The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Like last year, I am finishing 2023 on a high note. However, my playing time will fall well short of my goals this year with even fewer hours than 2022. And yet, I've been on a role since November, logging my longest streak within the year, which was only surpassed by the streak that had begun in 2022 and carried over until the end of January.  Other than not playing enough, I managed to do OK with some of my other goals this year. I'm happy to say I made it to some jams and local festivals this year, but I'd like to get into a more consistent routine of playing with others in 2024. It was a sad year for the old-time community. We lost some great people who left an indelible mark on the music and the people who knew them. Their memory will continue to live on in those whose lives they touched. Rest in peace, Kerry Blech, Robert Anderson and Bob Miller.   Got Back to Jams (A Couple, Anyway) Thinking back on 2023, I thought I went to more than just two jams. I attended a b...

Five years ago, I began a quest to study old-time musicians from Ohio and the tunes they played. I was trying to determine if there was a specific repertoire of the Buckeye State.  In a post from May 2018, I reported on a survey I conducted to find what might be considered the most  common tunes of Ohio fiddlers . I always meant to come back to this topic to discuss some of the more unique pieces that these musicians played, which could be called "Ohio tunes."  Sure, there are tunes like "Banks of the Ohio," "Camp Chase" and "Big Scioty" that specifically reference the state and its landmarks, but these compositions are often attributed to sources outside of Ohio. There also are a number of wartime songs , minstrel tunes , broadside ballads and canal songs that have their origin in the state. However, I wanted to find the more unique tunes played by the fiddlers I surveyed, with special attention paid to those pieces that specifically mention Oh...

Another album of banjo duets is coming from Mark Olitsky and Cary Moskovitz. You may remember in 2017 that I  reviewed their first album , aptly titled  Duets . Moskovitz was in Northeast Ohio last week to record another batch of tunes with Olitsky, and while he was in town the duo performed at a couple of house concerts. One of which just happened to be less than a mile from my home.  It was a pleasure to see (and obviously, hear ) Olitsky and Moskovitz play live. Olitsky played a 13-inch grain measure-style banjo that he built, and which Moskovitz said was the impetus for the first album. Having heard Olitsky play his as-then-unfinished banjo at Clifftop, Moskovitz joined him with his four-string plectrum banjo. The rest is history.  While Olitsky's banjo provided the bottom end of duo's sound, Moskovitz played the bright melodies on a pair of plectrum banjos, a Bacon (I believe the 1922 Orchestra A that he played on the first album) and what I believe was a vintag...

Banjos hit the silver screen last week when Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon opened in U.S. theaters. The filmmaker's latest opus features two banjos provided by the Oklahoma City-based American Banjo Museum , one of which appears in a scene with fiddler Rayna Gellert , who also put together a band to play a Hoyt Ming tune for the film.  Based on the 2017 nonfiction book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon  stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone. The film is set in Oklahoma during the 1920s and portrays the murders of members of the Osage Nation over oil rights.  Gellert wrote about her experience working on the film in the  latest KKRG newsletter , which I recommend subscribing to for updates on performances, workshops and other fiddle-ish news (also check out Gellert's The Squealemite ).  Through a mutual connection, Gellert was contacted by the film's music supervisor Randall Poster to provide stringband music for...

The old-time music community lost one of its biggest champions this week. Kerry Blech died on Monday, Sept. 18, in Gainesville, Florida, and left behind an incredible legacy of musicianship, scholarship and fellowship. Kerry left a lasting impact on those who knew him. Upon learning of his passing, I started to see remembrances of him on Facebook from the likes of Alice Gerrard, Chuck Levy, and many others. I never never met Kerry in person, but even still he had a huge impact on my journey into old-time music.  On the advice of Old-Time Herald editor Sarah Bryan, I began emailing Kerry in January 2018 in my quest to learn more about Ohio's old-time music history  and the Kent State Folk Festival . Not only did he respond, but he provided me with a wealth of information and photos to help me in my research. He also connected with me others to reach out to learn more.  He was an encyclopedia of old-time music knowledge, and he was so generous with his time and willing to ...

Despite the proliferation of local music festivals, my banjo and fiddle playing time always seems to drop off during the summer. Perhaps it's having my son around all the time during the break or just the general glut of increased family activities, but I barely played music at all from May to July, and that includes attending a festival last month .  However, as August is coming to an end and as school has started back up, this month's tally exceeds my playing time for the last three months combined. Hopefully, that trend will continue as autumn approaches.  I'm happy to report that I did get to attend the Raccoon County Music Festival earlier this month in Burton, Ohio. Long-time readers likely know that this annual festival is one of my favorite events of the year. The Century Village is just a great place to host various pickup jams, as well as stage performances and workshops.  This year's event had to battle some serious thunderstorms in the area, but they were a...

More than a decade ago, I stopped into a record store in Ravenna, Ohio, and bought a couple New Lost City Ramblers albums, one of which turned out to be signed by Mike Seeger. I wrote a little bit about that visit in a post titled " Vinyl Hunter: The Origins ."  What I didn't mention was a record that I passed up ... and it has haunted me ever since.  While flipping through the folk/country/bluegrass/misc. of that store, I came across a copy of The Watson Family , originally released on Folkways Records in 1963. The album features Doc Watson and various family members, including most notably his father-in-law Gaither Carlton, son Merle Watson, brother Arnold Watson and wife Rosalee Watson.  You might remember in 2020 that Smithsonian Folkways released a latter day companion album, Doc Watson and Gaither Carlton , featuring concert recordings from two Greenwich Village performances in 1962.  The Watson Family was compiled from field recordings made by Ralph Rinzler, ...

Things got busy. That's why you haven't heard from me. That's also why my banjo and fiddle have sat dormant for about two months. All of a sudden I feel the urge to get back into the musical habit as several local festivals are on the horizon.  Between family, work, kids activities, a vacation, a death in the family and just the general schedule glut of summertime, I haven't found the time to play music lately. But I'm itching to get back to it. Thankfully, the upcoming Music in the Valley festival provides some much-needed motivation to resharpen my skills.  Music in the Valley The first event on deck is the annual Music in the Valley festival July 8-9 at Hale Farm in Bath, Ohio. This has been an excellent opportunity to play old-time music with others from my region. However, this year is getting a boost with Cleveland-based fiddler Paul Kirk assisting the programs manager to add instrumental highlights for banjo, fiddle and mountain dulcimer, as well as a fiddl...

Scrolling through the winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize , one name should stand out for banjo nerds like us: Rhiannon Giddens . The former Carolina Chocolate Drops member and renowned solo artist was awarded the Pulitzer for Omar , an opera about enslaved people brought to North America from Muslim countries.  Of course, Giddens is no stranger to awards. She has won two Grammy Awards as both a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and as a solo artist. She received the MacArthur Fellowship in 2017. She won the Steve Martin Banjo Prize in 2016. She has also won two International Folk Music Awards, three Living Blues Awards and several others, plus she's been inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, and she has been nominated for countless other accolades. On the heels of the Pulitzer Prize news, Giddens also announced a new solo album .    Giddens collaborated with composer Michael Abels on Omar , which premiered on May 27, 2022, at the Spoleto Festiv...

Today marks 15 years since I started my banjo journey. Sometime in late 2007, I got the idea that I might  like to play the banjo. Pretty much all the music I was listening to at the time had a five-string, whether it was indie rock, alt country, bluegrass or old-time. Although back then, I didn't know the difference between bluegrass and old-time or that there were so many different ways of playing this plunky instrument. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I wanted to take the leap.  I try not to look back at my life with regrets, as I consider the mistakes I've made as opportunities to learn new lessons. That said, I did have one major regret. When I was in high school, I started to learn to play guitar. However, after a year or so, I gave it up. I can't help thinking how good I would be today if I had just stuck with it.  The idea of playing music has always appealed to me, but I didn't want to make the same mistake I made with the guitar as a teen...

Greetings, glorious readers! It's time for a quick update of my February five-string flings. Since my last update, I had two wonderful opportunities to play old-time music with friends.  First was a house jam to celebrate the birthday of Stephen Rapp , a regular player in Paul Kirk's Old-Time Tune of the Week videos. The festivities included a great gathering of Northeast Ohio musicians. I mostly played banjo. The group played a couple Ward Jarvis tunes for which I pulled out my fiddle, but I was too rusty to play along, so I went back the five-string.  Next was the 7th annual Lake Erie Folk Festival in Euclid, Ohio. I sat in on two organized community jams with an impromptu jam in the hallway in between the orchestra-sized sessions. I played banjo for the first couple hours and then switched to fiddle.  In addition, I finished work on "Hawks & Eagles" from Michael Ismerio's All-Access Online Fiddle Course and moved on to "Sally Ann." Because of s...

Planning for the future. It's an exercise many like undertake at the beginning newly minted years. Last year was a bit of a down year. My music playing didn't measure up to the plans I had made last January. This year is one I hope that ends with better results. So far I've managed to keep my daily playing streak alive. The problem is one I've had before. For the most part I'm only doing the bare minimum to mark off each day as one that I've played banjo and fiddle. Longer practice sessions have eluded me.  Despite the minimal playing, my logged time has still outpaced last year's results. So there is good with the bad. While I want to play more often this year than I did in 2022, what I really want to achieve is getting back into situations where I can play with others more often. Getting Back to Jams One way to play with others is to attend regular jam sessions. The ones I used to attend went away with COVID-19. There are two monthly jams I am aware of tha...