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...

Highlights from my vinyl collection have been few and far between recently on this blog. My last entry in this series came back in February last year. Well, I have an exciting addition to share today.  You may recall I had a bit of an obsession a few years back with Ward Jarvis. I dubbed 2017 as The Year of Ward Jarvis . And in that initial declaration, I identified three records I was hoping to track down. I managed to acquire one of them, Visits , by the end of that year. That left two albums on my wish list.  Well, now only one remains. This week I received the long sought after Rats Won't Stay Where There's Music , released in 1979 by the Ohio Arts Council and featuring recordings of Ward Jarvis and his sons, collected by the late David Brose .  I was so happy to find a copy of this album. I was starting to lose hope after a series of near-misses and then seeing some copies being listed online for as high as $200. However, patience paid off. I had set an alert on eBay...

If you're a subscriber to The Old-Time Herald -- and if you read this blog, you should be -- you may have been wondering where your magazine has been these last nine months. The quarterly magazine published it's last issue in January 2020. The next issue would have been the annual Festival & Camp Guide in March, but then the COVID-19 pandemic dashed those plans.  Ad revenue dried up. Production came to a halt. In the meantime, however, the publication team redirected funds and efforts to revamp the OTH website. Unveiled this month, the new oldtimeherald.org has undergone a major makeover, replete with a new digital edition of the magazine, robust content and access to PDF downloads of past issues.  Editor Sarah Bryan sent a message to current subscribers on Dec. 7 explaining the delay in printing and unveiling the revamped website. But most of all, she wanted to let readers know that the magazine is still in business.  "When the pandemic struck early this year, we had...