I bought a new banjo about five years ago, a really special one. It was an example of Banjo Acquisition Syndrome. Truth to tell I did not really NEED a new banjo. But I had been saving all my gig money and the photos of the banjo on the Banjo Hangout classified web site were so beautiful, and I didn’t have a mahogany banjo (just a maple one and a walnut one).
Anyway the new banjo sounded great and looked pretty and was easy to play, so I began playing it exclusively. But the other day I dug out my first good banjo (not counting the one I bought from Montgomery Ward many years ago). It started life as a mid-1960s Gibson Mastertone, the ones with the “fly swatter” peghead that was patterned after their Les Paul guitars.
But I wanted a banjo that looked like Earl’s so I had Richard Johnston and Frank Ford (this was back before they had their Gryphon store in Palo Alto) make a neck, and we swapped out the tone ring for a better one and installed a different rim as well. Gibson rims of that era were very thin, and the inside of the tone ring just hung out over empty space.
I’m not sure this banjo is actually a Gibson anymore. The tension hoop, resonator flange and the hooks and nuts are original, but everything else has been replaced. But I still think of it as the banjo I bought from a guy in San Francisco back in 1969.
I took the old banjo to band practice, pulled it out of its case, and when I wrapped my hand around the neck I got this great feeling of being in the presence of an old friend. Every banjo neck is a bit different, but the differences aren’t all that great. Yet one’s hand immediately feels it, and in this case a bunch of muscle memories ignited and for the next two hours I got a real pleasurable kick out of playing this instrument that I have had for so long, carried to so many gigs, played for so many hours.
I’m going to polish it up a bit and put the new one in the corner for a few months, I think.
What’s this world coming to? Bluegrass on TV!
Is anybody besides me paying attention to KCSM, the public TV station out of San Mateo?
I don’t know if you can get it out in the Valley, but my Comcast cable here in the Bay Area has it in high-definition on channel 717. Thursdays and Fridays the station offers a good dose of (usually) bluegrass and old-time music. One of the three shows they broadcast goes a little far afield, but even when the music isn’t precisely bluegrass it usually is interesting and traditional enough to keep my interest.
Tonight, for instance, at 8 p.m. the Jubilee show offers The Boxcars, the band featuring Ron Stewart, banjo, Adam Steffey, mandolin, John R. Bowman, fiddle, Keith Garrett, guitar, and Harold Nixon, bass. (Bowman has since left the band but this show was taped at IBMA Fanfest in Nashville, in 2012.) The second half of the show is the Skip Cherryholmes Quintet and the Chapmans, also from that same IBMA show.
Jubilee shows in recent months have been taped either at IBMA or at the Festival of the Bluegrass at Lexington Horse Park in Kentucky. Next Thursday is another show from 2012 IBMA: The Steep Canyon Rangers and the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys.
Friday nights KCSM offers two music shows. My favorite, at 8 p.m., is Song of the Mountains, which comes from a beautifully restored movie palace, the Lincoln Theater in Marion, VA. The show books well-known musicians but also some really fine regional bands from Virginia and the Carolinas. These lesser-known bands are a delight to watch — they are really good pickers and singers and most of them would be right at home on a big stage at a major festival, including ours. Host Tim White is a friendly, unpretentious sort. Watching him makes me want to take a vacation in Virginia.
Tomorrow night is a great show (it’s a re-run I caught some months ago) with Wayne Henderson, a well-known guitar builder and great picker, and his pal Jeff Little, who is, of all things, a piano player. The other act on the show is the Empty Bottle String Band, a great old-time group from East Tennessee who can just about get you dancing right in your living room.
At nine on Fridays, KCSM shows a telecast of a radio program, the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour. This show had a couple of traditional groups last week, the Lost Creek Band and the Jes’ Cauz Band (“We named it that jes’ cauz we could,” said one band member).
Tomorrow night, though, they are featuring a tribute to Buddy Holly, featuring David Frizelle and Helen Cornelius. I don’t know if this will be acoustic, but Buddy Holly was a favorite when I was a lad, so I expect the show to be fun.
