The Glory-Beaming Banjo

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...

This is not a new book, but I finally read it during this pandemic. Originally published in 2010 by the University of Illinois Press , Ray Allen's Gone to the Country: The New Lost City Ramblers & The Folk Music Revival is a biography that looks at the history of the band and its impact on the folk revival period and continuing legacy through an academic lens. Allen paints a portrait of a band that rode the wave of the commercial folk revival of the 1950s and '60s and weathered the storms of scant financial gains, public perception and personal conflicts to leave a lasting legacy that has influenced legions of old-time musicians since their inception in 1958. John Cohen, Tom Paley and Mike Seeger — the original lineup of the band — first played together on a radio show in Washington, D.C., in May 1958. After that performance, Cohen took the initiative and spoke to Folkways Records founder Moe Asch about making a recording and then to Izzy Young of the Folklore Center...

This review has been a long time coming. Lew Stern contacted me in March regarding his latest book, Tommy Thompson: New-Timey String Band Musician . Some of you may recall Stern's biography of Dwight Diller , which we wrote about in 2016. His latest book brings a similar approach to Thompson's life and banjo playing. Published in March by McFarland, the 247-page biography provides an in-depth look at Thompson's life, his roll in establishing the old-time music scene in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the evolution of his banjo playing from starting on a Pete Seeger-style long-neck banjo to playing with the Hollow Rock String Band, Red Clay Ramblers and beyond. Stern conducted detailed research and consulted with a host of musicians who knew Thompson and played music with him, providing a thorough profile of Thompson and his peers from his school years until his untimely death in 2003. There is also a companion book of banjo tabs, titled "He Could Surely Make a...

Welcome back to our monthly series about the now-defunct Kent State Folk Festival. Click here if you missed the first installment. I was originally going to provide an early history of the festival this month, but figured I'd take a different approach and recall one specific year that was ... alarming . I finally got around to reading Walt Koken's enjoyable memoir, Fire on the Mountain: An American Odyssey , published in 2017. Here's a quick review: It's a fast and interesting read, but he could have used a better editor. There were a number of spelling and grammar mistakes that, as a professional language-type, were hard for me to ignore. I suppose that's the challenge with self-published books. However, the stories about Koken's early days as a musician, the forming of the Highwoods Stringband and their rambling career provided great insights and plenty of entertainment. I have to thank Lynn Frederick for passing along the book to me. But let's get ba...

The latest issue of The Old-Time Herald is out now, and my writing appears in the form of two reviews in the magazine. They are for the LP Clarence Ashley,  Live and In Person: Greenwich Village 1963  and for the book, Building New Banjos for an Old-Time World , by Richard Jones-Bamman. You may have noticed I've written more  reviews  on this site over the last year, and I wanted to expand my writing portfolio a bit more. Last fall, I answered a general Facebook request by editor Sarah Bryan to recruit new reviewers, and these are my first to appear in the quarterly magazine. The spring issue also includes the annual festival guide, so you can plan your summer. Clarence Ashley,  Live and In Person   was released by Jalopy Records in April 2017. This is a vinyl-only release, compiled from two concerts at Gerdes Folk City in Greenwich Village in October 1963. He is accompanied by Tex Isley on guitar and autoharp. The LP includes an essay on the backcov...