Chords for Clarence Ashley performs "The Cuckoo"

Can you tell me when you first began to play your music?
Well, I've been playing and trying to play ever since I was quite a small boy.
When was that?
Well, that was, uh, uh, I was possibly 10 years of age, and I was born in 1895.
Oh, I was about 15 when I took off at the first old medicine show come through, and,
you know, I was always crazy about the show business, and every show I'd come through,
I'd get me up a bunch of boys and put me on the show.
If it was a circus, I'd perform, and if it was music, I'd do the same, and I was always
crazy about the show business.
And an old gentleman come through at the medicine show and wanted to hire me, and I started
in with him, and [A] of course he [E] taught me a lot of [F] things that I [C] didn't know.
[Db] From there, [G] it went on, you know.
[F] Well, now, when did they [E] start making records of this kind [N] of music?
Well, that was summers in the 20s, I'd say, the best I could remember.
That's when you started making records in the 20s?
Well, I started making records in the early 20s, and soon after Al Hopkins and the boys
[Ab] called themselves Hillbillies.
I guess [C] that started the [Ab] name of Hillbilly music, was Al [A] Hopkins and his brothers.
[C] They was on [Db] the way to New York, and their [N] father lived in Washington while they was
presiding in North Carolina, in the western part of North Carolina.
So they stopped over to stay all night with their father, and he was quite a big man in Washington.
He was a doctor, and Al told them they was going to New York to make records.
And he said, now, what can you Hillbillies do in New York?
After they went on to New York, left Washington, went on to New York, they did do some records
for the Columbia, I think it was, or anyhow, Mr.
Frank Walker, I think, was the recording manager.
And they taken the name Hillbillies, and they called [Bm] themselves Al Hopkins and his [Dbm] Hillbillies.
Well, Clarence, _ [B] when they were [E] making these records in New [Ab] York, and when you were making
records there, [N] how much did these people that were making the records know about this
kind of music?
How much did they know about it?
That's right.
Not anything.
Not, well, how'd they know what to record?
Well, they was just looking for something and hoping they'd find it.
And they, in other words, they wasn't musicians, and they didn't have the talent, and they
didn't have the feeling.
And they wouldn't know whether you was in tune or whether you was out of tune.
Well, when you told Frank Walker you'd play him a Lassie-Makin' tune, what was the tune you played?
I very well remember that.
He set his glasses down on his nose, and he says, I want to hear one of them.
I never heard a Lassie-Makin' tune.
Well, I says, give me the banjo.
He handed me the, they handed me the banjo, some of them did, and I tuned it up in this
[Abm] minor key, you see?
[Eb] Well, what do you call that key?
_ [N] Lassie-Makin' tune, sawmill key. Sawmill key.
And this is what I [Dbm] played for him.
_ _ _ [B] _ [Ab] _
_ _ [Ebm] _ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _
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[Db] _ _ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ [B] _ [Ab] _
_ [Ebm] _ _ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dbm] _ _ [Abm] _ _ [Ebm] _ [Ab] _ [Db] _
_ _ _ [Db] _ _ [Gb] Tell the whole thing.
[Ab] July.
_ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _
[Gb] _ _ [Abm] _ _ _ I'll pay you.
Give me.
[Db] I'll pay you.
Big part.
[Abm] Give me.
I'll pay you.
Ten dollars.
I'll be [Gb] tuned.
[Abm]
Thank you.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Gb] _
_ [Abm] _ _ _ [Db] _ [Abm] _ She's a pretty bird.
[Gb] She's a robber.
_ [Bb] _ _ [Abm] She's an apple.
She's a coot.
[B] Tell the whole thing. [Ab] July. _
_ _ _ [Abm] _ _ _ [Gb] _ [Abm] _