Sit Down On the Banks / Buck Dance

Sit Down On the Banks / Buck Dance 2:54
Contact info:
Andy Cohen
twangoleum@outlook.com
901.232.6694

Songwriter: Gary Davis
Publisher & PRO: Downtown Music Services o/b/o Chandos Music Co and Budde Music Inc (ASCAP)

Release Date: March 15, 2024

Musicians:
Mary Flower - vocals and guitar

Notes by Andy Cohen

National Fingerpicking champion Mary Flower: prolific recorder of tunes, a most popular Blues Guitar instructor at several music camps. She has been around, seen what there is out there and picked up the best of it. She learned these tunes when she was living in Denver during the sixties. Sit Down on the Banks was written in 1864 and has been in the canon ever since. Buck Dance is an instrumental designed to accompany a flatfooter or tap dancer. The guitar player’s silent pauses would be filled in by the dancer.

Mary is now on her own, touring and making CDs by the bushel, and has also won the Fingerpicking Contest in Winfield, Kansas. But for years, she taught guitar for Swallow Hill in Denver, and played with a group called the Mother Folkers (“the most carefully pronounced name in folk music...”).

“Sit Down on the Banks” and “Buck Dance” are both difficult pieces; I never heard anyone put them together like this, especially as they are in different keys. Works nice, though.