The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #61138   Message #981521
Posted By: Rick Fielding
11-Jul-03 - 05:44 PM
Thread Name: Pete Seeger's Banjo virtuosity
Subject: RE: Pete Seeger's Banjo virtuosity
Thanks for the feedback.

Hmmmmm Earl Scruggs and Pete eh, Martin Gibson? I'd have to differ with you on that. Pete started playing College concerts in the forties and continued right up til a very few years ago. I don't think Louise Scruggs booked the band into Vanterbilt til wayy into the sixties. I'd have to think that Pete influenced ten or twenty times as many players as Earl did. Earl is the most exciting player I ever heard and I was lucky enough to see him (in Montreal) just before the band broke up. Many serious players had written him off by then because of his personal problems (terrible wreck) and some timing problems, but I was in Heaven. I had to put up with the Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat junction shit but Lester had simply refused to sing the Dylan songs that Louise was trying to force him to do cause they were "folky".

Also the styles and instruments are soooo different. A Granada and a Tubaphone with a long neck couldn't be more dis-similar. It would be like adding the lightning fast brilliance of Harry Reser on his Orpheum Plectrum. They were ALL the best in their styles.

Pete learned to play after hearing Bascom Lunsford in 1939. Prior to that he played pop songs on a tenor.

My fave Seeger 'accompaniement'? "Come all ye fair and tender ladies". One take.....some mistakes...wonderful.

Have to agree with Fretless. He always used two picks and a ring finger 'frailer' pick.

"The Bitter and the Sweet". Played that a thousand times. Mike is NOT a better player....he's a different player...but damn good!

Jed Marum has a very unusual style of playing....works great.

Rick