When we're in a jam and another banjo player joins us, Frank usually switches to clawhammer. The two styles work well together for alternating or sharing breaks (depending on the players) and it sure sounds like bluegrass! He also always does certain songs clawhammer style, such as Jimmy Martin's "Hold What You Got" and many bluegrass gospel songs such as "Holding Up the Ladder" and "Unclouded Day" and "Take Me In Your Lifeboat."

The bluegrass crowd loves this clawhammer stuff, but it draws flies. One jam over the summer had SIX BANJO PLAYERS in it! (I thought I had died and gone to hell). The clawhammer tends to carry more, fills more spaces in the song, or somedamnthing, and every banjo player within a mile has to show up and join in, I guess . . .

Anyway, my point is that I wouldn't call it not-bluegrass just because it's clawhammer. It's bluegrass in our family, although you don't see much clawhammer on stage (unless it's us).