Tiple vs. tipple blues

Does anyone hear a tiple on this recording, or have a picture of the Allen Brothers holding one?

It sounds to me that the Allen Brothers recording of the "Tiple Blues" was made with a guitar and a tenor banjo or banjo-mandolin, but record labels and artificial intelligence agents on YouTube spell the word with one letter P, and some conclude that the song is about the Martin (or Regal, etc.) Tiple, a 10-string instrument tuned like a ukulele, first sold in the 1920s and '30s. 

I just had a conversation with an A.I. stream at YouTube insisting that the Allen brothers played the tiple, and that there are discography sources that make that claim. 

I have never seen a picture of them with a tiple, and since the song lyrics that give the song its title are a reference to coal mining, it seems pretty clear to me that the song is about a coal tipple, a coal loading and sorting station.

"Ain't gonna work on no tipple, ain't gonna load no coal," makes no sense if it is talking about a ukulele.

Meanwhile, there is a fascinating Kentucky Ramblers recording of a very similar song from around the same time under the title Ginseng Blues, which replaces working on a tipple with digging ginseng, another Appalachian occupation.

Sing along with Susan B. Anthony!

 Yes, I play ukuleles and guitars and banjos and mandolins... but something a friend on Facebook posted today sent my A.D.D. off on links and searches that eventually landed in a whole other musical world. I like it...

The Carters' Questions

From my personal department of compulsive research, in response to a Facebook post about questions in song titles.

Here's an idea for an (as far as I know) nonexistent album, YouTube playlist, or master's thesis, titled: "Uncertainties: The questioning songs of the Carter Family."

• "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?"
• "Will The Roses Bloom In Heaven"
• "Will My Mother Know Me There?"
• "Why Do You Cry, Little Darling"
• "Can* the Circle Be Unbroken"
• "Where Shall I Be?"
• "Happy Or Lonesome" (The lyric asks, "Are you still happy, I wonder, or are you lonesome too?")

Of course, some of those questions might be described as faith-based with positive answers rhetorically implied; the Carters' discography at Wikipedia doesn't always include question marks.

* And then there's the "Will" versus "Can" story about that presumably unbroken circle, explored by the Birthplace of Country Music Museum: Will the Circle Be Unbroken, history of a song. Here are the original lyrics and the Carter Family version.

Electric Tiple!

("Tiplista" Timmie Rogers & band... Photo from YouTube post)

https://youtu.be/Z1RCRIgiqak?si=gWcT3Jk70khYwZ4G

A decade or so after this recording, Timmie Rogers appeared singing duets with Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son, and playing that 10-string tiple -- the only time I've seen one on television.

The career retrospective in still images accompanying this YouTube video show more of his tiples, even if the amplified 10 string instrument isn't very audible over piano, drums and horns of the band in this recording.

Technical note.. I'm posting this with my phone and the Android Blogger app doesn't show me an obvious way to embed the video rather than just present a link. I'll come back with a computer later and edit this. For now, the post begins the link address simply paste it as text, and it ends below with the same link activated as an "open in a nw window' link using the app. I'm curious what the difference will be, and whether one or the other is easier to turn into an embedded video on the page.

https://youtu.be/Z1RCRIgiqak?si=gWcT3Jk70khYwZ4G