The Glory-Beaming Banjo

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....