My Bio

My first exposure to the banjo was when I would catch the Glen Campbell Good Time Hour on TV. Some of you who are old enough may recall that the late John Hartford had a segment on the show where he would team up with Campbell and play 5-string banjo tunes. I was amazed. What a sound! I loved it and right then knew that the banjo was the instrument I wanted to play. I watched every week just for that short segment. I was addicted.

I had been playing guitar and the ukelele for a couple of years (yup ....that's right...the uke) before getting my first banjo when I was 16. I was already finger picking the guitar and found that picking on the banjo came pretty easily to me. I guess it was because I never really got the hang of Travis picking and was in fact doing more or less Scruggs style picking on the guitar without knowing it. In fact, I recall that on the first day that I got my banjo, I was playing along with my father (who is an accomplished button accordian player) and some of the friends who used to show up at the house to play country songs and a lot of old time French Canadian fiddle tunes. This arrangement continued for years and was the basis of my love for old time music, playing in a group and the realization of the importance of rhythm and timing in music. It was a great experience.

When I started, there wasn't a lot of 5-string banjo instruction available where we lived and I ended up playing in C tuning for almost two years while I was trying to figure out why my playing didn't sound very bluegrassy. I drifted into other music styles and in fact the first tune I taught myself on the banjo was Classical Gas....the Mason Williams version. I have since forgotten that tune but remember that it actually sounded pretty good. Finally, I found the Earl Scruggs instruction book that had been put together with the help of banjo great Bill Keith and I finally felt like I was hitting my stride. I raised the fourth string from C to D. I realized that a lot of the left hand techniques and right hand rolls I was using were correct. Others needed to be adjused (but not abandoned). Most importantly I finally understood how great players like Scruggs created the synchopation that makes bluegrass what it is. I felt like I was on my way.

During the next few years I bought every bluegrass album I could afford. Scruggs and J.D. Crowe where my favourite players. I tried everything I could to copy their precision and drive. I spent hours everyday playing and replaying their recordings. I spent hours practicing and trying to copy their sounds. Some days I had the banjo in my hands for 14 to 16 hours. I was literally getting up eating, playing and then going to bed. It really was an obsession.

But then the botom fell out.

It seemed like the more I tried, the harder it got to copy THE sound.I wasn't progressing anymore. I just couldn't get my sound to sound like either Scruggs or Crowe. I got discouraged. I continued to play a little but quit practicing. I kept listening to bluegrass and loved it but was disappointed that I would never be able to play it right.

Then on one trip pack home to play with my dad and his friends, I realized that what I was playing actually sounded pretty good with the group. The banjo seemed to add a lot to the sound and the other players really liked the addition of the banjo. I realized that maybe it was ok to not be exactly like Scruggs or Crowe but rather to take what I could ....what was possible for me to play.... and build on that. I stopped beating myself up for not being able to play some of the licks that seemed to come so easily to those other players. I realized that it was ok to play like me. And the more I played like me the more bluegrassy I got. I became more confident. My synchopation got better. Suddenly I was playing licks that I had struggled with previously. It was coming together for me.

I still play like this today. I can't play like anybody else. I don't even want to anymore. I like to hear and play with other pickers and like to learn from them. I respect their playing. But I am happy to be doing what I do with the banjo.

I play my best when I play like me. You should do the same and play what is comfortable for you.

I got my first banjo in 1966. My parents bought it for me as a Christmas present. It was an inexpensive import and sounded pretty terrible but I didn't know that at the time. I was ecstatic. I was able to learn a lot of stuff on that banjo and it was also a great tool to understand the mechanics of the instrument. I used to disassemble and reassemble the thing on a regular basis in an attempt to get a better sound out of it. I adjusted the neck, cleaned up the tone ring added foil as well as doing all the standard stuff like tying out different strings and bridges. I even attached a small margarine container under the bridge to try to get a throatier sound. None of this really worked very well of course.

I did get interested in what made banjos sound so different though and studied it carefully. I learned a lot about the history of the instrument and even took the time to build a fretless banjo with an ironwood neck and a laminated maple pot. It was pretty rough but was playable and I have kept it to this day.

Eventually I saved enough money to buy another banjo. It was another import and was better than the first but still not good enough. About a year later I bough a Fender banjo and played that for about a year but then traded it for an Ode. I used the Ode for about a year and half and although it had good sound range I was just not comfortable with it.

Finally, I traded the Ode for a 1972 Gibson RB-800 Mastertone. I had the inlays changed, made a few adjustments and have been playing that banjo ever since.