Overall Comments

“West Virginia Mountain Music” is a video by Bates and Jody Littlehales featuring some of the most beautiful footage and still shots of the flora, fauna, landscapes and wildlife of Pendleton and Pocahontas Counties, set to the music of Dwight Diller. Several years in the making, it represents the best photographic and editing work of Bates and Jody, who produced Diller’s instructional DVDs.

Jody was an art director for the book division at National Geographic, and lent her skill as an editor to this series of video collaborations. Bates’ long professional experience as a photographer for National Geographic has been distilled in a number of photographic studies published over the last ten years since their retirements; those books are worth looking at themselves for the artistry and erudition they represent.

I cannot offer a dispassionate review, since I am linked to both the Littlehales and to Diller in a series of entangling alliances that amount to some of the most treasured friendships to emerge from my brief and undistinguished association with West Virginia banjo music over the last ten or more years.
So, my enthusiasm for this video, which I have viewed many, many times since Elaine Diller sent me one from her great store, MorningStar Folk Music, in Hillsborough, West Virginia, makes me an extremely biased supporter of the art of Bates, Jody, and Dwight.

They have together produced a video that overwhelms the senses – front loading the brain with landscapes and life forms of every size and shape that inhabit the mountains, water features, and forest lands of West Virginia while drenching the mind with Dwight’s banjo and fiddle from the great body of recorded music that represents his portfolio.

In my own view, Bates photos and Dwight’s music come together in this video in a way that helps to translate these diverse connections that exist in my mind between West Virginia banjo tunes and fiddle music and my own panoramic memories. His video turns my memories into scenes anchored to West Virginia realities, thus connecting my city boy way of making sense of this music, or searching for visual signals of musical meaning, with firm, enduring images of West Virginia.

I’m unlikely to encounter the West Virginia that Bates and Jody have documented in this film, and in the books Bates has turned out in the course of a great photographic career, and I may not understand the recollections that Dwight’s music signals to him, the images and realities that he associates with this music, and attempts to communicate to a devoted audience.

And that may be the reason I have watched this film over and over, and intend to watch it again.

Overall Rating

9

Sound

This is an ideal banjo for clawhammer, but I'm also finding that it is rich and responsive in an uppicking role, too. It's got a cross between a bright and a plunky sound, with just the right touch of "rain on an old tin roof" to make it a great old time player. I cannot begin to describe the depth of sound that comes from the Tony Pass pot, nor can I fully capture in words the artistry and impectable woodwork that Tony does with his submerged wood. Jeff's neck is just the right design to bring out the best in this pot. His tonerim system is a well worked out design that puts out a fine clawhammer sound.

Sound Rating

10

Appearance

It's a balanced, simple and straightforward machine with a range of possible responses according to how I'm attacking the strings. I'm beginning to see that it responds most effectively to a subtle approach rather than a muscular one, but at any point along that continuum -- from strenuous and athletic clawhammer to more subdued, quiet hammering -- the Cloverlick is a joy to play, easy to handle, comfortable to hold, and inviting to play.

Appearance Rating

10

Customer Service

Nearly a year ago, I contacted Jeff Kramer and, on the basis of a one day opportunity during the winter of 2006 to play Dwight Diller's Cloverlick banjo, I asked Jeff to work with me to come up with an equation for an open back banjo with a slightly shorter scale than "normal."

He did all the hard stuff, like talking me out of eccentric scales, guiding me through his thinking about wood choices, explaining his clever tone ring alternatives, and laying out for me the engineering behind his approach to building necks that fit Tony Pass rims.

Between mid July 06 and the finish date for the banjo which arrived yesterday, 3 July 07, Jeff and I exchanged emails that piled up to an inch thick accumulation of paper that constituted his exceptionally straightforward philosophy of banjoing, his reasoning about building choices, and his elegant, simply, understated aesthetic when it comes to inlay, finish, and other decorative choices.

I learned a great deal from this dialogue, and owe much to Jeff for his willingness to take the time from his busy productions schedule to answer questions on the progress of this project.

Fully warranteed. Flexible, accommodating company. Consistently helpful.

Customer Service

10

Overall Comments

I've owned several made from scratch modern banjos, and this one represents the most seriously engineered design, the most thoughtful effort to match functionality and appearance. Great price for the banjo, especially the Pass pot. I consider this irreplaceable. If this banjo were evert to be illegally removed from the owner, the perpetrator would need to spend the rest of his living days looking over his shoulder. I'm certain that would effect his playing...

Overall Rating

10