Doin' My Time - Jimmy Skinner

 Doin' My Time is a bluegrass classic. It's kind of the archetypical bluegrass song in that it's a song with an unhappy topic and a fun, bouncy sound.

 BMFSDB says that Billy has played this one 73 times as of this writing, & it has appeared in about 7% of his shows. In 2022, he went on a Doin' My Time tear & played it 18 times. On some songs, there may be several versions, but one is definitive & is the one that everybody thinks of when they hear it (think Doc Watson Black Mountain Rag). With Doin' My Time, I think that different guys in the band probably reference different versions when they think of or play it. I'm pretty sure Billy Failing is thinking of the Flatt & Scruggs version.

While I'm sure Billy Strings references that, I'm guessing he thinks of the Tony Rice version just as much or more.

The Original

Doin' My Time was written by Jimmy Skinner & released in 1948. According to secondhandsongs.com, there have been 31 recorded versions. I'm guessing the real number is close to double that. I couldn't find any chart information about the original, so I'm assuming that it didn't do much, but people definitely heard it, as it has developed a long life, primarily thanks to Flatt & Scruggs. Interesting to hear that the banjo riff was in the original.

Jimmy Skinner

Jimmy Skinner was born in 1909, in Blue Lick, Kentucky. He sang & played guitar, leading his own band for his full career as far as I can tell. He hosted a radio show in the '50's and recorded for Capitol and Decca. Later in the '50's, he recorded for Mercury and had some decent chart success. 

During the '60's, his career fell off, but was revived on the '70's when he gained popularity again playing bluegrass festivals. Jimmy died in 1979.

Covers

It seems like everybody has covered Doin My Time. Here are a few of the (mostly bluegrass) covers:

Red Allen

Johnny Cash

The Country Gentlemen

The Seldom Scene

Jimmy Martin

and New Grass Revival (who seem to have been listening to Jimmy Martin)

End Of The Rainbow - Frank Wakefield

End Of The Rainbow is a song that for a long time I just assumed was a Billy original. Not sure why, but it just seemed similar to his writing style. BMFSDB has this song appearing in about 14% of Billy's shows. It usually gets a decent jam section (which may be why I assumed it was an original).

The Song

End Of The Rainbow was written by Frank Wakefield and included on his 1980 album of the same name. Kind of a wild album cover for bluegrass, but Frank seems like kind of a wild guy, judging by this video I found.

That is some proto-jamgrass for sure. Frank gets pretty face-melty with the mando solo!

Frank Wakefield

Frank was born in Emory Gap, TN in 1934. He learned various instruments & formed a duo with his brother in 1960, with Frank on mandolin & his brother on guitar. They played local radio shows starting in 1951. In 1952, Frank joined Red Allen's band. In the mid 50's, he joined Jimmy Martin's band where he recorded his (maybe previously) most famous tune, New Camptown Races. 

Frank worked with a number of bluegrass masters - some more time with Red Allen, Solo/band work with Chubby Wise and Don Reno. He gave mandolin lessons to David Grisman, released an album produced by Jerry Garcia & opened for the Grateful Dead. He playred & composed classical pieces for mandolin and played with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein(!)

Frank Wakefield passed in 2024. 

John Deere Tractor - Larry Sparks

The first time I saw Billy Strings, he was feeling pretty good. He came out wearing the silly glasses and they opened with Beaumont Rag and Fire On My Tongue>How Mountain Girls Can Love. Strong start! A couple songs later, they played a song that I wan unfamiliar with, but really knocked me out - John Deere Tractor. From the guitar intro, to "I'm like a John Deere tractor in a half acre field" to "where the sweet country girls don't complain", it really hit.

John Deere Tractor

According to SecondHandSongs.com, John Deere Tractor was written by Lawrence Hammond, and first released by Jerry Corbitt in 1971. It was later released by Larry Sparks on the album of the same name in 1980. 

In 1991, the Judds released a cover of John Deere Tractor that made it to #29 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

Larry Sparks

Larry Sparks was born in 1947 in Lebanon, Ohio. He learned to sing & play guitar. In 1964, he joined the Stanley brothers. He continued with Ralph Stanley after Carter Stanley died in 1966. He went solo in 1969 and continues to record & perform to this day. In addition to his souful singing voice, he is a unique flatpicker. He doesn't take a lot of solos, but they all have a distinctive sound. 

Billy Strings has covered several other Larry Sparks songs. As of this writing, BMFSDB lists 67 times Billy has played John Deere Tractor and it has appeared in 6.05% of the setlists they have for Billy.

Intro

 So this idea came to me while listening to the What's The Reason For This podcast interview with Todd & Becky who run BMFSDB. Their story of creating a database of Billy Strings setlists just for the love of the music got me inspired. As I listened to the discussion of the songs people on the pod were chasing, it got me thinking about my introduction to bluegrass, how it led me to Billy Strings & how that led me to discover songs & artists that I may not have come across without hearing their songs played by Mr. Apostol.

I started listening to bluegrass about 13 years ago when I started going to a local festival to hang out with my little sister & her kids. Before that, I knew who Doc Watson was had heard some Flatt & Scruggs, but that was about it. That whole festival experience, with the all-night picking & (at least around here) big hippie/deadhead overlap was pretty appealing, to say the least. 

I'm a big music nerd. I play guitar & play at some other instruments. Usually when I start exploring a genre of music, within a year I find myself listening to some scratchy 78s from the 20's. Bluegrass was a whole new field to explore & I went after it. Starting with Sam Bush, Del McCoury, Doyle Lawson & others I experienced live, I started working through the web of players.

A few years later, I started hearing the name "Billy Strings" from (it seemed like) all the musical heavyweights I followed. A little while later, I snagged tickets for two nights of this new hotshot guitarist opening for Jason Isbell.

And then COVID, so that show didn't happen. By the time shows restarted, Billy was too big to be opening. I got my first chance to see him in 2021 & there were a few songs that blew my mind. Since then, his cover selection has really accelerated my discovery of bluegrass (and bluegrass adjacent) music. 

So I'm going to share info about the music. Some I discovered via Billy. Some I found on my own. But all will be songs that Billy's played live. That gives me plenty of material. Posts will be a mix of information & my opinion or impressions of the music. Believe it if you need it, if you don't just pass it on.