Hi Jerry,

I've played the 5 string in various styles since the late fifties. I currently play clawhammer fiddle tunes etc around the folk clubs where I live and the banjos is much appreciated but not common. I am the only one in a host of guitars, mandolins, fiddles, melodeons, concertinas, whistles and bodhrans. Nobody laughs or makes smart cracks at me and my banjo.

Most folks here are pretty ignorant about the banjo these days. They can't tell a ukelele banjo from a tenor or a five string for the most part. This country used to be absolutely heaving with banjo players at every level of society and every level of ability. It used to be the smartest thing to do back in the twenties. Even the King and the Prince of Wales had banjo lessons. But when things are that popular they jade the public taste buds. The last dying fling of the banjo in popular taste was George Formby who strummed (very skilfully) the Ukelele Banjo to accompany his comic songs. He was a big film star in this country. Everybody had to have a ukelelbanjo. They still turn up on Ebay in droves. Then George and that all went out of fashion too and largely forgotten except for a few nostalgic devotees. There is a good website on his stuff somewhere.

What with George and his comic songs and the legacy of the Blackface Minstrels and the pierrots and their comic/sentimentals songs, the banjo is draped around with connotations of humour, clowning and fun. It is because of this that the name "Banjo" gets given to pets large and small and probably the reason why computer game characters get called banjo too.

One thing I can say, there is something about the banjo which makes it the perfect antidote to the twenty verse tragic ballad that some unaccompamied singer just sang. And how often have I rescued folk from impending depression and got every toe in the room tapping gymnastically. But the banjo can be lonesome too. And I love all its "atmospheres" (as they say). For me the banjo is serious - very serious. And it is serious fun too.