3 years ago

banjo bluegrass country music folk blues appalachia southern americana roots traditional trad acoustic clifton hicks

Banjo Heritage 👉 https://Patreon.com/CliftonHicks
The subject matter of this early banjo song involves repeated trips to "the whipping post," something we today rightly associate with the African American experience in this country. I think it's equally important to remember that working-class whites in the Antebellum South were also brutally oppressed, whipped, and even lynched by the slaveholding class.

I learned this piece from George Gibson as "Trouble On My Mind." Rufus Crisp also recorded it on a track titled "Story of Banjo Contest." See Doc Watson's "I'm Troubled" and Blue Sky Boys' "I'm Troubled, I'm Troubled" for variants. gDGBD relative (~fCFAC actual).

Once I had an old banjo
Head was strung with twine,
Only song that it could pick
Was Trouble On My Mind!

CHORUS
Trouble on my mind, boys
Trouble on my mind,
If trouble don't kill me
I'll live a long time!

I went down to Lynchburg
To get a jug of wine,
They hitched me to the whipping post
Gave me ninety-nine...

I went back to Lynchburg
To get a pint of gin.
They hitched me to the whipping post
Gave me Hell again...

I went back to Lynchburg
I didn't go to stay,
But I fell in love with a woman
And I couldn't get away...

Patreon
https://patreon.com/cliftonhicks

SubscribeStar
https://www.subscribestar.com/cliftonhicks

T-shirts
https://cliftonhicks.myteespring.co/

PayPal
https://paypal.me/cliftonhicksbanjo

Venmo
https://venmo.com/cliftonhicksbanjo

Bandcamp
http://cliftonhicks.bandcamp.com

Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7fQxc3ZY6LTVWkfxvsEPUV