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markbyrum |
Started off around age 10 playing the guitar, so as to be able to accompany my Dad, who played the mandolin. Later moved to mandolin for a few years, until I was struck by the banjo bug when I heard the original FMB by Earl. I just had to learn to play that song. Purchased a used Kay K52 five string for $50 in the summer of 1972, before my senior year of high school. Spent high senior year eating and sleeping banjo - the Earl Scruggs book and 33 1/3 RPM albums slowed down to 16 RPM. Went off to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy toting my Kay banjo and a mahogany Epiphone guitar (FT-30 Caballero) along with my luggage. At Christmas, 1973 my Dad presented me with a pre-war Kel Kroyden Style 11 banjo which had been converted into a five-string (Gibson Wreath Pattern) and Mastertone flat-head tone ring telling me he was returning $1,000 of the money I had paid him for my high school car. At Christmas the next year, he presented me with a 1971 Martin D-35 telling me that represented the other $500 I had paid him. My younger brother got the car. I have still have the KK-Gibson Mastertone conversion and the Martin. The car has long since become razor blades.
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