I never in my life wanted to play a song just like someone else. I just play what I feel and hear. I guess I should change the title to just wildwood flower not in may bell style in my style. Just one of the first songs I learned and I never wanted nor will never want to be exactly like another player. Steal licks though from all and make them yours we all do that! Jam on my guitar friends!!
Me and you bro I play my own stuff so if someone says awesome after 1 of my tunes I feel 10 ft tall until I think about all the stuff I swiped from others
Very nice, young man! Just a couple of minor observations: 1. You are flat picking the entire piece without a BASS line. Check out Mother Maybelle close (video on Johnny Cash show is best) and you will see she is using her famous variation of the Piedmont style (w/ thumb) to play the bass line as well. The bass line is a simple two note line mostly on the low E & A strings. Also, the F portion of the melody may be slid up 3 frets with two of your smaller fingers to good advantage. Mother Maybelle only sounds easy. She was a complete and extraordinary musician. 2. Mother Maybelle surely capo'd up many frets and this would be altered to suit her voice at the particular time. However, Maybelle never capo'd up quite as high as you are doing and this lends a markedly different timbre to the sound. Since you are obviously playing this with traditional voicing (good for you!), I humbly recommend that you capo no higher than F natural -this is the highest key she was known to pick The Wildwood Flower. We are both MEN, hence it is a frustrating shame that we can NOT sing this song properly. -Have a look at the beautiful, poetic and erudite lyric. It is strictly for a woman's voice, I am afraid. Anyway, if you are able to render a faithful vocal to the lyric, I suspect that you will need to bring the key down quite a bit. Of course, to capo up high makes it easier to play, but it usually sounds better down a tad lower. I have played this song in other voicings (i.e., other than C voicing), however, it looses much of it's charm and timbre if it is played any other voicing than Mother Maybelle's. I am gratified that you are carrying on The Tradition and playing with the proper voicing. Good for you! It is nice to see a young person play this piece. I am an old player; -Jazz and blues, studio, but I grew up in the country playing Carter Family music,.bluegrass, blues, -even commercial country (also "crucial country" as Pete Rowan called it). I once joined a traditional "folk" club in New Jersey. Upon preparing to attend the first hootenanny (playing circle), I was intimidated. I assumed that these people would know all the classic folk music of America, therefore, I made sure to bone-up on folk music and picking styles. I even restrung my little 12 fret single ought model 28 (1928). I surely did not want to offend these folk aficionados (as I thought they were). I took great care to bush up on my classic folk music lexicon. As the circle started, almost immediately, it was my turn to select and play a song. I desired to choose a song that everyone knew and with which, could join along. Also, there were many ladies in the club and I requested them to help me by rendering a vocal for the music. I assumed that they would surely all KNOW the song as it is perhaps THE most famous American country-folk piece ever written. Alas, this was NOT the case. I found the situation terribly embarrassing! Not one a single one of the 25 or 30 people in this song circle had ever even HEARD of The Carter Family, much less of Mother Maybelle or The Wildwood Flower! As the evening groan'd on, all these people seem to want to play were pop songs, such as Paul Simon and even The Carpenters! I had no problem falling in with the playing as it was simple yet rhythmically impaired.(They seemed to have ignored rhythm in their training). In short, I sadly learned that our beloved folk traditions of the Carter Family, The Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe, Doc & his family, Merle Travis, Jerry Reed, Chester B., Jimmie Rodgers, Flatt and Scruggs, the White Brothers, The Delmore Brothers, Haywire Mac, Grandpa Jones, Sam & Kirk McGee, Little Jimmy Dickens, Woody Guthrie, Blind Blake, Big Bill, Sonny Terry, etc., etc, -these were all UNKNOWN to these "Folk" aficionados!. In fact, I wondered what folk music they DID know! Other than a single Dylan song and a Grateful Dead song, I could not figure out if they knew how to play anything but play modern pop with three chords that were never quite right. Worse, most of these people were not youngsters! I left shaking my head and I am still wondering. MY chief concern, however, is that THE American folk and country music traditions are NOT lost. This is an uphill battle. MOST people know only the music that they learned before they were 18. -Sad but true. But, your performance, gives me some Faith that maybe there are young people out there who are interested in their musical heritage. Keep up the good work!
Yeah about you're second point, there is a clip of her playing the song on The Flatt and Scruggs Martha White TV show, and she capoed it to the sixth fret
Yes. And this is like Guthrie. It's lovely and all. But every carter style branded guitar tune on you tube is flat picked and maybelle didn't do it that way.
Nice! Clean and pretty -- but didn't Mother Maybelle finger pick it? At least I know she wore a thumb pick. Your version is flat picking right? Still nice work!
