The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Jake Blount's Spider Tales has come at the perfect time. Exploring historical black string band music and its antecedents and performed by mostly queer musicians, Blount's latest full-length album on Free Dirt Records is an expression of the zeitgeist amid the mass protests in response to George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police, systemic racism and aggression toward the LGBTQ+ community, and the continued fight for equal rights in the United States. As a gay black man playing traditional banjo and fiddle music, Blount uses his music and voice to bring recognition to the role of people of color, queer people and other marginalized communities in American roots music. In the liner notes to Spider Tales , Blount explains that the album title stems from "Anansesem," the stories of Anansi the Spider, a figure in the folklore and religion of the Akan people of West Africa, who was known for "his wit and wisdom — and his aptitude for weaponizing them a...

After providing some of the best custom banjos on the market for the past 15 years, Greg Galbreath of Buckeye Banjos has developed a new lineup of standard models that he has begun offering. In a recent newsletter update, Galbreath shared that he was finishing up the prototypes for the three models, dubbed B100, C100 and S100 (pictured from left to right). He has also revamped the Buckeye Banjos website , which provides all the details you need to know about the standard models, ordering information, news and a robust FAQ page for all your other questions. Amid these announcements, Galbreath agreed to answer a few questions to provide insight into why he decided to develop these banjos, about whether he'll begin offering custom banjos again and other plans for the future. What follows is a transcript of our correspondence. What was your motivation for developing this line of standard models? Galbreath: I’d say my main motivation for developing the standard models was my...

Three "Vinyl Hunter" posts in a row, are you tired of these yet? I hope not. I've had a good stretch of picking up some excellent old-time albums on vinyl, and I'm expecting another one soon. For today, however, I received this package from a certain old-time master that contained the 1986 album by Robert Sykes and the Surry County Boys, Black-Eyed Susan .  Released on Heritage Records, the record was still in the shrink wrap. Despite a bit of wear on the corners, the vinyl is in pristine condition. I always find it exciting to break the seal on records that have been sitting around unopened for years. As I mentioned above, this record came from a a well-known old-time musician who has been mentioned on this blog before . I was watching a live broadcast of Paul Brown and Terri McMurray on Facebook  awhile back, and he mentioned having copies of the Sykes LP available. So, after the broadcast, I messaged him and inquired how I could get one. A quick PayPal trans...

We're back again with another vinyl acquisition. After sharing my Ohio old-time collection last week, a friend asked on Facebook why I didn't have any Hotmud Family. He also suggested I check out Van Kidwell. When I said they were on my want list and joked that my birthday was coming up, he decided to send me this album as an early present. Today is HIS birthday, so this is a tribute to my friend, Russ Harbaugh. But first, let's talk about this record. Here we have  Midnight Ride , by Fiddlin' Van Kidwell with the Hotmud Family, released in 1975 on Vetco Records, based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kidwell lived in the Cincinnati/Dayton area, but was originally from Kentucky. He recorded two albums with the Hotmud Family in the mid-1970s, this being the second. There's also a Field Recorders' Collective release available on CD and digital download. I first heard of Kidwell through Doug Dorschug of the Highwoods Stringband in a post on the Fiddle Hangout , when I...

While I haven't been inside a record store in I don't know how long now, I haven't let the coronavirus pandemic stop me from getting new records. On May 29, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings released a new album of previously unreleased live recordings of Doc Watson and his father-in-law Gaither Carlton ( SFW40235 ). The track list was compiled from two of Watson's earliest concerts in New York City's Greenwich Village in 1962. The album is available in LP, CD and digital formats. I had pre-ordered the vinyl in April, and it arrived on June 1. This is the second time I've pre-ordered something from Smithsonian Folkways, and I've been pleased with how quickly the item arrives. The audio quality on the album is excellent. Watson was in his prime, and Carlton adds understated and exquisite accompaniment. On this album, we get a taste of Watson's banjo playing and autoharp, in addition to his legendary guitar picking and singing. Carlton also plays ba...

Let's play show and tell. If you've been reading me for any length of time, you know that the Glory-Beaming Banjo home office is in Northeast Ohio. As such, old-time music from the Buckeye State is of particular interest to this author. Without much to report on during these days of COVID-19, it seemed like a good time to show off my Ohio old-time music collection. Many of these items have appeared on this blog in the past, but I've never shown everything all in one place. Most of these albums are solely by artists from Ohio, with the exception of the two Young Fogies volumes and Visits , each of which feature only a couple of Ohio musicians. A couple of these musicians are not native Ohioans, such as Ward Jarvis, Rector Hicks, Cecil Plum and Dan Gellert, but they lived here for a significant period of time. Gellert apparently no longer lives in Ohio, but he did when his Old-Time Tiki Parlour album came out. The following is a rundown of the collection ... Bad D...