Dusty Turtle:...The words were borrowed, but the song ain't the same. A better-known example is Stevie Ray Vaughan's
Mary Had a Little Lamb . Taking the words of a nursery rhyme and playing them over a blues structure just makes a blues tune; it is not the same nursery rhyme.
On the topic of nursery rhymes, can't resist:
Dusty Turtle:If we accept that copying exactly what some earlier performer has done is worthwhile to try but ultimately impossible to accomplish, then we should be freed up to study those earlier versions but make our own music.
I agree wholeheartedly. And I think there's also a place for performers who try to accurately preserve or resurrect older styles. It's good to keep the inspiration source alive and leave it as a signpost for others coming up behind, even if you do later turn off the path and blaze a new trail. You can listen to old recordings, but it's hard to learn a style of music without seeing and hearing it performed by a real live musician. The whole "roots music" idea is one of the best things to happen to music in my lifetime IMHO.
Dusty Turtle:A second issue is how precisely we should play on beat.
There's a lot to be said for putting down the dulcimer (or guitar, or whatever...) and singing a cappella . Without a steady strum, it's more natural to let the rhythm wander. When my otherwise much-loved ukulele club plays "The Parting Glass" in straight 4/4 I want to jump out the window.
(Dusty, I've been chopping up quotes from your last two posts. I hope this isn't mangling the conversation flow too badly... and I hope the html formatting works!)
Back on topic (really!? well, kinda...) I once attended a master class with Corky Siegel (our local record store is the best of all record stores) and he was promoting this book . One point being that you should change the dynamics. A lot. Sometimes at random, just for the fun of it and to see what happens. Doing something is more interesting than doing nothing. Taking that as a basic premise, maybe we should be mixing up the rhythm as well. Throw in a 2/4 or 3/4 measure in the middle of the chorus. Hold a note a little longer. Keep 'em guessing. Sure you could overdo this, but most musicians are at greater risk of under doing it.
I guess if I had to summarize this rambling post, I'd say that I hope 50 years from now, all the Barbara Allen's aren't in straight 4/4.