The Glory-Beaming Banjo

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...

Since the beginning of my journey into old-time music, I have sought to find a connection to my home state. After studying the recorded repertoire of a dozen old-time fiddlers who spent a majority of their lives in Ohio, I have compiled a master list of more than 300 tunes. By cross-referencing this list, there were 12 tunes that I identified as “common,” based on their appearance in the repertoire of at least three fiddlers. The results of my findings follow. This is far from a scientific method or academic study. I do not claim to be a musicologist or folklore scholar. I welcome any feedback. Common Tunes: Arkansas Traveler  Birdie Cumberland Gap Durang’s Hornpipe Forked Deer Grey Eagle June Apple Leather Britches Mississippi Sawyer Raggedy Ann Turkey in the Straw Wild Horse At some point I would like to put together a list of tunes that are unique to Ohio or have a particular connection to an Ohio locale, such as Lonnie Seymour’s “Chillicothe Two-Step” or ...

M y latest Ward Jarvis tune is "Tomahawk." Jarvis learned this tune from Tommy Jackson , either on record or radio, according to the field recordings David Brose made in the 1970s. Jackson was a prominent Nashville session fiddler during the 1950s. The tune appears on Jackson's " Square Dance Tonight " album, released in 1957. Jarvis can be heard playing it on the Field Recorders' Collective album ( FRC402 ), from the recordings of Jeff Goehring. Brose's recording of Jarvis can be heard on the Slippery-Hill website. Jarvis plays "Tomahawk" in AEAE tuning and is credited for making the tune old-time. There's another variant usually attributed to Missouri fiddler Bob Holt , available on the 1998 Rounder release "Got a Little Home to Go To." I took my first crack at "Tomahawk" on June 18. Below is my first attempted recording of the tune, which is only twice through because of a major flub in the third repeat of ...

-photo source- Ever since embarking on my Year of Ward Jarvis , I've made a concerted effort to collect as many recordings by him and by those who were influenced by him. I already owned the Field Recorders' Collective release ( FRC402 ) of tunes collected by the late Red Mule String Band fiddler Jeff Goehring in the 1970s. And as mentioned in a recent post , I received digital copies of the David Brose recordings from some charitable folks at the Fiddle Hangout . The files also included the associated albums Brose produced " Rats Won't Stay Where There's Music " (1979, Ohio Folklife OF-1003) and " Traditional Music of Central Ohio " (1979, Ohio Arts Council TALP-001). I'm still looking to acquire physical copies of these albums, as well as " Visits " (1981, Heritage Records), produced by Ray Alden. I believe that would complete my collection of the recordings made of Ward Jarvis. I have not heard of any others. In the meanti...

T hree months have passed since I provided my last update on my "Year of Ward Jarvis" project. As you may recall, I targeted six tunes to learn by Athens County, Ohio, resident and West Virginia native Ward Jarvis. The first one I learned was " Head of the Creek ." Next up is "Icy Mountain," another AEAE tune. My source recordings were from Jeff Goehring via the Field Recorders' Collective and from David Brose via some kind folks at the Fiddle Hangout. I also referred to the notation from the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes and a YouTube video by David Bragger . I took my first crack at "Icy Mountain" back on April 22, but I didn't really focus too hard on learning it until mid-May. I struggled with it for weeks, but then my progress took a major leap on June 6. I feel like I finally have a handle on the full tune, though I’m still working out some kinks in the B parts. A quick banjo note: I have also figure...

Don't you just love tax return season? While the bulk of this year's IRS and state tax refunds went to pay for grownup stuff, I squirreled a little bit away to use on new music. I got my own copy of the new Dan Gellert CD/DVD set from Old-Time Tiki Parlour, and then kept the Ohio old-time connection going with four albums from the Field Recorders' Collective , referred henceforth as the FRC. Great Ohio old-time. Those four albums were: Rector Hicks Jeff Goehring Lonnie Seymour Cecil Plum Hicks was recorded by Kerry Blech and Joe LaRose. The Goehring disk includes members of the legendary Red Mule String Band, as well as other notable musicians. The Seymour and Plum recordings come from Goehring's field recording collection. As an Ohio boy, born and raised, these four albums have been on my wishlist for a long time.