I first heard the banjo as a young boy. I was enamored of the four-string instrument not aware at that time whether it was tenor or plectrum-tuned. It was a happy sound and I loved it. I also found that people could sing with it as well.

When I first heard the five-string banjo in 1949 at a Hootenanny in a Hollywood Hills home, I was captivated by its down-home quality. Matty Miller was a good clawhammer player albeit simple but his playing had that wonderful wooden quality as well as the brassy sound and was ideal for accompanying mountain folk tunes.

Later, I heard Pete Seeger and again was enchanted by the bright ringing tones he got with his fingerpicks and how he employed it as a complete musical instrument for song accompaniment. I met him in the early 50's at the home of Will Geer and when he played I thought that I saw sparks shoot out from his hands.

I had heard Pete earlier on a recording of "Hold The Line" written by members of the Weavers to describe the Peekskill riot.

The first and classic recording I heard of Pete was the 10" Folkways "Darlin' Corey" which in my opinon was a high benchmark for folk singer performances on an lP. He did unusual things for a banjo player such as a suspended rolling arpeggio accompaniment under the old ballads such as "John Reilly" and "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies". He was the first five-string banjo player that I heard playing an accompaniment in 6/8 time for "Risselty Rasselty". To my knowledge, no one before that time had used the five-string banjo with such musical versatility. Pete also introduced Earl Scruggs' style of playing to the city folks in New York.

I had heard that Pete started playing tenor banjo at Harvard and knew a lot of the popular songs of the 20's and 30's. This would explain his penchant for using ninth and thirteenth chords
in his accompaniments.

The point of all of this is that the banjo is a highly versatile instrument capable of many different styles of playing and is just now beginning to be explored for its entire musical range. Bach sounds good on it. There are be-bop banjo players both five-string and four-string and discoveries in the so-called "Old Time" community of two-finger and three-finger styles are being resourced.

We have a banjo Renaissance and the 6-String is the next to be explored.

Frank Hamilton