Overall Comments

I just received my Little Maggie picks in the mail yesterday, shaped them to fit and played with them for the first time in earnest this morning. I definitely like the way they wrap around the finger without impinging -- painfully -- on the cuticles; I have large fingers and these bands fit just right.

Moreover, I cross over from clawhammer to up picking. Two nails on my right hand are a bit longer than the rest, the sure sign of a clawhammer player. These picks fit over those nails and don't get me tangled up in the strings as much as more customarily cut fingerpicks.

I feel as though I'm more accurate. I feel as though my fingers can "breathe." I like these. I also appreciate the carrying case, a simple plastic tube that neatly fits in the pocket and stores easily in the banjo case.

Now, after this first use, I'm a devoted fan of Little Maggie Picks, and intend to order two more pairs -- one for each of my bluegrass banjos, and one to keep in my pocket at all times.

Thanks. Great little product.

Overall Rating

10

Overall Comments

Donald New advertised the Custom Made Douglas Fir Spillway Dam Banjo Bridge on BHO and I was attracted to the tightly grained wood shown in the photo I saw.

http://www.banjohangout.org/classified/18229

In the ad, and the enclosed note that accompanied the bridge, Mr. New said that he hoped the bridge would improve the sound of the buyer’s banjo, and give the buyer “more pleasure” in playing. I thought that was a very modest way of phrasing it. He made no claim or guarantee that the bridge would open up the sound, make the strings magically more playable, improve the intonation, and so on.

The bridge came in the mail yesterday, and I placed it on the banjo this morning. I can’t say that I am getting the sound that I hoped to get from the banjo, largely because I can’t quite put my finger on what sound I thought possible or most desirable, and that might be a function of both the limits of my instrument and “operator error.”

What I can say is that the bridge is a great piece of work, tightly cut, symmetrical, nicely sanded, notched precisely.

And I can say that it does indeed open up the sound, and it does set up a tension on the strings that made them much more playable. I get a much more precise, crisp sound south on the neck toward the rim, and a bit more clarity in chording.

I can say one more thing about this little bridge. I swing between clawhammer and up- picking, and not usually on the same banjo. The banjo in question, a nice RK-50, showed itself not really suited for clawhammering when I first purchased it. After I installed the Spillway Dam Banjo Bridge, this changed. The bridge made the banjo much more clawhammerable. I really didn’t anticipate that dividend. I managed to convince the Wife that I needed this RK-50 for dedicated up picking work, since no self respecting clawhammer banjo would permit bluegrassing up and down the neck. The Spillway Dam Bridge would have made that argument hard to sustain.

It is possible that many other bridges could have yielded this result. But this is the bridge that very quickly brought me improved results in my set up, so I recommend it. It might not stay on the banjo indefinitely; I’ll try any new banjo bridge once. But it will stay on for a while, and I am enjoying the shifts that it has brought to the instrument in terms of playability and sound.

I wonder what the Spillway Dam Bridge would do to any of my clawhammer open back banjos? I might just have to satisfy that curiousity.

Here’s the ad:

http://www.banjohangout.org/classified/18229

V/R,

Lew

Overall Rating

9

Sound

This RK-50, the lightweight model without a tone ring, is loud and crisp, clear and consistent across the fingerboard, with great intonation south toward the rim and real depth on the north end of the neck. I was looking for a simple modern banjo I would not have to fuss with too much to coax a great sound out, and this banjo checks that box without a doubt.

Sound Rating

10

Appearance

This banjo is simplicity personified. I wasn't looking for anything dripping in jewels. The finish is consistent and the inlay is done well. Nothing ornate about this one, and to me that is its strength.

Appearance Rating

10

Customer Service

RK offers a Limited Lifetime Warranty, which is fine because -- as it the case with most banjo players -- I expect to have a Lifetime that is hopefully long but ultimately limited. I need to say that Recording King is a stand up company. Greg Rich tolerates incessant questions and answers them directly, honestly and with a real commitment to his product. FRETWELL BASS, the RK dealer in Staunton, is a squared away store. Always a pleasure to buy local.

Customer Service

10

Overall Comments

I am happy to have this banjo. I won't have to fuss much with it. I can focus on playing, learning, jamming with the confidence that this thing will do the job.

Overall Rating

10

Sound

Jason’s banjo is responsive to a variety of touches. I tend to have a sledgehammer approach to clawhammering, and this banjo stood the test. I could also ratchet it down – especially when the wife was trying to read the newspaper in the morning – and Jason’s banjo sounded elegant, articulate, and sweet when played with a much lighter touch. It stood the test of two and three finger up picking, sustaining its volume and offering clearly defined notes. There was nothing muddy about this banjo no matter how it was played.

Sound Rating

10

Appearance

My first Jason Burns banjo, an unnumbered prototype, is a lovely blonde maple banjo, perhaps French Polished to a nice but not overbearing shine. It had detailed, tasteful heel carving, an extremely simply and memorably shaped peghead.

Appearance Rating

10

Customer Service

Jason is polite, quick to respond to email queries, thorough in his answers, and direct in his guidance and advice about banjo design. He is fast in satisfying requests for additional parts – bridges, etc – and offers a friendly guarantee of his product.

Customer Service

10

Overall Comments

Jason is an artist. Pure and simple. I’ve laid out an idea for an A scale banjo that I’d like to get for myself upon my retirement later this year, and Jason jumped on the idea, offered cogent comments on design and setup, scale and neck/pot construction. He’s a versatile thinker. Jason has begun making brass spun over rims and is looking to make his own metal hardware. Jason uses hide glue, employs home-made jigs, and carves the heel designs by hand. This is one great one stop shopping banjo builder.

Overall Rating

10

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