The Glory-Beaming Banjo

My Recording King "Songster" with the resonator off after switching to clawhammer. N ine years ago is when I dipped my toe into the warm, welcoming waters of the banjo playing world. I had spent the past six months researching and trying to figure which banjo to buy. At some point, I had ordered a set of picks and tuner as a commitment to myself that I was going to carry through with my plan. The seed had been planted the year before when I read a blog post about buying your first guitar. The now-defunct blog specialized in Americana music and regularly featured groups like Old Crow Medicine Show, the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Avett Brothers. I had spent the the last four years building an obsession with the banjo through the music of those very same groups. Because much of the music that blog featured included the banjo, I wrote in asking if they had advice on buying a first banjo. Two of the blog's writers happened to play the five-string. One was a bl...

S ince declaring this The Year of Ward Jarvis earlier this year, I have dedicated myself to learning some tunes from the repertoire of Ward Jarvis, a fiddler who lived in Athens County, Ohio, and was an influence on a number of old-time musicians in the state. Over the last couple months, I managed to track down the recordings of David Brose and digital copies of the two LPs he produced, thanks to some helpful folks at the Fiddle Hangout . The first tune on my list was "Head of the Creek," played in AEAE. My primary source was Jarvis's playing on the Field Recorder's Collective release FRC402 , with a transcription from the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes . I also have Jeff Goehring's version on FRC601 . In addition, there are some recordings available on YouTube, such as Jimmy Triplet , Kerry Blech and others . Some of those versions are played in GDGD. A few of the videos mention Lester McCumbers as the source, as in the Blech video h...