Steve Brodey wrecked his train outside of Danville, Virginia way back in 1903. Nobody remembers Steve nowadays, but his train has gone on to become part of country music history. The Old ¹97 wasn¹t the first train to crash into the songbooks of America, and given the somewhat morbid nature of country music it probably won¹t be the last. Some of the most upbeat, happy go lucky songs in bluegrass revolve around some sort of disaster.

When it came time to do this month¹s workshop for iBluegrass.com, Dear Old Dad and I got buried under work and there just wasn¹t enough time to record an audio lesson. We didn¹t want to just put up a tune without anything you could listen to, so Old ¹97 was a natural choice- it¹s been recorded by just about everybody from Flatt & Scruggs to Lawrence Welk (gack!).

For us, The Wreck Of The Old ¹97 has it¹s own tradition. When we first started learning the banjo most of the tunes Paul was teaching us were old Child Ballads (kind of like Shakespearian soap-operas) and old protest songs. When Dear Old Dad saw Flatt & Scruggs pick Old ¹97 on The Beverly Hillbillies he just about went crazy trying to figure out how to frail that tune. In the process he managed to get Paul out of his "Old Boring Music" phase and back into picking stuff that was cool enough to catch my teenage ears. In fact, Old ¹97 was one of the first songs Dear Old Dad and I ever played on stage.

Above the TAB you¹ll find the chord diagrams for the tune, the only tricky one is the D chord- and if that one really gives you a hard time you can always use a D7 instead. Other than that D chord, this is a pretty simple tune. Play it slowly until you can get it down cold, and then let 'er rip.

In other news, Dear Old Dad and I will be doing the banjo workshops at This year¹s French Creek Dulcimer Retreat on June first through third in Elverson, PA. French Creek is a great event for any acoustic musician. Don¹t miss it. You can get more information at http://imagefx.com/users/gpds

Also, be sure to stop by http://www.funkyseagull.com and check out our upcoming line of instructional videos. We¹ll be covering old time banjo, and a host of great teachers will be teaching fingerstyle guitar, slide guitar, hoedown fiddle, songwriting, music theory and much, much more. And be sure to pick up the latest copy of The Down Neck Gazette featuring interviews with Al Petteway & Amy White, The Turtle Hill Banjo Company, and more!

So until next time keep on picking, do something nice for somebody, if you see a need fill it, be the change you want to see in the world, and never step in anything soft!