http://cdbaby.com/cd/banjogathering

Hi Folks, I think this will be of much interest to you old time banjo players. Some of you know that for the past six months I've been working with 22 other banjo players to put out a double CD (50 cuts) of unaccompanied Old Time banjo tunes. The project is available as of today. The following players each contributed two to three tracks, and all have waived artist royalties to help make some money for the Scholarship Fund at the Swannanoa Gathering in N. Carolina. Participants are Bruce Molsky, Mike Seeger, Cathy Fink, Brad Leftwich, John Cohen, John Herrmann, John McCutcheon, Alice Gerrard, Rafe Stefanini, David Winston, Paul Brown, Terri McMurray, Tom Sauber, Gordy Hinners, Phil Jamison, Bob Thornburg, Gail Gillespie, Brett Riggs, Dan Gellert, Joe Newberry, Scott Ainslie, Steve Baughman and Pete Sutherland, ALL UNACCOMPANIED!

ALL ARTIST ROYALTIES GO TO THE SCHOLARSHIP FUND FOR THE SWANNANOA GATHERING TO HELP YOUNG FOLKS STUDY FOLK MUSIC AT WARREN WILSON COLLEGE IN ASHEVILLE, N.C. If you are interested in buying one, or just want to hear some clips, check out the CDbaby link. Full info on the project is below. It's a fun one. AND IF YOU KNOW OTHER BANJO PLAYERS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED, PERHAPS YOU COULD PASS THIS ALONG?

thx,
steve baughman


BANJO GATHERING: 100% PURE OLD TIME BANJO. UNOBSCURED, UNACCOPMANIED AND UNADULTERATED.
DOUBLE CD WITH 50 OLD TIME BANJO TUNES AND EXTENSIVE LINER NOTES (20 PAGE BOOKLET). In the Fall of 2006, 23 of the best old time banjo players in the country each recorded 2 to 3 old time banjo solos and contributed them to this project, which seeks to document the state of old time banjo music at the beginning of the 21st century. This is a very unique double CD set that contains 50 tunes, some well-known and some very obscure. Eleven of the tracks contain singing by the banjo player, but there is no accompaniment whatsoever, just banjo.

The old time banjo, "the heartbeat of the band," tends to get lost in jams and it is rarely featured as a solo instrument. So we peeled away all the guitars, fiddles, basses and washboards to let you hear what 23 players do with their banjos when nobody else is around. Nothing like this has been done since County Records released their Clawhammer Banjo series decades ago. This is a similar project, but with contemporary players, all of whom are still alive and kicking.

The project contains a wide variety of banjos, fretted, fretless, gourd, 13" large-pot Spratt, nylon string, gut strings, some slick and some funky, and several banjos made by the players themselves. And although most of the tunes are played clawhammer style, there is a wide variety of styles employed. (Mike Seeger actually goes back and forth between picking, strumming and clawhammer on his two tunes.)   

This project is for anyone interested in old time music or in banjo styles, and for those interested in expanding their tune repertoire, or in just listening to pure, uncommercialized, old time music. It was especially important that we do this project because over a third of these folks had never recorded a banjo solo before, even though most of them appear on many, many CDs and are well-known in old time music. So this is the only place you can hear them totally unobscured.

There is nowhere else to get an album with Bruce Molsky, Mike Seeger, Cathy Fink, Brad Leftwich, John Cohen, John Herrmann, John McCutcheon, Alice Gerrard, Rafe Stefanini, David Winston, Paul Brown, Terri McMurray, Tom Sauber, Gordy Hinners, Phil Jamison, Bob Thornburg, Gail Gillespie, Brett Riggs, Dan Gellert, Joe Newberry, Scott Ainslie, Steve Baughman and Pete Sutherland all in one place. We also paid extra for a 20 page booklet so that you could have a lot of information about the players, their styles, their instruments and their stories.

And by the way, 100% of artist royalties go to the Swannanoa Gathering Scholarship Fund to provide opportunities for economically challenged musicians to spend a week every summer at the Swannanoa Gathering music camp in the hills of North Carolina. This is a non-commercial, but very professionally produced and recorded, project that is a labor of deep love by all 23 of the players involved.