The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Summer brings festival season. Clifftop and Galax are just around the corner, but there are a slew of events coming up that are closer to home where there will be plenty of old-time jamming to enjoy. Meanwhile, I'm still struggling to find time to play music amid other summertime activities.  July and August are especially busy for Northeast Ohio's old-time music community, with a full slate of events packed into a tight window. I'm sad to say I missed Music in the Valley earlier this month, but there are two more festivals to look forward to next month. Following the disruptions to events the last two years from the COVID-19 pandemic, this seems like especially challenging time for organizers. It was such a welcome experience to return to the Lake Erie Folk Festival in April. I hope the rest of the local events experience plenty of success to bolster them for the future.  This is a good reminder to show support for the things you enjoy, or they might not be around muc...

Summer brings warm weather and music festivals, but also a bevy of activities to eat up my time. It's been a struggle to make space for playing banjo and fiddle the past two months.  As some readers might recall, I used to run a lot. In fact, this blog grew out of my now-defunct running blog . In my B.C. life (i.e., before child), I ran a handful of marathons, several half marathons and dozens of other races.  However, that all came to a screeching halt when my son arrived in 2013. I ran sparingly over the next several years as parenthood took centerstage. Last year, my friends coaxed me into running a race for the first time in nine years. That resulted in running my highest mileage since 2012, plus a sprained foot after running my second race.  As of this month, I've already surpassed last year's total mileage, as those same friends recruited me to run a leg of the Burning River 100  for part of an eight-member relay team.  Between running five days a week, ya...

Over this past weekend, I learned that old-time musician Christian Wig died on April 21. Born on Dec. 12, 1949, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, he became immersed in the folk music scene in Northeast Ohio during the 1970s. Throughout the next few decades, Wig would play in a number of folk and old-time bands, including the Blue Eagle String Band, North Fork Rounders, Boiled Buzzards, the Mustel House Muskrats (a reference to the Mustill Store in Akron) and others. Wig also released a series of solo albums.  Known more for his fiddling, Wig actually started on banjo. According to his website , he got a Bacon resonator banjo in 1969 and began learning from Pete Seeger's book. He later got an album by Art Rosenbaum, which inspired him to learn clawhammer style. However, he had trouble figuring it out until he met Stan Werbin, the future proprietor of Elderly Instruments . Wig wrote that Werbin was a friend of his cousin's at the University of Michigan, where Wig was visiting in 1971....

Look, we've all heard that it's a good idea to record yourself playing music so you can gauge your progress. My problem has always been planning to record myself maybe once every few months and then failing to follow through. However, over the last six weeks, I've been a pretty good streak.  I have recorded myself on banjo or fiddle seven times since Feb. 9. Good or bad, I've also been sharing my videos on my Instagram account, which kind of makes it feel like there are stakes involved. I already don't like recording myself, but now there's that feeling like THIS IS A PERFORMANCE FOR MY FOLLOWERS. But let's be real, I get about 30 views and maybe 10 likes when I post these videos, so it's not big stakes. But it's enough to keep me working hard to play well. A big thing for me is I'm not recording multiple takes to get it perfect. If I get through the tune without going off the rails, then that's the one I post. If I need more than three attem...

This month, I received two bits of good news related to my local old-time music community. The news has led me to find a decent groove this month playing banjo and fiddle.  Two of my favorite local festivals announced they will return this year after having been canceled the last two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  First, the Lake Erie Folk Festival (LEFF) announced it will return to the Shore Cultural Center in Euclid, Ohio, on April 30. This festival was actually the last musical event I attended before everything shut down . I had interviewed organizer Laura Lewis prior to the festival for its fifth anniversary.  LEFF only missed 2021, due to the pandemic. Usually held in February as a way to scare away the winter doldrums in Northeast Ohio, the organizers moved the event to April to avoid spikes in pandemic numbers.  Second, the Raccoon County Music Festival announced it too would be coming back this year, returning to Century Village in Burton, Ohio,...