The Glory-Beaming Banjo

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...

Thinking way back to when I started exploring the fiddling style of Ward Jarvis , among the first batch of tunes I learned was "Tomahawk."  Jarvis plays the tune in AEAE tuning, and the Milliner-Koken book includes notation for his version. While researching and learning how to play the tune, I discovered that this fairly recent composition had gone through a few noticeable permutations. To my ear, the so-called "folk process" has yielded five distinct variations of "Tomahawk." Folklorist David Brose recorded Jarvis playing "Tomahawk" in the 1970s, though the tune does not appear on either of the albums Brose produced for the Ohio Arts Council and Ohio Folklife in 1979. The late Red Mules String Band fiddler Jeff Goehring also recorded Jarvis playing the tune in 1977, according to the liner notes of the resulting Field Recorders' Collective (FRC) release. Jarvis is on record saying he learned the tune from Tommy Jackson , a fiddl...

M y latest Ward Jarvis tune is "Tomahawk." Jarvis learned this tune from Tommy Jackson , either on record or radio, according to the field recordings David Brose made in the 1970s. Jackson was a prominent Nashville session fiddler during the 1950s. The tune appears on Jackson's " Square Dance Tonight " album, released in 1957. Jarvis can be heard playing it on the Field Recorders' Collective album ( FRC402 ), from the recordings of Jeff Goehring. Brose's recording of Jarvis can be heard on the Slippery-Hill website. Jarvis plays "Tomahawk" in AEAE tuning and is credited for making the tune old-time. There's another variant usually attributed to Missouri fiddler Bob Holt , available on the 1998 Rounder release "Got a Little Home to Go To." I took my first crack at "Tomahawk" on June 18. Below is my first attempted recording of the tune, which is only twice through because of a major flub in the third repeat of ...