Sleepy Jesus Rag – Fiddle Tune a Day 157

You heard it here first. Sleepy Jesus Rag by Peter Ostroushko is day 157 of a Fiddle Tune a Day. Some of you may be wondering how day 157 got to be after day 160. The answer is simple, really.  I skipped it, and then I got a couple of days behind on posting the videos. (I did still record a new tune every day.)  So there you have it, due to a clerical error on my part, day 157 will forever follow day 160. I hope you aren’t too upset by this. 😉

I really like Peter Ostroushko’s Eastern European influenced mandolin playing, and I first heard Sleepy Jesus Rag on his album, “Slüz Düz Music“. There is a lot of good music on that album. I highly encourage you to give it a listen. I didn’t learn it on fiddle until quite a bit later when I was working with Tony Ludiker on tunes for Weiser, and he suggested the tune, which I happily gobbled up. The only downside to playing this tune is that it’s a challenge to find guitar players who know (or can figure out) the chords to it.