“Darling Nellie Across the Sea”
Recorded Five Minutes Ago (Thursday, August 18, 2011).
Key: A
One take! Just the way we like it here on the CFP. The baby was done with his nap, but rather than pick him up right away, we left him in the darkness of his room while we recorded yet another Carter Family song. Fortunately, it’s only two minutes long, so we were able to get him up and he listened to the playback. That’s the way we roll here in Brooklyn. One take, one listen, put it up online. This is fresh music, folks.
“Darling Nellie” has been recorded many times over the years by bluegrass bands. In that regard it represents a kind of blueprint (ha ha) for all the bluegrass that would—for better or worse—follow the Carters in the 1940s, 50s, and beyond up to today. Here you can hear in its infancy the sound that would rule millions of picking parties for decades to come: the languorous lyrics that fall like autumn leaves on the I-V verse progression, stretching and bending each phrase, the chorus suddenly switching to the IV chord before returning to the safety of the verse structure, the lockstep verse that allows almost endless “tags” at the close of each instrumental. Bill Monroe heard this kind of song from the Carters, sped it up, pitched the vocals higher, stretched the lyrics out even more, and ran with it.
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