Shenandoah Bound

Shenandoah Bound (mp3)(pdf)

Without looking it up in old notebooks this title suggests to me that I must have written this tune while riding on the Capitol Limited train somewhere near Harper's Ferry, WV. (Thanks to photographer Mark Fickett for generously sharing this panorama under a Creative Commons license.) Crossing the railroad bridge on the right side of this photo, where the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers meet, is always one of the high points of the trip for me.

The tune itself, a country kind of waltz with a little blues in the B section, was recorded last weekend. I only used guitar on this one and I indulged in a little improvisation the second time through the tune. You can hear that I was enjoying myself so much that I forgot to smoothly segue from improv to melody when going back to the head. We had one of our regular Decorah contra dances last Saturday night so I brought the tune in for the Western Home String Band to play and I think it went pretty well.

See if it works for you.