Learning Dock Boggs’ style…
People often talk about Dock Boggs’ unique style of banjo playing and whilst the better recordings are arguably those he originally did in the 1920’s (more atmospheric at least), the banjo nerd will find these later recordings are very useful for clearly hearing and then learning what he plays. The inlay sleeve also contains tunings for most of the songs.
Once you have the tuning, listen to the song a few times, and keep in mind he seemed to play the melody with the thumb and pinch the chords with the index and middle fingers on the higher strings, you get to see it’s not that complicated (thumb strums down, other two strum up) - as in his recording of Wild Bill Jones (G tuning). Sometimes the index and middle finger also fill out and play the tune with bits of runs, as in his simple version of Turkey in the Straw (G tuning also). Here he uses all three fingers to play the tune across all three strings, in a method he describes on this record (which you can hear on Spotify actually, just search Dock Boggs). Of course a lot of this is just guesswork, but I did once make a tab of the version of Turkey in the Straw, so if I dig it out I’ll post it here.
