The Glory-Beaming Banjo

My old-time music on vinyl collection has grown exponentially over the past two years. As I mentioned last time , this aspect of my collection has been one of the primary targets in my own resurgent interest in buying records. I started buying vinyl in high school. Having grown up in the 1980s, my music consumption started with cassettes and then moved to CDs. Vinyl was the media of my parents' generation, and they played plenty of it in the house. I was raised on the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Mamas & The Papas and others from the 1960s and '70s. My first piece of vinyl was the 1993 split seven-inch of Velocipede and Kill City Babies . My mind had just been blown after seeing Velocipede play at an Amnesty International benefit concert at my high school. I went to check out the merch table, and the only recording they had were the three songs on one side of this dual album. These were both local bands active in Northeast Ohio in the 1990s. An upp...

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...