saturn Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 I've never done a Poll before, so i hope I did it right. It sounds like the Leadbelly is all major chords where Nirvana sounds like the 1 chord is minor Key wise, the minor chord makes more sense to me, especially since the bass walks down through a G, not G#. Edit: I guess I should post the links, huh? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ-Nox_uN9A&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blI2dXHyBj0&feature=related Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundergod Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 I'll probably get called names for this but this time (and just this time) I have to go with Nirvana's. Great poll BTW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShredAstaire Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 I'll probably get called names for this but this time (and just this time) I have to go with Nirvana's. I actually agree with you Thunder... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 If I could grade each version from 1 to 100..... Nervana would be a 55.....Ledbelly would get an 89. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 I've gotta go with Leadbelly. As far as I can tell he did the first recorded versions that got "out" very much, although it's a piece that one way or another dates back before 1900, apparently originally from Appalachia. Bill Monroe did a Bluegrass version that in ways is quite similar the the Leadbelly version I first heard. The Monroe version in ways would be my favorite, but I've done variations of the Leadbelly 12-string version off and on since the summer of '63. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturn Posted November 15, 2011 Author Share Posted November 15, 2011 I probably shouldn't have used the term "better", but maybe "which do you prefer"... And after listening a little closer, I think the Leadbelly walks down through a Major 3rd where the Nirvana walks through a Minor 3rd....that makes more sense either way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 One thing about the Leadbelly version that kinda hits me from my own childhood is that I read he wanted the 12-string because it was kinda like piano. In the early 50s I remember plenty of informal country musician get-togethers for a dance here and there. Without a PA, and usually without drums, it was heavy on the piano pounding out chords and providing the rhythm base for a pretty much all-instrumental thing with occasional and usually group vocals to add to "volume" just as baroque added and subtracted instruments for a lotta dynamics. Those 10-finger chords tended to be major even if you might have thought "minor" in a song. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon S. Posted November 16, 2011 Share Posted November 16, 2011 Great poll!! That's actually a hard one. Big fan of both.. I vote Nirvanabelly...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stein Posted November 16, 2011 Share Posted November 16, 2011 Good poll, makes a guy have to think. Generally, I like the way Ledbelly does it, and generally feel like that is how I like the song to be played. Also, not really a fan of Nirvana music-too dreary and depressing. But in this case, I gave the nod to Nirvana. For one, it was a GOOD performance. While I don't really like the key change, it DOES make it sound like a Nirvana tune. And the way they worked it and made it their own, it shows they really understand the tune, and the presentation they did really gets it across. Much better than Ledbelly does in this recording, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon S. Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 I saw Robert Plant and Allison Krauss sing it with Levon Helm at the Ryman a few years back. It was incredible!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krock Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 I went Nirvana. Ive never heard those songs before though, but gave both versions a listen to Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShredAstaire Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Also, not really a fan of Nirvana music-too dreary and depressing. Have you heard the lyrics to "Where did you sleep last night"? lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Have you heard the lyrics to "Where did you sleep last night"? lol HAHAHAHA.... I actually do Ledbelly's version...... "His head was found in a driving wheel, and his body ain't never been found" Not sure how many people even know what a "driving wheel" is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Rob... It had real meaning when I was a kid, to me and older folks, 'cuz I remember steam trains still running through town... The train songs, you'll notice, ain't bein' written 'cuz there just aren't any with the kind of panache they once had. Casey Jones, etc... FFV, all of 'em. I think we've lost the kind of legendary stuff, and not only trains, of John Henry and Pecos Bill and real life folks like Jones. The brakeman was in a seriously dangerous job, but how many know the courage it took? m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Rob... It had real meaning when I was a kid, to me and older folks, 'cuz I remember steam trains still running through town... The train songs, you'll notice, ain't bein' written 'cuz there just aren't any with the kind of panache they once had. Casey Jones, etc... FFV, all of 'em. I think we've lost the kind of legendary stuff, and not only trains, of John Henry and Pecos Bill and real life folks like Jones. The brakeman was in a seriously dangerous job, but how many know the courage it took? m Milo, you're right... a song about Cal Trans or BART just doens't have the same romance, (can't use "panache" twice in the same thread), as did the old steam trains of our youth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Rob... Yeah, I think the last modern sorta train song - although stuff has been written reflectively to the era of major passenger transport since - is the Kingston Trio's "Ballad of Charley." <grin> I dunno... perhaps it's 'cuz we were at the final edge of the mechanical era in which man hadda kinda fight machines to get them working... Here's a classic by Ramblin' Jack Elliot. I wonder how many under 50s can even imagine the type of train and tracks involved, let alone the bravery of train crews. Some of that still lives - a nephew is a conductor on a coal train - but it's awfully impersonal where once engineers were often public figures. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 HAHAHAHAHA.....poor old Charlie..... but even THAT song was written in the 1940's! (I always wondered why his wife didn't include the damn nickle in his sandwich? ... maybe she LIKED that he'd never return!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 Yeah... the policies had changed when I rode the MTA in the early '60s. Gotta see the Clancy Bros and Tommy Makem, HMS Pinafore.... free as I recall in the Boston Public Gardens... What an era... <sigh> Folk music almost everywhere around Harvard Square... you could still smoke in an Irish bar... m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfpup Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 While I like both versions, what I really like is the idea of the thing... reaching back into the past for an authentic gem and presenting it (honestly) to an audience that likely has not heard it. That's good stuff, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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