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Banjo; The Forgotten Guitar or Just For The Hillbillies

DJChillie	Date: October 4, 2005 @ 4:50 AM Is the banjo the instrument of the slak-jawed-yokels or the intrument mainstream music forgot?
zedsalt	Date: October 4, 2005 @ 12:35 PM The banjo might predate the guitar. I really don't consider the moment Caucasians co-opted an African instrument to be the moment that instrument came into existance. My electric tenor banjo is just another voice I use to make sound. To hear just how far away from the tradition I like to get, you can check out "A Variety of Labor, pt. 1" at another site which shall remain unnamed (rhymes with "hound lick"). Both the sitaresque sound and the huge bassy whhhhhuuuuuuumps! were made with a banjo run through a Moogerfooger MF101.
GTOriginal	Date: October 4, 2005 @ 12:53 PM My first musical influence was bluegrass, my 1/2 brother is an excellent banjo player. Of course the banjo is subject to ridicule and stereotype largely due to movies like deliverance ("squeal, boy!") and what have you. Personally I play classic-rock-wannabe stuff, but I include a mandolin, which I first heard as a bluegrass instrument. It has it's roots in fiddle tunes etc, and the banjo ties in to old time blues music as well as the hillbilly stuff. I also fingerpick my guitar in a banjo-esque 3 figner style (courtesy of watching my bro as a little kid. As Zed said up ^ there, it's just another sound maker. One can play "Smoke On The Water" with their banjo if they choose to. Just my GT
EtherEclectic	Date: October 9, 2005 @ 12:26 AM for folk music the banjo doesnt sound bad, it goes perfect with a mandolin, acoustic, and/or some violins/cellos. it does get a bad rep, and when i pick one up in my local guitar store, once i start doing some tripplets on it everyone looks at me as if i am chewing on straw...
TameasDust	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 3:38 AM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo Noted musicians who play the banjo include: * David "Stringbean" Akeman * Howard Alden * Danny Barker * Perry Bechtel * Louis 'Lou' Black * Kevin Blechdom * Dock Boggs * Howie Bursen * Bob Carlin * Eugene Chadbourne * Roy Clark * Eddie Condon * Billy Connolly * J. D. Crowe * Ed Cuneo * Dwight Diller * Lonnie Donegan * Jimmy Driftwood * Pat Dutro * Jem Finer * Béla Fleck * Bob Flesher * Albert 'Papa' French * Tony Furtado * Jerry Garcia * Håkon Gebhart * Harper Goff * Creole George Guesnon * John Hartford * Burl Ives * Papa Charlie Jackson * Bill Keith * Narvin Kimball * Walt Koken * Stalebread Lacoume * Nappy Lamare * Bill Lowrey * Uncle Dave Macon * Steve Mandell * Lawrence Marrero * Reed Martin * Steve Martin * Doug Mattocks * Barney McKenna * Reverend Jeff Mosier * Vess Ossman * Eddie Peabody * Ken Perlman * Steve Peterson * Charlie Poole * Howard 'Howdy' Quicksell * Don Reno * Harry Reser * Dick Roberts * Red Roundtree * Banjo Ikey Robinson * Art Rosenbaum * Emanuel Sayles * Earl Scruggs * Pete Seeger * Arthur Smith * Doc Souchon * Johnny St. Cyr * Ralph Stanley * Roni Stoneman * Sufjan Stevens * Samuel Swain Stewart (also manufacturer) * Joel Walker Sweeney * Sam Sweeney * Charlie Tagawa * Peter Tork * Tony Trischka * Fred Van Epps * Buddy Wachter * Chris Ware (musician) * Eric Weissberg * Gillian Welch * Pete Wernick
mattbanx	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 4:12 AM There are many rock acts that play the banjo. From Pure Prarie League, to The Greatful Dead, to The Black Crowes. The electric guitar in itself is an electronic instrument, as much as I like to hear it. There will always be a demand for acoustic instruments. And bluegrass, which was an influence on country and later with rock, had a lot of banjo in it, if I am not mistaken.
GeneHilbert	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 11:19 AM Hell of an instrument - I can play it - but I hate fingerpicks - and unfortunately you can't get the projection without them.......
mystery-machine	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 11:29 AM Steve Martin! yes! He's a great banjo player!
zedsalt	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 12:49 PM A nice fellow at indieville.com compared my banjo playing to Eugene Chadbourne's in a review of "Fragmintia" (Mark Flake and I, available on Wood Records. I think there's also some banjo on "The Legend of Dusty Cornfield"). I was quoted alongside Bela Fleck in an article that appeared in USA Today, The Contra Costa Times, The Detroit News, The Guelph Mercury, The Holland Sentinel, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Bowes Daily Herald-Tribune,The Daily Texan, and the The Oakland Tribune. Ah, with my shameless self-promo fix satisfied, I'd like to point out that the banjo was Jerry Garcia's first instrument. And Steve Martin has a name now for his banjo supergroup: "Men With Banjos Who Know How to Use Them". I saw them on Letterman a while back; it was a JAM!
zedsalt	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 12:51 PM Oh, and when you're talking about music influenced by banjo-playing, slack-jawed Yokels, don't forget Funk, and by extension, Rap.
JasonJSmoke	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 4:00 PM Ah TameasDust I am so glad you included Bela Fleck he is a Machine. His Newgrass Revival stuff rocked as well as his newer jazz, with Victor Wooten on bass.
tsand19151	Date: October 11, 2005 @ 4:18 PM Bela Feck changed my whole perception on the banjo... awesome.
zedsalt	Date: October 12, 2005 @ 11:53 AM Hey, JJS, were you aware that Spaceman is a Wooten, too? They're bros. The addition of a sax took the Flecktones into some cool new territory; be sure to check that stuff out, if all you've heard has been the trio. Oh, and one of my favorite things I've heard Fleck do has been his work with Strength in Numbers. If you haven't checked them out yet, by all means, do. Acoustic shred supergroup- Bela, Mark O'Connor, Edgar Meyers, Sam Bush, and Jerry Douglass!
TameasDust	Date: October 13, 2005 @ 4:43 AM as for that jam ... go here http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/exclusives/music/ls_ex_music_banjos.shtml good stuff
JasonJSmoke	Date: October 17, 2005 @ 9:27 PM I always dug Sam Bush, he is a terrific mandolin player, and Flux is just amazing on that dobro
JasonJSmoke	Date: October 17, 2005 @ 9:31 PM TameasDust, that was awesome, I knew Steve Martin could play but i didnt know he was that good of a picker
Alstroph	Date: October 24, 2005 @ 11:01 AM i consider banjos to be very cool. Usually though, i find them playing music i tend to associate with vomiting. I'm not saying talented musicians don't play them or make music that sounds good with them, i'm just saying that...i haven't heard it. it is i who intends to purchase one with money i earn/steal. Steam platter.
zedsalt	Date: October 24, 2005 @ 11:35 AM You might enjoy the tune I mentioned in this thread October 4, 2005 @ 12:35 PM.
GeneHilbert	Date: October 24, 2005 @ 12:28 PM Earl Scruggs.... is man on that stage...
ryanwilliams	Date: October 24, 2005 @ 10:00 PM Not that she played it herself, but Natalie Merchant put the Banjo to excellent employ on her "Motherland" album (title track, judas, others). And Tom Waits. I'm pretty sure he's a fan of that one.
snotjello	Date: October 29, 2005 @ 11:43 AM I'm not a string player, but I love the banjo.I think it gets a bad rap based on one of the few (uninformed) stereotypes that it's still acceptable to hold onto. Some of the greatest musicians in the world are in country music, bluegrass, etc, and much of the music that people who are way too obsessed with they're "cool" image (rock, pop, etc.) owes as much to country music as anything else. I'm not saying I'm a major country (and related genres) fan, but it's one of many genres that I don't ask permission from the popular herd to like. The banjo is a fantastic instrument regardless of genre and I think anyone who dismisses it as just a symbol of their ignorant and uninformed impressions of certain genres of music is just feeding off other ignorant people, not listening with their ears or thinking with their brains.
snotjello	Date: October 29, 2005 @ 11:46 AM Oops! Made a couple erros on that post and accidentally hit the button before I could fix them. I think I got my thoughts across, though. That sentence was supposed to read... "and much of the music that people who are way too obsessed with they're "cool" image LISTEN TO (rock, pop, etc.) owes as much to country music as anything else."
evansorchid	Date: October 31, 2005 @ 7:01 AM Ya shur gotcha sum purty teith...
snotjello	Date: October 31, 2005 @ 9:13 AM Yo, homie! Let me aks you-uh queshun. You be dissin' me?
zedsalt	Date: October 31, 2005 @ 11:07 AM Yeah...um...no, snot', he wasn't...gee, how can I put this? Well, just watch the movie "Deliverance"; that should explain it.
snotjello	Date: October 31, 2005 @ 7:19 PM I have... and I wasn't. I was playing along with the game, exchanging one unfair stereotype for another.
further21	Date: May 4, 2006 @ 12:25 AM I think that hte banjo sounds really cool if used in ceratin ways, but sometimes it is too much. same with mandolin and stuff, I really do wish i could play the banjo though.
AthenasGhost	Date: May 6, 2006 @ 6:52 PM Everyone has different oppinions, to me, it's another great sounding instrument.

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