Bluegrass is now an international music genre. People just like us love it all over the world and one of those places is the United Kingdom. It makes sense because so much of our Bluegrass musical influence comes from the British Isles.
A few years ago I was able to make a connection with John Baldry who lives in the northeast of England. I admired John’s internet site devoted to Bluegrass music. It was one of the first places an aspiring mandolin picker like me could go to for links, general advice and tab. Definitely a go to site and ahead of its time.
Since John obviously knew the internet well I rang him up by e mail. Desperate for new CBA welcome columnists (I’m still desperate. Ring ME up), I asked John to contribute welcome columns from across the pond. He kindly agreed and you can still click on his author link and read some very interesting stuff.
I wrote to John recently and he wrote back. Although not up to contributing new welcome columns he is doing well and is his same chatty self. He’ll be 79 in a few months. I asked him banjo questions (because the banjo is my latest passion). John was originally a banjo picker but he had to transition (just like another friend Mark Hogan did) to the mandolin because of a finger dystonia.
Like Mark, John made the musical transition to good effect. Here is a rare video of John Baldry with his band Monroe’s Revenge:
https://youtu.be/ISIgG4XymPE?si=jFYa5yXmwif5PHE0
I don’t want to waste any input from a man who in my opinion has been such a seminal influence for Bluegrass in the internet age. So here are some excerpts from our e mail conversation. Take it away John:
Thank you very much for writing – it’s good to hear from you! I have been wondering how you are getting on and I remember that you were becoming enthusiastic about the banjo. The instrument fascinated me right from the beginning, when the only instruction manual that was readily available in UK was Pete Seeger’s ‘How to play the 5-string banjo’. Pete’s survey of such a variety of banjo styles and players opened up a new world for me in 1965.
The difficulty in those days was finding other players to talk to, but I cobbled together some two-finger and three-finger patterns which helped me play breaks on old-time songs in particular, which were what attracted me. Bluegrass (Earl et al) was beyond my comprehension until I discovered Banjo Newsletter in 1975. By that time I had met some folks who wanted to play bluegrass, and I was learning and making progress with confidence. This lasted until what I now know to be focal dystonia struck in 1977, and my index finger refused to cooperate. Being pragmatic I decided the mandolin would be a better bet, which turned out to be the case.
I was surprised to be told by friends that there is a video of the last band I was in, Monroe’s Revenge, playing ‘Just Because’. This was 25 years ago! The rest of the band were old friends, and Dick Embery has played bass in just about every band I have been part of since 1974. Very sadly our banjo player, Roger Blackbourn, died two years ago. He was not a victim of Covid, but we watched his funeral on Zoom, which was the only permitted way of attending at that time. Roger was a very talented guy with a phenomenal ear. His entire working life was spent making harpsichords for Morley in south London and he was an expert in compensated tuning – essential for keyboard instruments.
With best wishes to all at CA Bluegrass
