Where do I begin in describing my Midwest Banjo Camp experience--following the Red Queen's advice, should I begin at the beginning, go on until I reach the end, and then stop?
I guess I'll begin before the beginning--maybe back to when my car got stolen, recovered, judged totalled, and I got an insurance check for far more than the car was worth, or at least far more than I could have expected to sell it for. Anyway, with a pretty good tax return coming in at just about the same time as the insurance check, when I saw that the camp was coming up and that Arnie Naiman and Chris Coole were on the facutly and realized that for once, I could afford to go, I told her who must be obeyed, who said, "Fine. Just don't buy any more banjos." I didn't realize just how hard my promise not to would be to keep.

...It has been a couple of days since I started this. I'm still feeling the effects of my fall at Detroit Metro Airport. My wrist and the base of my thumb on my left hand are both still sore, as is my chest. I've figured that I didn't fall on the banjo: it was behind me and I was holding onto its strap, so what I fell on was my clenched fist. My chest has gotten, if anything, more sore, so next week I might go back to my doctor to get an X-ray to determine if there's a cracked or broken rib. Amazingly I suffered no damage to the hand I fell onto: no abrasion, nothing, and somehow I didn't hit my face when I fell--no skinned chin, no broken nose,

...I did keep my promise, although I drooled a lot on four different Chuck Lee banjos(two Rose HIlls, a Deep Hollow fretless, and, I think, a Chalk Mountain) that were in the vendors (mostly Elderly Instruments) store, which opened early and stayed open late. At half the price of the least expensive Lee (the Rose Hill), but still a wonderful sounding and great looking Gold Tone Bob Carlin--the best frailer under a thousand bucks (well under--$750). Also drool-inspiring and affordable and about a hundred bucks more than the Carlin were the pair of Kevin Enoch "Tradesman" banjos. If I were to walk back into that store once more, I'd probably find a way to justify buying the Bob Carlin, and if I hadn't spent $650 a month ago on a Maple Mountain, I might have gone for a Lee Rose Hill. Tom Nechville also had an open-back banjo, cut down from a resonator, and it was a beautiful and fine sounding instrument, deceptively lightweight. He said it was slightly blemished and pointed out the blemish to me (I couldn't see it), and thus he was asking only a thousand for it--another great buy. Lots of the players at the Camp had the new Intelli tuners stuck on their peg heads--I looked in the store, but I guess they were all sold by the time I got there, so I stuck with the Gold Tone I bought from Angie last year. I have a few extra tuners lying around, anyway--a couple of Korgs, an Intellitouch deluxe, a dead woodie, a Sabine stick-on with a dead battery--the Gold Tone is clearly the best of the lot.

After I registered I went to the Early Bird Old Time Jam and had a great time--I sang and played "The Last Letter Home (Rose in a Spanish Garden)" and some of the others at the jam were Civil War reenactors and were very interested in the song--one of the reenactors, Dan, and I, had a couple of meals together and jammed after the faculty concert. This early jam started with songs, but pretty soon fiddle tunes took over--this was the first of the five or six times that "Forked Deer" appeared during the weekend, the most-played tune of the event, in my experience.

My first class was with Bob Carlin, Black Banjo--and though he's a great player and seemingly a nice guy, I was least satisfied with it, because the time was mostly spent talking about the history of black banjo, with just about twenty minutes of work on one tune, without any specific instruction I can remember on rhythmic, harmonic, or stylistic variations from what I'd picked up already; but many in the class had expressed interest in the history and in contemporary black artists. One highlight of it was the presence of bones player Clif Irvin, a friend of Bob's from Seattle. Brad Leftwich's Introduction to Round Peak was my second class, and it was terrific. I'd love to take individual classes from him.

The first dinner came next and no one left any of the meals hungry. We were allowed to double up on entrees, and other served portions were generous. Drinks, salads, and desserts were self-service and there was a seemingly endless supply of them. Generally, I managed to control my gluttony, but it was hard. Only once did I double up on dessert, and I even skipped it at one lunch.

After the dinner was the Orientation/Introduction of the Faculty--and my major feeling about it was "So many great teachers; so little time." I planned to stick with the clawhammer teachers, but I would have loved to have had classes from Bill Keith, Bill Evans, Alan Munde, Ross Nickerson, Murphy Taylor, and Tony Ellis (I sat beside him for about half this event). Clif Ervin accompanied Bob Carlin's song, and while Ken Perlman who emceed the event (and the final concert) talked about him, I shouted out that there should be a bones workshop, and Perlman said it sounded like a good idea, adding I should see him later and maybe it could be worked out. I talked to Clif aferward, and Ken came by, and we convinced him to add the workshop Sunday morning where there was a hole in the "Special Events schedule."

After the Orientation, I split he evening jam time between Arnie Naiman's slow jam (I wanted to talk to him after we'd had a brief exchange of messages on Mudcat.org in the weeks before the Camp). I jammed slow for a while, then started playing up the neck variations to the tunes in the jam, decided that might be distracting, and cut out for another jam, this one with Ross Nickerson and Ryan Baugus. I mostly just played along, but at one slow point late in the session, I pulled out a harmonica and played and sang "Beware, Oh Take Care." It started out a bit ragged, but after a re-start in which I played once through on banjo emphasizing where in the chorus the 2/4 measures take place, we got it together and it came off pretty well. My harmonica break is based on the fiddle breaks in the New Lost City Ramblers version of the song. One jam I had wanted to go to but couldn't because I didn't know where the room was--and was embarrassed to ask--wasKathy Barton-Para's vocals jam.

(Skip this paragraph if you want to avoid some personal drivel)
I was pretty tired after this and decided not to hang around for the late jams but went up to my room to go to bed and at first couldn't find my bedtime medications--I ran out to my car and drove to the hotel I'd stayed in the night before, but they hadn't found them, then I made the mistake of calling my wife--she really freaked out when I told her. I have an occasionally tricky heart and she wanted me to go to an emergency room to try to get some to get me through the weekend; I told her not to worry, that maybe I had just overlooked them when I looked at first, that I'd go back and look again and probably find them, and that maybe the next morning I'd go to an emergency ward if I felt I really needed to. I thought she was somewhat calmed down, so I closed the call and went back to my room. Sure enough, they were in someplace I hadn't checked, someplace I should have checked but just didn't think of before. I went downstairs again to call her back but the one pay phone was occupied by Janet Beazlely, one of the bluegrass banjo teachers, and the school phones wouldn't connect to off campus numbers. I had decided to wait for the pay phone to clear, but heard the young lady at the registration desk talking to someone she was having difficulty with, asked if the call was for me, found it was my son--whom my wife had called in her continued panic--I told him everything was okay, I had found my meds, and asked him to call his mom and reassure her. He agreed, we hung up, and I went to bed after taking my meds. It was about 1:30 a.m. when I went to sleep (still an hour and a half before my bedtime in California). I slept well and woke up refreshed.

Saturday breakfast I ate with Clif for the second of three meals I'd have with him--a very nice man whose son plays banjo and who paid for his dad's airfare to the Camp, where he had "muso" status--unpaid musicians who work as accompanists in the classes and sessions.

I had at first planned on taking Ken Perlman's Ragtime Clawhammer class first thing in the morning, but since I missed her jam the previous night and she was teaching "Arranging for Clawhammer," I decided to check out Kathy B-P, and am happy I did. She has a great song style of playing, quite a bit different from my own, and I got some great ideas from her teaching. I played some harmonica backup on one of her tunes. The second morning class she was doing an old-time jam workshop with fiddler Alan Jabbour, and since I had liked the morning's first class, I decided to join her again. Alan is an amazing fiddler and a real Southern gentleman, tall and elegant. It was the best fiddle tune session I.d experienced to that time and after lunch I was ready for more, so I went to Kathy's next session, as well--Ozark Fiddle Tunes. Several of the tunes were ones I knew, including Mississippi Sawyer and Bill Cheatum, and I felt pretty comfortable playing these, and late in the session I told her I had a version of "Jimmy Brown, the Newsboy" in which the breaks are based on "Ragtime Annie," and explained how I had come to play it this way, so we did this: the break is based on a fairly accurate part A, then a B part that stays with just the 1 and 5 chords, which is the same rhythm and harmonic pattern of the song. We did it, I sang the verses, and we passed the breaks around. At the end of this class she complimented my singing, my picking, and my harmonica playing, and said she hoped she'd have a chance to jam with me that evening.

My second afternoon class was with Chris Coole, one of the two Toronto pickers whose presence at the camp was what triggered my attendance. It was Improvisation, Clawhammer Style, and was a great class. He is an absolutely marvelous player (as is the other Canadian, Arnie Naiman, whose Composing for Clawhammer Seminar I wish I'd been able to squeeze in. This session started with the bluegrass backup guitarist, Ron McKeever, playing duets with Chris--these were rich and wonderful, then Ron had to go back to the dark side (heh-heh) and Chris taught a few clawhammer rolls and other devices for embellishing a tune. Finally, at the end of the session, at my request he played one of the most beautiful banjo tunes I've ever heard, "Bloody Red River," from one of the Naiman-Coole CDs I have. He got a great hand from the 20 or 30 pickers in attendance.

After supper came the faculty concert, with great performances by all. Many of the campers seemed to be elsewhere jamming, as there were fewer people in the audience than there had been for the orientation/meet the faculty event, yet there were a couple dozen or so non-campers who had paid to get in. The music was great and there was a good deal of hilarity--Bob Carlin, Dan Gellert, and Ryan Baugus are all very funny. Ken Perlman made a point of announcing Clif Ervin's workshop after breakfast Sunday, and Stan Werbin, owner of Elderly Instruments and co-sponsor of the Camp, took over as emcee long enough to introduce the final performers, Perlman in duet with Alan Jabbour, and announce that everybody in the audience had to wait for him (Stan) to get in line first for the free pizza after the show.

As it worked out, I never did find Kathy to jam with. After pizza I went back to my room to get my harmonica bandolier and my banjo, and when I came down to the registration area, decided I should call my wife. Alan Munde was using the phone, and after a while asked if I needed to use it. I said yes, but he should finish first. He took another half hour or so. When I finally got to the phone, I found out that although I'd only completed two calls, my card was used up, so I headed for the jams. When I walked past the big bluegrass jam they were playing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," in G, of course, so I got out my C harmonica and began playing some crossharp backup and ornaments. A bluegrass picker, Barry, who had apparently called the tune, passed a break to me and I played it and it went over well. I could have stayed, but I went looking for Kathy, but never found her. The only jam I found was fiddle tunes, and I'd had enough of them and wanted to pick and sing. I wandered back to a vestibule with up and down stairways--up to the dining hall, down to the basement where I had found Kathy's classes at last, and I went down but couldn't find a jam I wanted to join. I came back up to the main floor and out the door where I'd seen a group of young players, all armed with Lee banjos, earlier--and a couple of them were still there. No one was playing, but I sat down and took out my banjo and started playing some songs, not fiddle tunes, and after a while Dan, the Civil War reenactor whom I had met in the early bird jam cam out, and we started playing some songs. I think the first was "Long Black Veil," then I did "Green, Green Grass of Home," we did "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching," then I did a strike song I had written to the same tune, then another of my strike songs based on the slightly bawdy "Take Your Fingers off It"--which is one of the many songs that can be sung to the circle of fifths runs of "Alice's Restaurant" or the Beatles' "Her Majesty." We started playing "Mrs. McGrath" but couldn't quite get together on it--Dan played it major, I played it minor. I think by this time the last of the Lee owners had gone. I finished with "Ha-roo, Ha-roo [Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye]."

Sunday morning I again woke early--no jet lag for this guy--and after packing up most of my stuff went to breakfast, then back to my room for my banjo and camera and minidisk recorder (neither of which I had used at all up to this time--there's so much I wish I had recorded, but when I'm having fun, I don't think of such things. Clif's bones workshop was during the first class period, and after I had got it set up, I was determined to go. He needed a banjo player and I wanted to make sure he had a good number of participants. There were about a dozen of us there, I think, and Clif said he wanted to start on a slow tune and suggested "Careless Love." Chris Coole's fiddling girlfriend Erynn Marshal was there, and we seemed to work well together--which means that I was able to keep the rhythm and not mess it up--she was terrific. We started the tune, and I started singing the verses, and just after "What, oh what will mother say," Cliff stopped us so he could do some teaching, and I grabbed my camera, put it in movie mode, and recorded his demonstration, probably about ten minutes of it. Then he asked for the music again, and Erynn and I, and by now another banjo player, picked up--the rest of the group trying to catch the rhythm with their bones. We finished "Careless Love," then Clif wanted something a bit faster, and we did "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," and something still faster, and we did "I'll Fly Away."

During the second class session I finally got my recorder going, for Ryan Baugus' session on tunes in different tunings. I'm not sure how many of them there were, but I have them on minidisk--a good thing, because my short nights of sleep finally caught up with me and I slept through half his demo, which he took in good humor.

After that, it was time for the group picture, which went well and fairly quickly. I'm probably easily identifiable standing tall on the viewer's left, my white-fringed bald head gleaming in the sun. When I went back to the building to get in line for lunch, i bumped into a group of people who missed the picture: Bill Keith's class on the mathematics of music. So there's no Bill Keith in the picture, unless--as he hoped they would--they dummy him in in Photoshop. In line, waiting for the cafeteria to open, someone asked me why I had come so far for the camp, I explained about Art and Chris, and then said--because I had just realized it--and particularly because of "Bloody Red River." Chris and Erynn were at a table next to mine and I told him that and Erynn that I had enjoyed playing with her. Soon after that, Dan joined me at the table. He was planning on attending one of the after-lunch sessions, Women of the Banjo, with Murphy Henry, Janet Beazley, and Kathy B-P, but I had to get an early start back to the airport, as I tend to get lost without a navigator. I did--and it's the last trip I take without GPS.

Charles (stopping at last)