The Glory-Beaming Banjo

C hange is the only constant. This past weekend was the  Music in the Valley Folk & Wine Festival , a local folk music festival dating back to the 1970s that was paired with a wine tasting event a little over a decade ago. For whatever reason, the festival has undergone some head-scratching changes over the past few years, which have directly impacted the folk music aspect of Music in the Valley. However, the tradition endures.  Last year was the 50th anniversary of Music in the Valley, which is free for musicians entering with an instrument. Located at Hale Farm and Village in Bath, Ohio, the event is typically held on the second weekend in July. Saturday is usually the busiest day, but I went on Sunday last year. Sadly, nobody I recognized was there and no one was playing old-time music. I walked through the grounds and right back to my car. What a bust. However, what stands out from that milestone year was how the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS), which operat...

June coming to an end brings a close to the second quarter of the 2026. As mentioned in March, I decided to bring back my quarterly reports to stay accountable to my yearly playing goal progress and ruminate on whatever banjo-y things I did over the last three months.  April was a bit of a struggle. I came down with an illness and wasn't able to play for more than a week, and I had already gotten out of the strong groove I was in during Q1 . To make matters worse, I ended up not playing at all in May, the second straight year that the fifth month has ended with double zeroes. I finally got back on the horse in early June. However, I'm sad tot say I didn't make it down to the Banjos & Bigfoot festival on June 6. One of these years!  Vinyl Hunter 24.5 One banjo-related highlight from Q2 was picking up the My Soul Is Lost compilation from Jalopy Records on Record Store Day in April. However, I neglected to share four other banjo records I had picked up earlier this year....

This month has been a bit quiet. I haven't played a whole lot of music in May. I had hoped to go to a couple jams, but my plans fell through. However, the weather is finally starting to turn summerlike, and that means music festivals are on the way.  I know lots of folks travel far and wide to places like Mount Airy, Clifftop, and Galax to get their banjo and fiddle groove on, and there are several smaller, regional events like the Indiana Fiddlers' Gathering, Rockbridge, Brandywine and more. Here in Northeast Ohio, we have a small slate of banjo-friendly music festivals that I try to attend every year.  Coming up next month, in fact just nine days from now, is Banjos and Bigfoot 3  at Salt Fork State Park  in Cambridge, Ohio. I wrote about this festival a couple years ago, and I just love the concept. It definitely seems to lean more toward bluegrass, but I'm hoping there'll be some old-time picking represented. I'm not sure if there is any jamming involved, or wh...

Last Saturday was Record Store Day. There were a few albums I wanted, so I set my alarm for 6 a.m., which doesn't even seem that early compared to how early some people line up outside local record stores for this annual event. I saw a couple people camped out at one local store at 8 p.m. on Friday, choosing to spend all night in a shopping plaza in hopes of finding that sweet, sweet vinyl treasure.  My alarm went off, and I hit snooze. It went off again, and I turned it off. Getting up early to wait in line for hours is a younger person's game. I didn't leave the house until 7:30. The shop I visited first opened at 8 a.m. There was a line, but it didn't seem too crazy. However, it took almost an hour for me to get my turn to enter the fray to search for the records on my wish list.  There were three albums that I considered "must have," and I knew Big D's Records at Summit Mall, in Fairlawn, Ohio, had at least gotten copies of each of them. There were tw...

March is over, which means we're a quarter of the way through 2026. In the past, I used to provide quarterly reports  on my various musical goals, but I've gotten away from that kind of content over the last few years. You'd have to go back to 2024 for the last one I did, and further back to 2020 for the last time I provided a report on all four quarters of the year .  To keep me motivated and to give me a regular source of content, I figured I'd bring them back this year to see how they go. I'll use these regular posts as a kind of housekeeping and progress report of the last three months, along with any recent trends and happenings I deem important. So, here we go!  The stats Banjo: A strong January helped carry me through a light February. I stayed on target in March. So far, I've exceeded my benchmark for each month this year, and I'm trending in the right direction for this year's goals.  Fiddle:  As reported above, my January numbers helped car...

Happy Valentine's Day, banjo lovers! Can you believe it's been 15 years since I started this blog? It's true. On Feb. 14, 2011 , I made you all my banjo Valentines. More than 300 posts later, and I'm still complaining about not having enough time to practice, while looking for old-time records and trying learn more about Ohio's fiddle repertoire.  Let's revisit the Top 10 Glory-Beaming Banjo posts of all time 1. The Ultimate Banjo Joke Compendium | I love how this post keeps generating comments. Usually, it's from fellow banjo jokesters wanting to add another zinger to the list. However, my most recent favorite comment was from some anonymous person seemingly upset about all the laughs: " Some of us LIKE banjos 😡😤" You don't say? Well, guess what, I like banjos too. Why do you think I've spent the last 15 years writing about them? If you play banjo but can't take the jokes, then maybe this isn't the instrument for you. (24.4K vi...

Last year ended on a high note, all in the effort to avoid a new low in my playing time for 2025. To start off January, I was able to carry some of that momentum into the New Year. However, I'm not fooling myself into thinking I can rack up some crazy amount of playing time in 2026.  No. Instead, I'm working on not aiming too high. That is, I'm pursuing more manageable goals this year. Although I've started off strong, I know that there will be bumps in the road, and I might find myself not playing any music for long stretches of time. And that's OK.  This year is all about forgiving myself for not living up to my expectations. After going way too long, I changed the strings on my banjo and fiddle at the end of December, and I'm thinking of 2026 as a fresh start.  Glory-beaming goals for 2026 Because I do it every year, I'll share some actual goals for 2026. I have set some modest playing time goals, but I'm not going to get too hung up on them. Of cour...

Usually, at this time of year, this space is reserved for looking back at the past 12 months. Frankly, there's not a heckuva lot to look back upon. This was a down year when it comes to playing music. Typically, I would offer self-flagellating remarks about not being able to find the time and hoping to do better next go-round. However, some reader comments from earlier this year have inspired me to just stop worrying about it.  So, here is a brief list of highlights:  My fondest memory was volunteering at the Lake Erie Folk Fest .  My most successful post was about a podcast from September 2024.  My favorite post was about buying some 78 rpm records in South Carolina.  My  playing goals  ... well, let's not talk about those.  I didn't reach my goals this year — not the end of the world. I went a few months without touching my instruments at all, but it turned out I didn't forget everything I knew when I got back to them. On the positive side, I...

Today is Black Friday, signaling the start of the gift-giving season. No matter your heritage, this time of year is packed with holidays that involve presents. You might have some banjo-loving freak on your nice list for whom you need some gift ideas, or you might be a banjo-loving freak yourself who has been asked to provide gifts ideas for others. As we  resurrect an idea from a decade ago , here is the 2025 Glory-Beaming Banjo Gift Guide.  Let's start with some new music ...  The Field Recorders' Collective has released a ton of new albums this year that are worthy of your attention. However, for my money, the Kerry Blech collection (FRC 751) is the one to get. This 50-track behemoth features Blech playing tunes with brief introductions throughout. Recorded in 2004 during a concert at Clifftop, he's accompanied by John Schwab, Bill Schmidt, and Kevin Enoch. The FRC also offers gift cards if you're unsure of what to get.  David Bragger's Old-Time Tiki Parlo...

Making music has taken a back seat to buying music lately. I haven't gotten much playing time in over the last couple months, but I have another stack of records to share with you. That is, if you're willing to take a peak at the latest additions to my collection.  While I do have a cool vintage vinyl release to share, it seems that 2025 has become the year of 78 rpm records for me. I've added another 10 shellac records to my collection since my previous post , although not all of them fall into the old-time / hillbilly realm.  Let's start with the vinyl. I saw an online listing for the two-LP set of The Hammons Family, A Study of a West Virginia Family's Traditions, released by the Library of Congress in 1973. The exciting thing about this particular copy was that it was still sealed! The box set includes two records and a 36-page booklet about the Hammons family of Pocahontas County. This collection features music by Burl Hammons, Maggie Hammons Parker, and Sherma...

Leave it to me to write a whole big "Vinyl Hunter" post about records that aren't vinyl, and then forget about the newest additions to my old-time music collection that ACTUALLY ARE vinyl.  First up is an album released earlier this year. I had my local record store pre-order me a copy of Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson, What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow , which was released in April on Nonesuch. The album features two-thirds of the original Carolina Chocolate Drops lineup and arrived shortly before the band's reunion concert at the inaugural Biscuits & Banjos Festival , April 25-27, in Durham, North Carolina, and it also preceded the release of a new documentary about the band that you can watch now on Amazon Prime.  The Giddens-Robinson duo provide a dozen North Carolina fiddle and banjo tunes. The entire album was recorded outdoors at Joe Thompson’s and Etta Baker’s North Carolina homes, as well as the former plantation Mill Prong House. In the bac...

For whatever reason, I called my record collecting posts "Vinyl Hunter" back in 2016. I had just gotten back into collecting vinyl records , and at the time I didn't really think about the possibility of adding 78 rpm records to my collection. That all changed a couple years ago, when I shared my copy of Uncle Bunt Stephens, "Sail Away Lady" / "Louisburg Blues" (Columbia, 1926), which I got off eBay. However, that wasn't even the first piece of shellac I bought. But, we'll get to that.  First, I wanted talk about my most recent 78 haul. Earlier this year, I stopped into an antique store in South Carolina while traveling for work and walked out with four shellac records. Awhile back, I joined a 78 rpm collecting group on Facebook, and someone posted some records that had just been put on the store floor at Catnip Antiques in Simpsonville, S.C. It just so happened that the store was on my way back to the airport, so I decided to check it out. ...

July 2 is exactly the midpoint of the year, with 182 days preceding and 182 days to follow. It seems like a good time to reassess my goals for 2025. In years past, I would post my goals in January. This year, I didn't even bother doing that. I figured you probably get tired of constantly hearing how I'm behind on my playing goals, so guess what?  I'm behind on my playing goals this year.  I totally missed two months of playing, not playing at all in March and May. However, I started to get back into a groove in June. I'm hoping to use that momentum for second half push to get back to playing music regularly.  I typically set three playing time goals each year: a primary goal, a minimum goal and a stretch goal. I was hoping to reach 100 hours of combined playing this year, with a minimum goal of beating last year's total of 85 hours and a stretch goal of 124 hours.  Having missed two whole months and topping out at a combined 5.5 hours in February, the only goal ...

Look, I'm well aware that I haven't been posting much. I feel like I've been stuck in a rut ... a month's long rut. Awhile back I saw a link to a banjo podcast with an interview with Cleveland-base banjo player Mark Olitsky , and I finally got around to listening to it today. And now, I want to make sure you all have a chance to hear it. The interview was posted in September 2024, so this isn't exactly breaking news. But with all the news that's been breaking lately, I think some old news would do us some good.  I've recommended the podcast Get Up in the Cool before. Host Cameron DeWitt always seems to find some great guests to interview. And last September, he interviewed Olitsky on the subject of "Changing as a Musician."  If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you would know of my appreciation for Olitsky's banjo prowess. I did my own interview with the man I called "The Banjo Wizard of Cleveland" back in 2011. It r...

Allison de Groot was named a recipient of the 2024 Steve Martin Banjo Prize . She rose to prominence over the last decade playing alongside Bruce Molsky as a member of the Mountain Drifters as well as in a duo with fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves .  De Groot hails from Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada, and she has received two Canadian Folk Music Awards and a Juno nomination. She recently launched her online banjo instructional program on the ArtistWorks platform. I've had the opportunity to see de Groot in concert twice, once with Molsky and once with Hargreaves. She is a versatile player, whose style effortlessly balances driving rhythm for raucous dance tunes and breakdowns, while elevating lyrical melodic phrases. She can match the fiddle note for note, but also is adept at exploring harmonic counter melodies. De Groot is well deserving of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, which has been presented annually since 2010 and has been presented by the nonprofit group, the Fresh Grass Foundati...