The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Grab those banjos and head for the hills of Southeast Ohio. The  Happy Hollow Old-Time Music Gathering will provide a weekend full of jamming and workshops, Sept. 24-27, at Snow Fork Event Center in Nelsonville, Ohio. Formerly known as the Happy Hollow Hootenanny, the event is entering its fourth year, and the organizers have pulled out all the stops to provide programming led by some of the top old-time musicians in the country.  For banjo players, there are several workshop options for musicians of all levels. There are beginning workshops by Janie Rothfield and Hilarie Burhans, an intermediate program by Whitt Mead, and an advanced course on crooked tunes led by Mark Olitsky . Plus, there are daily open jam sessions where banjos are always welcome.  As a proponent of Ohio old-time traditions , there's a workshop on Ohio Fiddle Tunes conducted by Mead, who will also be teaching Ohio tunes in the banjo workshop mentioned above.  Vibe check Happy Hollow is a relaxe...

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...