ The Corn (High Break) (A) Watch clip.
• Without You (Keith Urban song) (I) Watch clip.