PHJim -- yes, the very same. And I still have copies of the Old-Timey Banjo Book knocking around the house (after publishing it in 1976 and reprinting a few years later, I changed from teaching music to teaching English, then settled into a bureaucrat's job with the gummint.

Glad you liked the book. I still sell one or two here and there, at $10 plus postage. I've sold a few here on the 'Cat, for that matter. To show how times change, the original price was $4.25, so I could ship it for $5 total, book rate. Now I sometimes put a $10 sticker over the printed price.

And the pickup I mentioned above would be one of the pickup-in-the-bridge style, not a single-coil wedged under the end of the fingerboard. And this solution doesn't work so well with really responsive instruments anyway, as they're really, really prone to feedback.

Bob