Janice and I took the old traditional gospel themed blues song "John the Revelator" and pretty throughly rearranged it for this Bluegrass version. Son House is known for this tune and it has been done more recently by Warren Haynes and Ollabelle. We had to nearly double the tempo and slightly change the chord structure. So here's an old traditional "call and response" 19th century gospel style done up for Bluegrass.

This genere bending is getting to be fun and PG Music sure opens up the options. We played for nearly 20 years in a bluegrass band and briefly in an acoustic blues group so that helps a bit. This one was a lot easier than the "Reggae Billy" tune that we did a few months ago.

If you are a bluegrass fan this tune might work for you -- if not there are support groups for folks who have experienced their first exposure to the genere

Instrumental tracks: All Realtracks
Vocal tracks: Blue USB mic
Mixing/effects: Garageband

http://soundcloud.com/mootsman/john-the-revelator

hi mootsman i enjoyed very much love bluegrass and our lord never heard this in gospel form great job thanks for sharing eric

Vocal performance is excellent. Bluegrass fits the song well. Thanks for sharing!


My Music

A really good rendition of an old gospel/blues song.

Works for me!

Thanks y'all. I'm working on a new mix with different instrumentation. I'll play bass on it and add a Realtrack dobro. Wish we could find somebody local to sing the second part where Janice wouldn't have to do both of them. She did the "call and response" well but it would sound better with a different voice. She does a lot of three part harmony on many of our recordings simply because we live in the hinterlands and have no vocalists to call on.

DITTO to all those things already said! NICE.
A tasetful production and wonderful vocals.

Hi Bud,

While I was listening to your song, my foot spontaneously started tapping along and it didn't want to stop at any point in the song. This was a fantastic listen. You and and Janice are incredibly skilled musicians. For what it's worth (I suspect you've already thought of this and discarded the option), if you don't manage to find another singer for the 'response', you could make it sound a bit different by having Janice harmonize it.

All the best,
Noel

I Love this song, and Yall did it right! Janice has a Great Voice and it sounds like a real band did it, great mix!

Hey Mootsman,

Very enjoyable as it is but I think Noel's suggestion of adding harmony to the response would make it even better.

Nicely done.

Mootsman,

Always did like this song. Like previously stated, it does lend itself well to bluegrass. Great job!

Steve