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What an honor to be asked to share our love for Ella Jenkins for the Children’s Hour podcast.
I think the host, Katie Stone, did a fantastic job capturing the many ways that Ella touched so many lives.
When you listen, you’ll also hear the Young Stracke All-Stars perform Ella’ This Train. What a delight to hear this song on the radio so many years after we recorded it.
Last night wrapped up the Late Winter 2025 session of Guitar Crew. The Crew was made up of five guitar players with experiences ranging from less than a year to many years.
We finished by recording our own arrangement of Bob Wills’ Faded Love. This is a recording of the five members of this sessions’ Crew. I’m accompanying on percussion.
We covered many skills and concepts this session. Some of those topics, which you can hear in this arrangement, were:
Basic chords changes
Learning songs by ear
The hows and whys of playing songs in different keys
Knowing our roots and 5ths of each chord and using that to play alternating bass strums
Working with the major scale and using that to create bass walks in between chord changes
Singing and playing at the same time.
Playing the chord changes in different locations on the guitar, either with “mini shapes” or using a capo.
Ensemble playing (play strong and also make room for the other musicians)
Playing a melody and improvising over chord changes
Here’s Guitar Crew with
Faded Love
In class, we work together to make the arrangements of the songs we play. These are the notes from our arrangement of Faded Love.
I think it sounds so good! Congratulations, Guitar Crew!
The Early Spring session of Guitar Crew begins in mid-March. We’d love to have you be part of the Crew! Send me a note if you have anyquestions.
A student has been working on this awesome song and learning to both improvise on her own, and to transcribe the improvisations of others.
I made a simple recording that she could upload to an app that we use to slow down, and repeat certain parts of a recording. If you load the recording I made into such an app, the changes of the song play over and over. That is a great way to practice your improvising!
This song is in D minor, and for this exercise we’re using just the notes of the D minor pentatonic scale.
D F G A C
The accompanying graphic shows one location of those notes on the guitar, bu those notes are all over the guitar, too. Find those notes anywhere and improvise a new melody over these very fun changes.
Enjoy!
This is my simple recording.
This is the app we use to make the track repeat over and over. I really like it, but there are a lot of different similar apps. I’m sure you’ll find one you like.
I was quite honored when, last summer, Jonas Friddle of Banjo After Dark, asked me to make a guest video.
The topic I choose was one we regularly work on in Guitar Crew; knowing which songs are appropriate to bring to the jam.
In this video I share my thoughts on, why it’s fun to bring a song to lead at an open jam, the types of songs to lead, and a few pointers to smooth the bumpy road that that beginning song leaders alway encounter.
Do you have any advice to share, or an interesting story from a time when you lead a song, or when you heard someone else lead a song? We’d love to hear it!
p.s. I highly recommend joining Jonas’ Banjo After Dark Patreonpage. It’s free to join (although tossing a few bucks his way is always helpful) and I think you’ll find some fantastic resources.
Jason McInnes Teaches How To Choose A Jam Song on Banjo After Dark.
In the previous post I wrote a about recording recording Little Birdie with puja and maria. That got me thinking about Frank Hamilton who taught me that song when I went to visit him in 2010.
Here’s a recording of Little Birdie as we sang it that day.
I talked with Frank the other day and he sounds fantastic. His enthusiasm and positivity rang through my earbuds just like always. It had been a long time since we talked and I was very glad to hear his voice.
This video is our first take of the song. It isn’t the one that made the album, but I love this version just the same. This is the album version. If you follow the link you can hear and purchase the whole album which is a truly beautiful collection of music.
A couple of our friends, Jess Baldissero (Joybird) and Jonas Friddle, have recordings of the song, too. You can add these recordings, and the accompanying albums, to your collection at their respective bandcamp pages.
It was the summer of 2015 and there was an excited buzz in the air as the audience was finding their seats for the Young Stracke All-Stars album release show. It had become known that Ella Jenkins had made it to the show, and everyone knew they were in the presence of someone very special. Ella and I had met several times and had even played some gigs together, but we didn’t know each other so well yet. I was quite honored that she had accepted our invitation, and that we could share our music with her.
By the fall of 2015 I had heard that Ella had moved into an assisted care facility not far from the Old Town School of Folk Music, where I was teaching, and the neighborhood where I lived. Eventually, something inside me clicked and I thought, “Oh. The kids don’t have school next Monday because of the holiday. We should go visit Ella!”
For the rest of my time in Chicago, we had a regular meetup with Ella when school was not in session. I’d stop at the store to pick up some snacks for the kids, a bouquet of flowers, and peppermint ice cream, which was Ella’s favorite.
We’d all gather in a communal room at the facility. This room had a piano and lots of space for us to spread out our instrument case, winter coats and snacks and little siblings would have room to roam freely. The facility staff was always very kind and graciously put up with us moving the furniture around.
Sometimes we’d have lots of families, other times it was just a few. No matter what we’d always have quite a time singing The Cuckoo, This Train, This Little Light of Mine and lots of other favorites! Often, a small crowd of other residents and their caregivers would gather to sing and clap along with us.
Emma Reading her School Report About Ella
I’m not sure how affected the kids were by being in the presence of someone famous, which Ella was. But Ella’s aura was never about fame. The intense, potent energy that one felt in Ella’s presence came from her love of music and community.
When I think back on my time leading the Young Stracke All-Stars, and teaching in Chicago, these are some of my strongest memories. Not memories like stories, but memories of a feeling that, through our visits, we were all able to gather our lessons in music and community and take them out of the classroom and bring them to life in the larger world. In many ways, that world had, at least some way, been opened to us by Ella Jenkins and her music.
Sharing some artwork.
It was in afternoons like these, and other days when it was just Ella in me, that she became a very dear friend of mine. I’m not sure she could always remember my name, but I know that she knew who I was and she was always glad to have me visit. We had an understanding that we traveled together in the spirit of music.
I was lucky that she and I had some quiet, peaceful time together on her 100th birthday, last August. Ella was very tired, but the sound of my uke perked her up and soon she was all smiles and lifted up by the music and singing along and playing imaginary drums. As you might imagine, we sang through some favorites; the Cuckoo, This Little Light of Mine and one of her favorites, The Glory of Love as performed by her friend Big Bill Broonzy.
Celebrating Ella’s National Heritage Fellowship Award One time I brought my record player so Ella could listen to the Young Stracke All-Stars’ 7″ record.
Ella’s spirit traveled on, on November 9, 2024.
It make me sad that I won’t be able to sing with her in person anymore. Thankfully, at least one of her songs comes to my lips every day.
I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to learn so much from her and to have spent so much heart-felt time together.
Love you, Ella! I miss you so much. Thank you for opening your heart to me. Jason
Putting on a show for all the other residence to celebrate Ella’s birthday.
Always bring some flowers!
Erin and I stopped by to watch the National Heritage Fellowship award show. Ella couldn’t travel to DC to be part of it, but we had a wonderful time watching together.
Maria was able to drop by!
Ella LOVED to play in A minor. She’d say, “They used to call me A minor Ella!”
I’m so excited to share with you some new music from my dear one, Maria McCullough, and a great friend and wonderful musician, mx puja singh. They have a new album which came out this week called an area of the celestial sphere under the pecan tree
Maria and puja wrote and recorded this music over about a week’s time at our house in Albuquerque, NM. What a gift I was give, to hang around and watch and listen to the process unfold as the songs were coming together.
And, I am honored that they invited me to play my banjo on a couple of the tracks. One of the songs is sītā rām (live) which you can listen to right here.
When I think of the ways that I’ve grown, I know I couldn’t a’ made it alone. I owe a lot to the sharing, caring, daring wonderful friends that I’ve known.
Pete Seeger and Dave Bernz
Up and Down the River with Friends Introduction from the crew At the jam Lots of smiles! The Captain (on the left) and a crew member Picking some tunes before we embarked. Tunes on the sloopl The rudder The deck. Not much space to sit, huh? It was a lot of work to hoist sail. I’m obviously very glad to be done. Kate and Janet The main sail of the Sloop Clearwater!
Most, if not all, of these photos were taken by Mary Zerkel.
In August of 2014 some dears ones, in particular Judy Higgins, and I caravaned from the greater Old Town School of Folk Music region of Chicago to Beacon, NY to sing and sail on the Sloop Clearwater; Pete Seeger’s boat on the Hudson River.
Such a trip had been on my mind for a year or two and the swirl of good feelings in our musical community after Pete died on January 27, 2014, blew the idea from my daydreams into reality. “Sailing Up and Down the River with Friends” began.
About 20 of us made the trip for this very memorable voyage. The boat was “a real, functioning sloop,” as the crew let us know during introductions. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it definitely wasn’t designed for tourists. There was ropes, pulleys and other boat hardware covering every inch of the deck. Where were we going to sit for our jam?!?!?
The crew lead us in the sea shanty, Paddy Works on the Railway, as we pulled together to hoist the main sail. I’m not sure why they chose a railroad song, rather than a sea faring song, but it was a perfect fit. They instructed about 10 of to take hold of the halyard and pull to the beat of the song. The crew counted off an incredibly slow tempo, which made sense immediately when it became apparent how difficult it was going to be to hoist the sail. Slow and steady, with my arms burning, the sail was up and we continued on our way. I was already exhausted! And, I never heard a sea shanty the same way again.
It was a quite, beautiful afternoon on the river with mostly sunny skies. As we embarked there was this one small dramatic dark cloud that sauntered right over us. It loosened a handful of raindrops and for one moment I was nervous that our jam was going to be rained out. But, the cloud quickly carried on, and we didn’t feel another drop. Later I thought, “Ah, that cloud was Pete saying hi in his own particular way.”
As the excursion continued, we had a fantastic jam. It was clear from the crew introductions that they had expected us to follow their lead during the music portion of the ride. But, without much notice, instruments were unpacked and the sound of our music filled the air. We all took turns leading songs, and the crew eased back to enjoy the jam with us. We probably played for an hour or so. Then, instruments were packed, ropes were wound back up and we headed back to shore.
Ten years. Wow, a lot has changed in ten years and that on the Hudson River feels both very far away in my memory, and also much nearer. The time from the Sloop trip to my last teaching day at the Old Town School was five years. Then, my last class at OTS to today was also five years. Hard to imagine that those two stretches of time were equal. Life is so different. I wonder if I’ll ever lead another event like that. Not that I want to! I’m very happy these days with my slower pace.
It’s been a tearful experience to look through these photos, many of which I haven’t seen since they were originally taken. In that time, Zelda, who was a member of the Young Stracke All-Stars, completed her undergrad degree. I live with Grace and Maria now, which has been the most delightful surprise of the past 10 years. I was able to have lunch with Anthony and Dana, who I hadn’t seen at least five years, earlier this summer. Many of the others I see on an occasional virtual jam or concert. We all played a lot of music together during my Chicago years and I feel so lucky that, even if we don’t get to play together very much anymore, I still consider them close friends. I know that, if the opportunity presented itself, we could jump right into a version of Pete’s Sailing Up and Down the River, just like old times.
