The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Happy Valentine's Day, banjo lovers! Can you believe it's been 15 years since I started this blog? It's true. On Feb. 14, 2011 , I made you all my banjo Valentines. More than 300 posts later, and I'm still complaining about not having enough time to practice, while looking for old-time records and trying learn more about Ohio's fiddle repertoire.  Let's revisit the Top 10 Glory-Beaming Banjo posts of all time 1. The Ultimate Banjo Joke Compendium | I love how this post keeps generating comments. Usually, it's from fellow banjo jokesters wanting to add another zinger to the list. However, my most recent favorite comment was from some anonymous person seemingly upset about all the laughs: " Some of us LIKE banjos 😡😤" You don't say? Well, guess what, I like banjos too. Why do you think I've spent the last 15 years writing about them? If you play banjo but can't take the jokes, then maybe this isn't the instrument for you. (24.4K vi...

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...

Over the last eight years, Pisgah Banjo Co. has become one of the top builders of openback banjos in the United States. Founder Patrick Sawyer (formerly Heavner 1 ) started the company in 2012 with the goal of providing affordable, quality banjos with the old-time community in mind. The company’s stated mission on its website is “to create affordable, professional quality, handcrafted banjos using 100 percent native Appalachian hardwoods.” Aside from more common woods like maple, walnut and cherry, Pisgah also uses persimmon in its instruments. You won’t find ebony on the company’s fingerboards and headstock overlays. Instead persimmon and Richlite are used. Richlite is an eco-friendly paper-based composite material that has the look of ebony or rosewood and is far more sustainable. Sustainability is at the heart of Sawyer’s business plan. In addition to using local materials, the Pisgah Banjo workshop is entirely solar-powered. Sawyer studied renewable energy in college, and...

This year marks the fifth annual Lake Erie Folk Festival, presented Feb. 21-22 at the Shore Cultural Centre, a former high school that has been transformed into an innovative arts center in Euclid, Ohio. With the festival a little more than a week away, this seemed like the perfect time to provide a sneak peak at the event. Located within the heart of the Lake Erie snowbelt, winter may seem like an odd time to host a music festival. But not to Laura Lewis, the Artistic Director for the Lake Erie Folk Festival (LEFF), who cited some precedent when asked why this was a good time for such an event. “I asked the same question about the Kent State Folk Festival when I first started coming to the area in 1991,” Lewis said. “I'm from Virginia where snow brings everything to a halt. But the Kent State Folk Festival happened regardless of the snow and cold, and provided a welcomed break from hibernation for the music community.” Considering that the Kent State Folk Festival ...

Considering more than a thousand people viewed my last post in the span of a few days, it seems Tom Collins is a popular guy. He provided some great answers to my questions, so inevitably there were some responses that didn't make it into last week's post. As a bonus, here are some highlights from the cutting room floor. On Collins' favorite banjo player If I had to pick one, it would be Fred Cockerham. He’s a big part of the sound I have in my head. I spent the first several years chasing his sound like some kind of mad dog. His style is spare, but can drive real hard. He also wasn’t afraid to get weird. Some of his renditions of tunes are downright experimental. He can hew to tradition, but has these moments of leaving it behind and soaring into the unknown. That’s exciting to me. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Walt Koken. Such a different player than Fred, but has that same spirit: spinning the old melodies and taking them into the unknown. Walt’s exuberan...

A little more than a year ago, Salem, Massachusetts-based banjo player and teacher Tom Collins embarked on a yearlong project he called Banjo Blitz . The weekly YouTube series provided short banjo lessons on technique. Each video is about five minutes long, give or take, and presents a short pattern — or “ostinato” — designed to teach and improve a specific aspect of banjo playing. The mission was to get the audience “to practice clawhammer in discrete chunks every day without the burden of trying to memorize tunes,” Collins says. He wanted to build skills rather than repertoire. “Let’s take the tune off the table,” says Collins, who has been teaching banjo for 11 years. “Let’s focus on a simple, mantra-like ostinato that can train your body how to execute a technique properly, while training your ears how to hear it properly. Let’s also make it so that you can do this every day without it sucking every spare minute from your life. The big dirty secret about learning how to play ...

Ever since I started playing the banjo in 2008, I have heard about Dwight Diller . He is renowned as a musician, teacher and historian of West Virginia music and culture.  As a musician, Diller is known for his heavy rhythmic drive. As a teacher, his weeklong instructional camps promote full immersion into the culture and music of West Virginia. As a historian, he has documented the legendary Hammons family of Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Diller has been the subject of many discussions on the online forum Banjo Hangout , and it was through this website that I met Lew Stern and learned of his newly released biography, Dwight Diller: West Virginia Mountain Musician. Released in April by independent publisher McFarland , the book is 216 pages and will run you $35. Stern started playing the banjo in the 1960s when he got “swept up in the enthusiasm of the folk revival.” He embraced Pete Seeger’s music and bought a long-neck banjo. He later “came under the spell” of Earl S...

Biology doesn’t sound like a standard resume item for a banjo builder, but don’t tell that to Greg Galbreath of Buckeye Banjos. Ever since starting his company in 2005, he has built a sturdy reputation and now boasts a waiting list of three and a half years for one of his custom-built banjos. With a background in conservation biology, Galbreath holds a master’s degree in ecology from Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y. Buckeye Banjos is based in Eggleston, Va., at the base of the company’s namesake, Buckeye Mountain, about 16 miles outside of Blacksburg, where Galbreath studied biology at Virginia Tech. Although Blacksburg lies an hour north of Galax, home of the famous fiddler’s convention, Galbreath got hooked on banjo and old-time music while living in Ithaca. After he finished his studies, he moved back to Southwest Virginia in 1996 to be closer to the source of the music. Upon returning to the region, he went searching for someone to teach him clawhammer banjo and found a...

The April 2012 issue of the Banjo Newsletter includes my article about Riley Baugus in the quarterly section Old-Time Way . Baugus is a considerate and insightful musician and gave me so many thoughtful answers that I couldn't possibly include it all in the space provided. Here are some excerpts from the interview that didn't make the cut: On his uncle, who was one of his banjo teachers:  "I had an uncle from Sparta, that played in an old-time stringband when he was a young man. He moved up to Fredericksburg, Va., in the early 1960s with his family. He followed some friends there to cut timber. Their plan was to stay for six months. Just long enough to cut one tract of timber and then come back home to the mountains. He and his family still live there. He's 85 now. He played guitar mostly, but got a banjo back in the late ‘60s and learned to play it pretty well, two-finger style. I loved the sound of the banjo. It was incredible. He taught me a bit." On his...