The Banjo is Back!

Subject: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 09:21 AM

The Banjo is Back! Odd things have been happening lately. I just got a call from OME banjos telling me that my custom made clawhammer banjo is being shipped, and I related to Chuck that on Saturday we put on a banjo concert to a sold out room. In fact we had to tell at least 30 folks that they couldn't get in. Those that did, listened intently to banjo music for a few hours that evening - and seemed keenly interested in it all. Chuck said that there definitley is a resurgance going on. Their sales were up by 50% over the past year. He said this happens every so often - the last big one was just after the movie Deliverance. On Saturday as well an article in the Toronto Star Newspaper told of the chairman of The Royal Bank of Canada was retiring to concentrate on learning clawhammer banjo. They've been playing cuts from our clawhammer CD'S on CBC radio -who'd of thunk it. For years there were very few banjo players around Toronto - now there seems to be a banjo playing community growing, and many of these young folks will be top notch musicians. It's all a lot of fun - Any one else been noticing this in your community?

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 09:29 AM

Back? I'm not sure it ever left, at least not in the circles I move in. I go to Clifftop every summer, and there are more people there evey year and they all seem to be very good banjo players! Of course in the general population, number of banjo players is still very small. If there is a banjo revival, I would give Dwight Diller an awful lot of the credit; he has been traveling around the country giving weekend banjo workshops which a number of my friends have attended and come away with a good appreciation for rhythm and timing. There's lots of different banjo styles and the one that seems to be most prominent is the old clawhammer style.

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 10:53 AM

Pete - I believe we've met on a few occasions, and even have been in jam sessions. When you go to Clifftop it seems everyone plays the banjo well. I mean in general, especially around here the interest that has picked up is noticable.

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: chip a
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 12:39 PM

Old time music in general is "back". Old time banjo ,clawhammer especially, is being rediscovered by people all over. Of course! It's FUN! I only hope that the rash of new pickers will show some diversity in their styles. There's more than one way to choke a cat besides on butter! Pick on Chip

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Blind Desert Pete
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 02:27 PM

To: Pete Peterson. Pete, do you know Anita Dolen, fiddle player from colorado? She has often spoken of a Pete Peterson and I wonder if youre him? BDP

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 02:31 PM

Peter maybe I will get a chance to meet you at Clifftop. Not sure yet if I am going this summer. I plan to attend a Dwight Diller camp this summer. Seeing if I can tie that in with Clifftop.

As for the concert Arnie is speaking of, it was amazing! Arnie Naiman and Chris Coole were at their best. I also got to hear Brian Taheny on Irish tenor banjo and Christopher Quinn on bluegrass banjo. Christopher is best known for his melodic bluegrass style.
All excellent musicians. How fortunate we are here in Toronto.

Arnie, I must hear this OME banjo when it arrives. Mr. Naiman is on a quest for the perfect holy tone. Hopefully he will be resonating in his sacred grail.........OMMMMMMMMMMME

Bonnie

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 02:57 PM

WOW! Yes I am Anita's friend; saw her last at Clifftop two summers (sigh) ago; last year I was there but she wasn't. Secondhand reports are she enjoys living in VA
Bonnie, I hope you make time for Clifftop. If you do, plan on not sleeping for a while. There are musicians of all levels of skill and LOTS of different kinds of banjo playing; even differing ways of playing clawhammer.
Maybe the best way to meet Arnie, Bonnie and Rick is for me to take a long weekend and come up to Toronto. With planning, it COULD be done.
sure wish I dared take out a Mudcat membership at work but the thought police are looking for overt acts. . . [e-mail] will reach me by PM

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: CRANKY YANKEE
Date: 13 Mar 01 - 03:47 PM

When I first started playing Banjo in 1950, there were an estimated 400 banjo players in the whole wold. 200 or so were listed by the "Fraternity of 5-string Banjoists of America". which was headquartered in Connecticut, somewere. The figured that any banjo player that they knew about was automatically a member. Tom Paley taught me "Clawhammer" in about ten minutes, with "Johnny Booker". I taught myself three finger Bluegrass styl and used it on a Rock and Roll record, "Angel Face" by the "Neons" (Tetra Lable) in l956. Yes, Chip A, there are too many banjo players with only one style. I play the thing any way I want to and with any kind of music. My Long time friend, and one time partner, Roger Sprung does Mozart, Wagner, Tschaikovskey, Scott Joplin and a lot of 1920-30's pop tunes. His "Maple leaf Rag" is dynamite. When I sarted playing banjo, there were top of the line banjo's hanging in every hock shop window, which could be purchased for almost nothing. If you think that there aren't many five string banjoists around, then you are traveling in the wrong circles. I go to a Bluegrass-ish picking party at the Rennaisance Art Gallery in Fall River, Mass on the first and third friday of every month, and the place is crawling with some very accomplished banjo pickers, some of whom play anything you want. One of these guys plays Irish traditional jigs, reels and hornpipes that will knock your ears off. Paul Geremia, who also lives in Newport, called me up one day and said that he has a record of Uncle Dave Macon playing "The wreck of the Tennessee Gravy train" and it sounded like a Barrelhouse piano. He suggested that I come over and listen to it and try to learn to play like that. So I did. I worked out a picking techniqeue (all fingers picking down) that pretty much sounds like that. Paul called me up a few days later and said, "Never mind", because what he heard was actually two banjo's with Sam Mcgee playing rhythm on a "Guitar-Banjo". Anyway, whenever Paul or I work here in the old home town, the other one shows up and we throw the audience a curve with The Tennessee Gravy train. He calls my newly worked out banjo fingering technique "Jody's schizzophrenic banjo". For those of you who've never heard him, Paul Geremia is known throughout the world as strictly a blues singer. But, he's a lot more than that. At parties and jam sessions, he plays all kinds of stuff. The two of us do "At The Royal Hawaiian Hotel" and everyone who doesn't know him get's this look of disbelief on their faces. Dave Macon was versitile as all get out. Enough.

Jody Gibson, Newport, RI.

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 14 Mar 01 - 12:53 PM

I must confess that I am somewhat distressed by the thought of a resurgence in banjo/old time music popularity. I can't deal with another folk scare.

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: chip a
Date: 14 Mar 01 - 01:21 PM

Greetings Guest Russ, So what's a folk scare? I've met some pretty scary folks in my life. Maybe that's not what you mean. But then, you don't really have to deal with it do you? I mean, I don't listen to a lot of Elvis impersonators myself. Hey, ain't freedom grand?! It is great though, isn't it, when people are filling their lives with happy music. And who can imagine an army marching to "fly around my pretty little miss"? Happy Picking, Chip

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,maire
Date: 14 Mar 01 - 02:49 PM

Hey guys, how about a mention of the tenor and plectrum banjos?? Big gain in popularity and sales. Jazz, Dixieland and ragtime rule!!

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: chip a
Date: 14 Mar 01 - 03:01 PM

Hey Guest Marie, Plectrum & tenor --- Let's see now, those are the ones with the missing string, right? Chip

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Fretless
Date: 15 Mar 01 - 09:32 AM

Pete Seeger, the guy who started me -- and a lot of the rest of us -- on banjo playing during an earlier "revival" of the music will be performing/speaking at the Smithsonian in Washington DC on the evening of May 9th. Details, http://residentassociates.org/rap/otomay/seeger.asp.

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From:
Date: 15 Mar 01 - 04:09 PM

I didn't know banjo had been away. I have enjoyed banjo music for a multiplicity of decades!!!! Love to hear clawhammer (any variant of it). Bluegrass too.

I've noticed that clawhammer banjo players are doing more "serious" folk music. When I was young, The banjo player was the band comic (of sorts) and played mostly novelty songs. Lately I've heard several singers doing a kind of bluesy folk ballads on banjo. Sounds great. Tom

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From:
Date: 25 Mar 01 - 07:05 PM

Jody, do you know about the Paul Geremia video we did? Thought you might be ineterested...I wish I knew of you when we were putting it together; we were looking for people with some music knowledge who knew Paul and could add to the "testimony" about his abilities, etc. In fact, I just saw him Friday night here in Indiana, in top form! What a show!!!

Jeff Kenney

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 10:50 AM

What, where and when is Clifftop?

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 11:02 AM

I'm pleased to hear that Maire - the tenor is my favourite of the banjo family altough it is the "Irish" style I really enjoy.

I'm not quite sure what to make of Chip's comments to you but if it as meant sarcastically, I can only assume that his love of the instrument stops as short as that 5th string some banjos are fitted with.

Jon

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: mousethief
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 11:30 AM

Several hours of banjo music? These people are obviously of a superior grade than I.

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson at work
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 11:43 AM

Clifftop: the week before the first full weekend in August (originally planned so that people with lots of vacation could go from Clifftop down to Galax, which is the next weekend)
this year August 1-5. It fills up earlier every year! Where: Camp Washington-Carver, Clifftop WV (off Interstate 64 about an hour east of Charleston WV)
What: Biggest single concentration of oldtime music in the world. Everybody camps out (tents, tarps and RVs, no good motels anywhere nearby) and plays music. There are a few planned events (the banjo, fiddle, Traditional String Band and Non-Traditional String Band contests, a couple of concerts and workshops, plus square & contra dances in the lodge each night but mostly this is an excuse to see our friends and play music.
sorry I can't remember the URL for the website but there IS one.
PETE

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: wdyat12
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 12:03 PM

Banjo playing never dies. You can catch squiggle in the Celtic Room anytime.

wdyat12

Subject: RE: The Banjo is Back!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Mar 01 - 12:19 PM

Wdyat, I'm not always in the Celtic room and sometimes when I'm in there, I don't play tenor banjo although I do seem to have been playing it quite a lot over the past few days.

There are a few other banjo players that have come into the Paltalk rooms although I think I'm the only one who plays tenor. Dick Greenhaus plays 5 string as does Bonnie and Banjo Benny, Jeri has been known to give us a tune, DaveO used to play when we were using Hearme... We can't help Dave get in but it would be nice to hear some of the others more often and hopefully some new people.

Jon