I hope Justa won't mind my using his truly wonderful thread to bring up thumbpicking (Travis picking) related things that aren't directly related to technique. The thumbpicking style as so ably exemplified by Mose Rager, Ike Everly, Merle Travis, Comer "Moon" Mullins, Thom Bresh, Eddie Pennington, Ben Hall, Steve Rector, et al. (and of course Justa Picker), is quite different than the folk style finger picking we more often hear and certainly deserves to be category of its own.

We got back from Mountain View late Sunday night very tired but very happy. A highlight of the weekend was getting to see Arkie again. Dale Rose lives nearby as well but wasn't in Mt. View while we were there. Maybe next year.

The shows were well done. They included some things that related more to the overall mission of the Ozark Folk Center than to thumbpicking specifically but there was plenty of thumbpicking too. We had a great time picking with the folks around the town square, ran into Glenn Ohrlin, and got to meet Jon Garon of My Favorite Guitars and play some tunes. Jon was there backing up Steve Rector and to help publicize the new Steve Rector signature model guitar from Gallagher.

If you haven't heard Ben Hall play, you need to do that. Ben is a young man (19 - 20) from Okolona, MS, who plays and sings with the ability and confidence of someone twice his age. Right now he's working with Charlie Louvin and I predict many more great things for him in the years ahead.

Unfortunately, there was no contest this year. Not enough thumbpickers are signing up. I hope more thumbpickers will sign up and compete next year. Justa, are you reading this? This event is too good to let it lapse for lack of interest.

The thumbpicking repertoire tends toward American pop standards from the 1920s and '30s plus tunes specifically composed for the style. It isn't anything at all like bluegrass music but shares aspects with bluegrass. It is one of the very few genres of music where we know exactly who started it, when, and how it came to be. It also shares two other things with bluegrass music. They both began in western Kentucky and they both were influenced by an unrecorded African-American musician named Arnold Schultz. Given the amount of music that has come from the people he directly or indirectly influenced, Schultz may be one of the most influential people in the history of American popular music.

      - Mark