The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Greetings, glorious readers! It's time for a quick update of my February five-string flings. Since my last update, I had two wonderful opportunities to play old-time music with friends.  First was a house jam to celebrate the birthday of Stephen Rapp , a regular player in Paul Kirk's Old-Time Tune of the Week videos. The festivities included a great gathering of Northeast Ohio musicians. I mostly played banjo. The group played a couple Ward Jarvis tunes for which I pulled out my fiddle, but I was too rusty to play along, so I went back the five-string.  Next was the 7th annual Lake Erie Folk Festival in Euclid, Ohio. I sat in on two organized community jams with an impromptu jam in the hallway in between the orchestra-sized sessions. I played banjo for the first couple hours and then switched to fiddle.  In addition, I finished work on "Hawks & Eagles" from Michael Ismerio's All-Access Online Fiddle Course and moved on to "Sally Ann." Because of s...

The old-time music community lost one of its great champions yesterday. John Cohen died at the age of 87. He was a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, singing and playing guitar and banjo. Cohen was also a photographer, filmmaker and musicologist. From 1972 to 1997, he was a professor of visual arts at SUNY Purchase College in Harrison, New York. In addition to his notable work as a musician, Cohen was instrumental in documenting old-time musicians through his photography and films. He is credited with "discovering" Roscoe Holcomb and featured him in his 1962 documentary, The High Lonesome Sound . He co-produced the influential album High Atmosphere in 1975, which included Cohen's field recordings of Dillard Chandler, Wade Ward, Gaither Carlton, Frank Proffitt, Fred Cockerham, Estil Ball and others. His photography has been published in numerous books over the years, including one just released on Sept. 10, called Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road: When Old Time...

A funny thing happened when I went to a celebration of my mother's 30-year work anniversary. I met a banjo player who just so happened to play with Tommy Jarrell. Near the end of the party, he comes back with a sealed copy of the 1976 album, " Joke on the Puppy ." Jarrell is backed by Steve Roberts on banjo and Chester McMillian on guitar. It's a solid album. I was most happy to have a version of Jarrell playing the eponymous tune, which I had picked up from Brad Leftwich's book, Learn Old-Time Fiddle: Round Peak Style . I've been trying to match my playing to the record, which has opened my eyes to some warts in my own fiddling. Ever since my wife got me a record player for our living room as a birthday gift last summer, I've greatly expanded my old-time music collection on vinyl. Other pick-ups in the last year include Ed Haley "Parkersburg Landing," Grayson and Whittier "Early Classics, Vol. 2," Roscoe Holcomb "San Diego...

Mining the depths of experience for a solution to my lack of banjo-related posts, I remembered my last hair cut. As it is nigh time for another, this was a couple months ago. My barber, a short walk from my house, had closed his shop for his lunch break. Not wanting to give up and go home, I killed time at my local record store . I only had a $20, and my hair cut would take up most of that, so I wasn't expecting to purchase anything. Flipping through the "Folk/Misc." section, though, something changed my mind. It is pointless to resist. The cover was a wreck, held together with yellowed tape. But the sleeve had done its job, keeping the vinyl clean. For $2, I couldn't resist the lure of Mike Seeger, leaning against an old GMC truck parked inside the pitch black confines of a red barn, wearing jeans and a blue work shirt, above the words " The Second Annual Farewell Reunion " and featuring such old-time luminaries as the Highwoods, Roscoe Holcomb, Kil...