The Glory-Beaming Banjo

This month has been a bit quiet. I haven't played a whole lot of music in May. I had hoped to go to a couple jams, but my plans fell through. However, the weather is finally starting to turn summerlike, and that means music festivals are on the way.  I know lots of folks travel far and wide to places like Mount Airy, Clifftop, and Galax to get their banjo and fiddle groove on, and there are several smaller, regional events like the Indiana Fiddlers' Gathering, Rockbridge, Brandywine and more. Here in Northeast Ohio, we have a small slate of banjo-friendly music festivals that I try to attend every year.  Coming up next month, in fact just nine days from now, is Banjos and Bigfoot 3  at Salt Fork State Park  in Cambridge, Ohio. I wrote about this festival a couple years ago, and I just love the concept. It definitely seems to lean more toward bluegrass, but I'm hoping there'll be some old-time picking represented. I'm not sure if there is any jamming involved, or wh...

Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones(Source: Dittyville.com ) Old-time music and banjo fans alike would do well to aim their GPS units toward Peninsula, Ohio, the historic village nestled in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Cleveland and Akron. This Saturday is Music on the Porches, which features a number of musical acts playing all around town, starting at 11 a.m.  The showcase event is Saturday night at the G.A.R. Hall, an evening concert that will feature fiddler Erynn Marshall and multi-instrumentalist Carl Jones, the married old-time duo based in Galax, Virginia; followed by Sean Watkins, formerly of the progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek; and finally headliner Tim O'Brien, who has recorded with everyone from Steve Martin to Dirk Powell, including the excellent "Songs From the Mountain" album with Powell and John Herrmann (one of my all-time favorites). Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with Marshall and Jones set to start at 7 p.m. Tickets are available onl...

The 191-year-old Peninsula, Ohio, provided the backdrop to a parade of pedestrians making their way from station to station across the bucolic village for Music on the Porches on Saturday. Doug Unger (left) and Mark Ward playing tunes. Inside the close confines of Bronson Church , founded in 1835, a master and apprentice presented a free workshop on the art of instrument building. That master being the renowned banjo builder and artist Doug Unger and his former apprentice Mark Ward. Unger and Ward began the workshop by playing several old-time tunes, discussing their work and the music, and taking questions from the audience. Unger then invited the spectators to step up to the front to see the instruments.