Are you a banjo picker who enjoys working through other musicians’ ideas, or perhaps a banjo student looking for new tunes to learn? Then here’s something you may appreciate.
Jim Pankey is the banjo player with Chattanooga’s Hamilton County Ramblers, and a past state banjo champion in both his native Georgia and his current home in Tennessee. He’s been teaching banjo both privately and at camps and workshops for many years, and is a former columnist for Banjo NewsLetter.
In recent years, Jim has been collecting his many tunes arrangements into downloadable PDF books, which he offers for sale through his website, Wild Jimbo’s Banjo Ranch. Several are available at very reasonable prices, including collections of tunes for bluegrass banjo, clawhammer banjo, and bluegrass guitar and mandolin.
The newest carries the plainly descriptive title, 32 Arrangements and Ideas for Bluegrass Banjo. It contains 31 tunes that should be familiar to any banjo lover, plus a section of licks and ideas in the melodic style.
Tunes shown include:
- Amazing Grace
- Antelopes a Prancin’
- Ballad of Jed Clampett
- Ballad of Jed Clampett with D-Tuners
- Banjo Signal
- Cluck Old Hen
- Cripple Creek
- Cumberland Gap
- East Bound and Down
- Farewell Blues
- Foggy Mountain Breakdown (YouTube Lesson)
- Foggy Mountain Breakdown
- Hee Haw Theme
- Home Sweet Home
- How Firm a Foundation (Hymnal Version)
- How Firm a Foundation (Bluegrass Version)
- I’ll Fly Away
- Jenkin’s Lament
- Jesse James
- Little Girl of Mine in Tennessee
- Lonesome Road Blues
- Melodic Licks and Ideas
- Moving
- Old Dangerfield
- Pickaway
- Reuben
- Sailor’s Hornpipe
- Sally Ann
- Salt Creek
- Santa Train
- Uncloudy Day
- Worried Man Blues
Jim’s web site also links to his collection of YouTube lessons and photos of his varied collection of banjos.
32 Arrangements and Ideas for Bluegrass Banjo can be downloaded for $8.99 from Jim’s Sellfy site.
