Here’s a little folk song written by my favorite songwriter of all time, Traditional. No one has any idea who wrote this song, how its evolution into its current form “Moonshiner” happened, or even what the original version of the song sounded like. “Moonshiner” has been passed around and changed a lot over its 100+ year existence, Bob Dylan has played it, so has Redbird, hell even Uncle Tupelo has their own rendition. What is so interesting is while they are all playing the same song, none of them really sound the same, over time the songs have evolved, geographically and culturally, to a point that two people can have two completely different iterations of the same tune.
In keeping with that theme, here is my personal favorite version of “Moonshiner” by the unfathomably talented Chris Thile from the end of the Another Day Another Time concert film. For those of you who haven’t seen it, you need to asap. You can watch it for free here, I promise you it is time well spent. And if any of you just want one song, here you go.
-Ryan Schmitz
