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www.banjocrazy.com/
Playing Since: 1962
Paul Roberts has made 127 recent additions to Banjo Hangout 
Interests:
[Teaching] [Socializing] [Helping]
Occupation: Musician
Gender: Male
Age: 65
My Instruments:
Cello banjos Gold Tone CEB-4 and 5; (Bob Carlin) BC-350+; Irish tenor IT-250, sitar, saz, mandocello, etc...
Favorite Bands/Musicians:
Ustad Rais Khan, Adam Hurt, Beatles, Marcy Marxer, Cathy Moore, David Lindley, Elvis
Classified Rating: 0
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Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 12/3/2008
Last Visit 2/9/2012
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Friday, July 08, 2011 @6:03:54 PM
According to my friends at Gold Tone I'm the only dealer in the world who just sells their product - no one else's. There's some solace to that, even though it doesn't play out to great financial gain; especially for a guy who doesn't have a store, who lives next to the forest almost in the middle of nowhere.
A few years ago, after decades of being a professional musician, I fell off the road. I had devoted myself the study of various instruments from around the world and performing on them at elementary school concerts and fine arts concerts. But I'm basically a homebody and the road can get weary or, rather, it's me that got weary of the road. Now, at the tender age of sixty-five, I hang out by the forest in the rural mountain village of Pagosa Springs Colorado.
After spreading myself around a lot of instruments for so long, I began "hearing" banjo music in the mountains. This, after allowing my early banjo/guitar interests to evolve into a global musical odyssey. For a long time, banjo had been one of many instruments for me, not my primary focus. Now I was feeling it creep back into my bones.
I was like Rip Van Winkle, coming out of my self-made world of music, waking up to what was going on currently in the banjo world. For instance, I discovered that a young man named Adam Hurt was producing gorgeous sounds on his banjo. I found an Irish tenor banjo player named Gordon Johnston on YouTube. I found out there was a great Internet site called Banjo Hangout.
My "inner hearing" was corroborated by what I was finding: people were out there making fantastic music on banjos. Low and behold, they hadn't stopped playing banjos just because the folk music revival had ebbed a few decades before, or because some idiot like me had wondered off to the tune of other sounds.
At first it was the Irish thing that brought me back; Gordon Johnston's Irish finger-style tenor banjo. In the early 80's I had a funky tenor that sounded great and I played a bunch of Irish tunes on it, but then I traded "up" and I didn't like the sound of the fancy one nearly as much. So I opted out.
The real reason I became a Gold Tone dealer (don't tell Wayne) was that I wanted to experiment with 3 different types of banjos and I wanted to get them wholesale. I really had no intention of selling them. Actually, I ended up selling all three; they weren't quite what I was looking for, and I didn't even really know what that was.
Wayne tried to get me interested in the cello banjos he had just pulled out of the hat-of-antiquity. I was resistant at first, but finally took the plunge. I bought a 4 and 5-string cello banjo. And I was gone... that did the trick for me!
My banjocrazy.com website went up. I interviewed Marcy Marxer who had been the real inspiration behind the resurgence of this peculiar instrument, which had had such a short history in American culture, long ago. I interviewed Bob Carlin who had introduced Wayne to Marcy, which had gotten the whole cello banjo thing going again. I research cello banjos and interviewed others, all of which I published up on my website. I played cello banjos, constantly.
My longtime banjo had been a Tubaphone, but I could no longer seem to get a sound I could tolerate on it anymore. I eventually found my way to a Gold Tone banjo designed by Bob Carlin, which I'm still very fond of: the BC-350+. And an Irish tenor banjo- the IT-250.
It's taken me a while to reconcile my role change in life - from performer to independent product specialist/dealer.
Thanks to all of you who have visited my site and bought instruments from me. I don't sell a lot of instruments, but when it happens it sure helps to keep bread on the table.
If you're in my neck of the woods, please feel free to get in touch. I offer lessons at a reasonable price.
Best regards,
PauL
970-731-3117
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