What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?

Subject: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 03:21 PM

Every once in awhile I see a thread or humorous comments on how awful banjos are from our friends across the pond. Sitting around joking with friends from England when they've visited here, their banjo jokes cause a bovine expression on us Americans. We don't get it. I think most of us USAers (so no one starts arguing about who "Americans" are enjoy banjo. There certainly is no social stigma that there seems to be in England. Over here, maybe concertinas might cause a crinkled nose or to and bring up images of Myron Floren playing Lady Of Spain on the Lawrence Welk show wearing a lime green leisure suit, but that image is disappearing.

So what gives, my English friends? How come the banjo stigma over your way. Was somebody's Mother run over by a banjo player, or wot?

Enlighten me.

Jerry

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 04:06 PM

Every community or social/racial group of people has its 'joke butts'. With the English, it's the Irish, with the Irish it's the Kerryman, with the Americans, it's the Polish, with the Polish, it's the Czechs or who ever....

The banjo is not the most loved of instruments over here. I find it strident and obtrusive in sessions and just downright unpleasant as a solo instrument, but that could be because it causes an uncomfortable vibration in my deaf ear. It could also be because it was only fairly recently I met someone who could actually play the thing tunefully.

Just as people who dislike a racial group will joke about that group, so those who dislike the banjo will joke about banjoes.

LTS

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 04:18 PM

Actually I would go so far as to say that the banjo is a beloved instrument in America. It has worked well with folk and of course bluegrass over the years and there are of course numerous musicians who know how to play it tastefully.

Jerry, I would just say it's a cultural thing. the British don't know how to make good hamburgers or BBQ ribs either.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 04:26 PM

Well my recollections of "banjo" humour go back to reading "Three Men in a Boat" many many years ago. This is a gentle Edwardian humorous book about three friends (not forgetting the dog) who set of on a camping/boating holiday on the Thames suffering many vicissitudes - not the least of which is one of their number deciding that it is the "ideal" opportunity to learn to play banjo!

p.s. Some of my best friends are banjo players - honest

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Old Roger
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 04:26 PM

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.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: pdq
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 04:54 PM

...here's a Banjo with an attitude...from Ian Tyson's "M.C. Horses":


                         "So the M.C. crew they rode 'em all
                         And the people all gathered 'round.
                         One ol' boy gave two grand for Banjo.
                         Banjo took his trailer apart
                         When he tired to load him up for town
                         Back in August-- 100 head and more."

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 05:00 PM

Hey, Old Roger: I play and love banjo too. I play it strictly for accompaniment. I play mostly old-time finger-picked style and love Charlie Poole's style of playing. I find that the banjo can work on everything from Poole's material to Oh Come, Oh Come Immanuel. I works nicely on Lost Jimmy Whalen and can have a spare, mournful sound. The one thing that I find over here in more recent days is that the banjo is not used nearly as commonly for solo accompaniment as it was in the southern Appalachians in the early 1900's. It's primarily a string or bluegrass band instrument (or in vocal groups, with other instruments.) Someone told me once that I was one of their favorite banjo players who sing, and I answered... you mean there are more than Howie Bursen and me? I realize that there are more, and I am no great banjo player. Cathy Barton is without peer as a banjo player who accompanies herself singing, over here.

Jerry

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 05:22 PM

Hey, I LIKE banjo too, as long as it's not too loud....and walks on everybody else. So there.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,Arnie Naiman
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 05:39 PM

Personally I'd choose banjo music over Morris bells any day of week, and a good pint of Boddingtons.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 05:43 PM

I like an egg banjo and a cup of cha for me tiffin.
Giok

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 05:54 PM

Think "Deliverance".

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 05:59 PM

I think that all this stems from the type of venues we have here in the UK. Many folk clubs are in rooms above pubs, which tend to have a great deal of echo in the acoustics, due to a lack of sound deadening furnishings.

In this situation a banjo tends to come out rather loudly in the mix, which might account for some of the antipathy displayed by players of other instruments.

The same would apply to bodhrans and spoons, which also tend to be treated with the same disdain.

When any of these instruments (I use the term advisedly, because that is what they are) is used with sensitivity, and a delicate touch the result is harmonious, but often they are not used in this way.

Don T.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Snuffy
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:01 PM

The UK perception is that if you have no musical talent, you can always play the banjo instead. Bodhrans, being banjo eggs yet to hatch, have a similar reputation.

And Banjoes are L-O-U-D, especially indoors.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: MissouriMud
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:03 PM

Even in this country, at least in the midwest/ozarkian stringband circles I tend to frequent, there is a certain amount of friendly ribbing from the other instrumentalists directed at the banjo players - regarding their drooling,constant retuning etc - we don't have nuthin against the banjer, but thems that play'em can be a might strange. *ducks for cover*

A bit of cultural snobbism for the euro based viol, mando and guitar over the homespun gourd-on-a-stick? Some vestige of racism? Jealousy?Or is there more to it?

I would agree that use of the banjo as sole accompaniment for voice or fiddle has dropped off in these parts as compared to the golden age. In my humble opinion, as a former banjo player, I think it is just too tough for a lot of people (present company excepted to be sure) to make sound really good by itself.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Kaleea
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:13 PM

Perhaps what our friends across the pond need is for Prince William or Prince Harry to take up pickin' & grinnin' on a Banjo. Surely there's one around all those palaces & castles somewhere, isn't there?

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:21 PM

A swift pluck behind the arras is not unknown in royal circles.
G

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:23 PM

Don't take it too seriously, Jerry. It's mostly just British humour.

The banjo has the same role in traditional music that the viola does in classical music - the butt of all the jokes :-)

G the T

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:26 PM

Like the oboe being described as "An ill wind that nobody blows good"
G.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: gnomad
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:47 PM

I think it is partly that taking the mickey out of each other is more or less a national sport here in Britain (although I understand that the Ausies may have raised it to an even higher level) and almost any identifiable group will come in for a share. The banter is generally indicative of a degree of affection, people we genuinely dislike are treated very correctly, or ignored altogether.

Not being a banjoist I am free to get a rise from them if I can (although I quite enjoy the instrument in moderation, and reserve the real venom for tambourines and triangles) accordionists and BMW drivers are also fair game.

In return, I can expect a degree of ribbing about singing with a finger in the ear (I sing unaccompanied, but never f.i.e.) and about pulling the other leg, which has bells on it (five years since I danced morris, but would-be wits have long memories). Tyke delights in calling me "the little fat git", others like to ask me the correct collective noun for bankers (a wunch b.t.w.) that being my former job.

If I was truly bothered about such teasing it would probably end, but I would doubtless be told I had no sense of humour. That is among the most deeply offensive things one can say to someone in this country. So, like the rest, I dish it out and get it back again.

I generally do this sort of thing face to face, rather than on line, partly because it is more fun, and partly because not all cultures see such things the same way and it would be wrong to hurt innocent bystanders.

I don't know if this helps at all, Jerry, but I would say that the jokes are generally made without malice. If we start getting terribly polite and formal then it might be time to start looking for cover.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 06:52 PM

banjo.. loud..????

i've got a humbucker pickup wired in to my 6 string open back banjo
and play it through a high gain distortion marshall amp..

it growls and spits and feeds-back something loveley !!!!


nothing else sounds so doom laden and gothic death metal
as my banjo when its thrashed out in open Gm tuning..

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 07:22 PM

Don't get me wrong, I am not even faintly upset about the jokes. Or amused either. Just bewildered. It's like a national cultural attitude built around jokes about refrigerators.. :-)

Just wondering.. that's all

Jerry

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 07:22 PM

I'm fairly sure that Tootler has it right. Every form of music has it - in rock and roll it's drummers, in classical it's violas. I have to say, in my little bit of the folk scene it's always been box players, but there you go!

It's certainly not meant to be taken seriously or as offensive.

So who do jazz players pick on? World music?

Cheers,

QTWF

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 07:23 PM

Jerry, I see things differently. Most of the banjo stuff I see in the UK is "hick/hillbilly" suff that is undoubtebtly of US origin and the tenor (I play, mostly in Irish sessions) is largely left out of it.

There is a brand of Brit though, heavily into reality tv, who also is US marketing orientated (and our sadness at following the money making trend), and every other junk they are fed. I'd guess if there is a UK problem at the moment, it is from that direction. People like that would know how to make corney "ye-haw" (even if not relevant to say an Irish jig but they have worked out the things have a velum so must be the same...)

Bottom line is we can be good at adopting some of the worse of the US and thinking it cool to do so.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 07:32 PM

That explains some of it, Guest... I'm not much on the straw sucking bib overall with a fake patch on one knee image of banjo, either. I prefer a patch on both knees, myself...

Jerry

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 07:37 PM

LOL, I think we are on the same wavelenght there.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 11:27 PM

In virtually all bluegrass groups, a good banjo player is the heart of all instrumentation. I have played with some excellent banjoists. I have never heard anything but respect for these musicians. There is apparently a shortage of good banjo players in the UK, which leads me to believe their is very little quality bluegrass there and for what it's worth, the UK acoustic music scene is deficient without it.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,Louise
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 11:40 PM

Don't know if this is relevant, but when I was younger and had better hearing, I would enjoy banjo or bluegrass music for about 40 minutes before it started to get very uncomfortable. It literally "got on my nerves" so badly that I had to stop listening. I guess everybody perceives sounds (and other sensory input) in their own unique way, and what sounds wonderful to some may be just enough "off" to someone else to sound unpleasant.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Once Famous
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 12:04 AM

Or else you might have ADD.

But I know what you mean. I can listen to about 20 seconds of fusion style jazz and then run away quickly.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 08:42 AM

Jerry, it's just a joke, you obviously don't understand British humour,
as has been said many times before, Americans don't understand irony.

eric [ tenor banjo player ]

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 08:49 AM

for what its worth..

US gothic alt country [eg handsome family/slim cessna/blanche/16 horse power.. etc]

is very popular with 40-something Brits of a certain punk folk disposition..

and the banjo is an indespenible force in this kind of morose and morbidly emotional/poetic music..

..but as to if any of us in the UK should try to emulate our favourite US music..???

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Snuffy
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 09:05 AM

The banjo is as integral to British folk music as the bagpipes are to American folk music

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 09:59 AM

It's ironic that you said that, Eric. We understand and appreciate irony. We're just ironic about different things. We're more likely to ask someone who plays accordian to play Lady Of Spain. Different instruments, same irony.

Ironical, ain't it? :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Effsee
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 10:07 AM

What do you mean "Brit Banjo Thing" ??? Check out Steve Kaufman's website, there's a whole section on Banjo jokes!
www.flatpik.com

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,George G
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 10:14 AM

It's not all banjos, Jerry, it's that 5-string thing

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Moses
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 12:03 PM

I love the banjo - and I'm blonde - and British.

I heard LOTS of jokes about both.

Anyone got a joke that has both blondes and banjos in it?

Christine

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,ritchie
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 12:36 PM

there is also the expression

'hey. if ye divent stop that, I'll banjo ye'

I don't think it's the banjo as such....more the people who play it ;-)

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Lanfranc
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 12:41 PM

When I was young, there were lots of British folkies who played banjo; Shirley Collins, Dave Cousins (of Strawbs), Derek Brimstone, Dave Arthur - to name but a few.

For some reason I have never managed to fathom, in the '70s, banjos sort of faded out apart from the occasional GDAE-tuned tenor among the Hibernian tendency.

Perhaps they are due for a revival. Brimmo, for one, has lost none of his banjo mastery, as he proved conclusively last time I saw him.

Alan (who has been known to play 5-string, mandobanjo and tenor when roused)

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 12:45 PM

There's another about ineffective footie strikers: He couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 12:56 PM

As one clawhammer player who loves visiting British sessions I have to say everyone has been just wonderful and I have never heard a single put down .. In the 70's if you entered a Pub with a banjo case everyone asked for George Formby's songs but they were glad to hear anything live.It was just what they knew .
            THe last visit I had in 2003 everyone had an open ear for all kinds of G sus 4 stuff and I found the knowedge of American clawhammer very advanced and of a real interest.. On other levels I have learned as much about traditional American Blues in British clubs as anywhere .
            Some of the best recordings of American clawhammer I have ever heard can be gotten through Banjo-Ray's group in Briton . Friends of ><<<>( I will leave the correct title to Ray !!)
            All the best to all here . Guy

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 05:30 PM

I like banjo jokes but I also like banjos. I can fully recomend Irish tennor banjo player, Angelina Carberry's new CD an Traidisiun Beo. First class fun from start to end, a real treat. And also Big Pink Lad, I have heard it as " couldn't hit a bull on the balls with a banjo".

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 05:47 PM

The banjo is a fine instrument (I just bought a Mike Ramsey Fairbanks Electric today) and I love it - but I wouldn't say there's no social stigma. Most of the banjo jokes I've heard were from Americans. Maybe it's because the banjo is a potentially loud instrument, which can sound REALLY AWFUL if played badly.

I've heard a joke attributed to Mark Twain that the definition of a gentleman is someone who owns a banjo, but doesn't play one. I looked it up and discovered that the attribution is dubious, but we do know Twain said this:

"When you want genuine music--music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose,--when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!"
   - Mark Twain, "Enthusiastic Eloquence,"
    San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 6/23/1865

To paraphrase Bruce Phillips, I would call the banjo "loved but unrespected." On either side of the pond.

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 10:45 PM

Was it Oscar Wilde who when hearing someone playing the bagpipes and expressed his dislike responded to someone who said, "They are very difficult to play," by saying, "I wish it was impossible!" ?

Whoever it was, it's a great line..

Jerry

Never play a nose flute with a head cold.

Never play a mouth harp immediately after eating corn.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 10:55 PM

Combined Blonde / Banjo joke !    Beautiful blonde goes to Doc for routine check up and is told by Doc that she has a Fatal Disease and will be dead in three months ! She gets hysterical and asks if there is anything she could do . Doc suggests a heavy relationship with a banjo player , so she asks if this will make her live longer - Doc says "NO , But it will SEEM longer!"

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Moses
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 11:02 AM

Ta Terry

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 11:21 AM

"From: Jerry Rasmussen - PM
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 07:32 PM

That explains some of it, Guest... I'm not much on the straw sucking bib overall with a fake patch on one knee image of banjo, either. I prefer a patch on both knees, myself..."

The only ones I object to are those who sound as though they play from sheet music while wearing patches over both eyes.

Don T.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 07:10 PM

As Guy Wolff pointed out, there are some excellent 5-string banjo players in the UK. In our society, the Friends Of American Old Time Music And Dance we have around 400 paid-up members with at least 50 of them including the banjo as one of their instruments. We have a strong turn out of banjo players at our workshops, festivals and camps, complementing the other Old Time instruments, and visiting US fiddlers like Alan Jabbour, Dave Bing, Brad Leftwich, Tom Sauber have been delighted with the banjo standard in our sessions. Friends in the British Bluegrass Music Association tell me their membership is maybe twice the size, and they have some superb three-finger players, and Clinton Hammond will be pleased to hear that one of them won the banjo prize at the world-famous Walnut Valley festival in Winfield, Kansas in front of 15000 bluegrass fans.
We all make banjo jokes, of course, mainly because we Brits can't stand showing deep love for anything!

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 07:18 PM

And for those interested, our Festival at Gainsborough 17-19 Feb, details in this thread, will have some of the best Old Time banjo players from anywhere - John Herrmann, Carl Jones, Rafe Stefanini (when he's not fiddling), Bill Whelan, Johnny Whelan (no relation), Kate Lissauer and John Les.
Ray

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,Anonny Mouse
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 11:15 PM

I'm a big fan of 5-string banjos-bluegrass, frailing (or "clawhammer")-you name it. Anyone who says it aint a legit instrument is not listening. Pick up something by Bela Fleck and see/hear what he'll do with a fiver. Pete Seeger, Allison Brown, Eric Weissberg, Doug Dillard, Billy Faier...heck even ol' Earl Scruggs. Great stuff. Can't say I'm familiar with any great Brit banjoists...are they out there...and what do they play? Bluegrass? Folksy stuff? Old Timey? Just wonderin'

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 28 Jan 06 - 10:14 AM

According to UK journalist Simon ("Son of the more famous Richard") Hoggart, orchestral players make all the same jokes about violas and violists.

RtS

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jan 06 - 11:38 AM

A friend of mine who has since retired to Tennessee plays what he describes as 'classic' 5-string banjo, an orchestral style that was popular in the US in the early 1900s, replete with bell-like chords up the neck and trills that thrill. No capos ever. Done with the ebbs and flows and swells of a sensitive instrument.

I remember he does a beautiful 'Last Date', the tune Floyd Cramer made popular on piano. But the style also lends itself well to early popular music like 'Five Foot Two', 'My Blue Heaven', 'Beautiful Isle of Somewhere'...

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 28 Jan 06 - 12:26 PM

Thursday nights at the 'Eel's Foot', Eastbridge, Suffolk, just wouldn't be the same without the contribution from Banjo Brian! I had a five-minute teach-in last week, made some chords that sounded good (to me, at least), and think that, rather like the onset of flu, this could be the start of something.....I suspect that my family has a long history of marrying close relatives, so surely I'm halfway to being a banjo player? (Whoops, that Brit Banjo Thing again!)

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: GUEST,Anonny Mouse
Date: 28 Jan 06 - 03:08 PM

Watch out-banjos can be addictive. Especially when well-played. Hey, and kids like 'em too.

Subject: RE: What's This Brit Banjo Thing all about?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jan 06 - 10:52 AM

a geat aid to memory too....

whenever someone opens a banjo case, people tend to remember where they ought to be leaving for.....