barbbanjo - Posted - 10/13/2009:  21:11:51

I know this sounds really silly, but a few years ago, I found out that my ancestors were hillbillies who made banjos and fiddles and played music and sang as families all the time. One of my distant cousins was the author of Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley and my great grandmother was a famous ballad singer who has had 2 or 3 books written about her. I didn't know this family background until I was about 50. It just seems weird that if I stepped back in time, I would have fit right into the family. The reason I didn't know about my family history is that my father never once mentioned it to any of his children. Both my grandfather and my great uncle made banjos. I wonder how many other of you have this music in your family background?

Sultans of Claw - Posted - 10/13/2009:  21:19:56

Yes, I have heard that my grandmother used to play the banjo.

Lee Callicutt

KE - Posted - 10/13/2009:  21:24:25

Going back four generations, there is no indication any of my ancestors played a musical instrument. Continuing with myself into the fifth generation, there is an unbroken record in our family of a total lack of any form of musical talent.

Sultans of Claw - Posted - 10/13/2009:  21:28:02

Well, now, no one said anything about talent!

Lee Callicutt

Ev - Posted - 10/13/2009:  21:42:56

None of my ancestors played, as far as I know, but my 5 year old grandson said, last week, he wants to learn. So, maybe, I guess.

bigfeller - Posted - 10/13/2009:  21:49:53

My great grandfather played the banjo, and I have a first cousin that plays, besides me those are the only two that I know of in my family that have ever played banjo. There are a few guitar players, but just the three banjo players. My dad says that my great grandfather played 2 finger style and clawhammer and was quite good.

Travis

Edited by - bigfeller on 10/13/2009 21:51:42

brokenstrings - Posted - 10/13/2009:  21:51:16

Well, they didn't play banjo, anyhow. Where I was born, nobody did. We had pianists and singers in the family and one aunt played a German folk lute (which is essentially a lute-shaped guitar).

Jessy

Frailaway, ladies, frailaway!

banjonz - Posted - 10/13/2009:  23:17:47

My dad played wind instruments (brass band), my sister learnt piano and I am the only banjo player (that i know of ) in my immediate family. Why did I settle on the banjo...Who knows! MY sister is the genealogist in our family and she has never mentioned that any of our ancestors ever played the banjo.

Wayne
New Zealand


My short-term memory is not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my short-term memory's not as sharp as it used to be.

Tam_Zeb - Posted - 10/13/2009:  23:33:16

Well there are Plenty of Hills and plenty of Billy's here in the UK but I am the first in my line to pick up a banjo and start picking

Regards Tam

Picking a Fender FB 58 and PROUD to describe myself as a Student of the Murphy Method

1four5 - Posted - 10/14/2009:  02:47:26

I'm definately the first to play banjo. There's piano and organ and harmonica and accordian in my family tree though.

Dean

John Allison - Posted - 10/14/2009:  05:25:38

I truely believe, that a love for music is inherited; be it listening, piano playing, harmonica playing, banjo playing or whatever. Learning to play any particular instrument, IMHO, is probably more due to being steered in that direction.

Both of my parents were musically inclined. My father was a very good violinist and also an accomplished saxophone player. My mother loved music and insisted that all the children learn the piano. During my service years I listened to both Dave Guard & John Stewart (at different times) play the banjo with the K Trio and decided this was the instrument for me (plus the fact that the piano was too heavy to lug around on my back): however, I could not find one suitable for my service pay. Finally inherited a guitar and played that for many years until my banjo craving caught up with me once again.

Froggie
"Courage is Fear that has said its prayers.

Edited by - John Allison on 10/14/2009 10:48:32

AndyM - Posted - 10/14/2009:  05:38:08

My father, uncles and aunt, had a dance band back in the 1920's and two of my uncles played tenor banjo and it definitely inspired me with the sound. When I first bought a 5-string back in the 1960's I didn't even know the difference, of course, alot of people don't know that today!

dingo - Posted - 10/14/2009:  06:06:52

Rumor has it that my Irish side of the family traveled the country side performing. And they performed their way right to New York and then into Michigan. My grandmother on that side also played piano, and as far as I know my brother and I are the only ones who are keeping it up.

Jill

What Happens in the Corn Field, Stays in the Corn Field.

Kenneth Logsdon - Posted - 10/14/2009:  06:43:24

Yep, All my paternal grandmothers people, the McCoys played...Theres some old pictures of them with their instruments and their guns somewhere...

KL

trapdoor2 - Posted - 10/14/2009:  07:29:33

My mother's family played piano (as she did), my father's family worked the fields and couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

No idea about generations before that. I'm the only family member currently playing anything...I've never met most of my cousins.

===Marc

"If banjos needed tone rings, S.S. Stewart would have made them that way."

rinemb - Posted - 10/14/2009:  08:13:20

My mother's side "Crabtree" was very musical and talented. I recently discovered by my wife (the geneologist) that I am related to Hobart Crabtree, a fine clawhammer banjo player. Talent, hmmm, but I have gone farther with banjo in a shorter time than I ever achieved with guitar.

Brad

You may be man enough to take my woman, but you'll never get my banjo.

May not the incidence of success, nor the pretense of retirement-
Lessen the want of enlightenment.

frailin - Posted - 10/14/2009:  08:31:10

Yes! It can be!!



Here's my grandfather (with mando) and great uncle as young men (around 1907). Uncle Cliff is holding an open-back 5-string. I've always loved the banjo but could never explain why.



So I showed this to my (then) 13 year old son... told him banjo playing was "in the blood." He was already a better player than me by then. So it was just confirmation.

"Gospel. The most powerful music in this world and the next."



www.frailin.com
www.myspace.com/frailin
www.myspace.com/singletonstreet
www.myspace.com/eelpouts
&
www.autismhangout.com

steve davis - Posted - 10/14/2009:  08:59:50

My grandmother(Dad's mom) had a fine musical gift.She mostly played
piano and accordion,but often would play an electric guitar because it played
easier than the flat top.

She had a natural ear for harmony and would fill out a trio or quartet
with a "melancholy" low alto.
Her four children including my dad are (were) also gifted musically and
all their kids (me and my siblings and cousins) grew up in these very
musical homes and just naturally joined in on any instrument that
wasn't being played.

Mom and her sister played piano very well but not by ear.
Dad played a lap steel and got his first pedal(8 string/3 pedal Fender)
in 1960.Later a couple of Sho-Buds Pro I and II.

Music in church with my brother and sister and Mom on the piano.

We played 3 to 6 evenings a week for years and it seems that this
kind of thing is just passed on because it's what there was to do
and the instruments were there waiting to be played.

It is inherited,though.I feel that I and my extended family inherited
our music from my grandmother,Fannie Davis who showed us all what
good music was supposed to sound like and enjoy it

Mike Greylak - Posted - 10/14/2009:  09:13:48

If this is all true how come Earl's kids don't play banjo??

farley - Posted - 10/14/2009:  09:32:32

Both of my grandfathers played the five string banjo, my father played, along with various other family members down in the hills of Kentucky, but it was the first time I heard Earl on the Saturday night Martha White, Grand Ole Opry show that hit me with the fever. After that night, I was at my grandfathers house, trying into talk him in to letting me "borrow" his old Gibson RB-3. Farley

Nosferatu - Posted - 10/14/2009:  09:33:01

Mike, Earl's kids do play the banjo...Didn't Earl sell Steve's banjo not long ago?

I think it's not as much of it being "inherited" as it's "inbreed." Yuck yuck...yuck.

Thank you,
"Count" Hugh


"I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain." -- Jonathan Harker, Dracula

Edited by - Nosferatu on 10/14/2009 09:34:05

edweber - Posted - 10/14/2009:  09:48:00

Great-aunt Lucy played the fiddle in a town orchestra or symphony - at least so I've been told. I had her fiddle in my possession for a while and did some repair work on it. There were some minor openings on the seams of the bouts which I reglued and clamped. The bow's winding needed to be replaced with silver wire and over all it just needed a good cleaning. My uncle Myron played a tenor banjo as well as guitar and piano. He was a dixieland jazz enthusiast and played in a band for a number of years. Maybe that's where I acquired my leanings towards the banjo and jazz. Like Steve Davis, my grandma (Dad's side) sang alto in church. She always caught the harmony part and it was a sheer joy to listen to her sing. I've always preferred harmony singing over lead singing and I attribute my preference for harmony to my grandma. Ed

Regular Guy says, "Nuffs enuff"
www.customscrimshaw.com
Email: edweber@customscrimshaw.com

georgiagoodie - Posted - 10/14/2009:  12:20:16

My paternal grandfather played banjo for barn dances back in the '30s & '40s in Southeast Alabama.
He bought me my first banjo back in '71............still got it!

georgiagoodie

"Frets? We don't need no stinking frets!!"

edsnyder - Posted - 10/14/2009:  12:55:06

My Great Uncle Jim was a Mando player. I have his mando hanging on the wall of my music room. He was one of a set of twins that got scarlet fever when they were tow. it killed his brother and Jim never grew much after that. He was a dwarf and stood just under 4 feet tall. His arms were pretty short and the mando was the only instrument that he could reach the entire neck.

I have a picture of him, James Snyder, with me and my oldest son, James Snyder.

Ed e

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever!

Moxley - Posted - 10/14/2009:  13:06:55

quote:

---

Originally posted by KE

Going back four generations, there is no indication any of my ancestors played a musical instrument. Continuing with myself into the fifth generation, there is an unbroken record in our family of a total lack of any form of musical talent.

---

gshall - Posted - 10/14/2009:  13:12:36

There's something to this. If you try to bring a banjo into a house that has never had one in it, you've got a fight on your hands. I couldn't get a banjo until one of my wife's friends decided to learn banjo - all of a sudden it was acceptable. A family history helps.

I could be some 50 year old dude sitting around in stained shorts resting my pizza on my beer belly, except I'm too old.

Jerry

Banjoitus - Posted - 10/14/2009:  21:30:19

If this is all true how come Earl's kids don't play banjo??

Some say, Steve was better than Earl, I don't know, I never heard him play. I saw Earl play in person, I sure wish things had of turned out differently for Steve, it would have been neat to see them play together.

Banjoitus - Posted - 10/14/2009:  21:37:13

To answer the question. My daddy never talked about banjos in mixed company so as not to appear impolite. I figure he kept away from the subject on account of my being little at the time. He tried to stay away from cussin' so I figure if he had of played the banjo, he wouldn't have gone around tellin' everyone!

Solo - Posted - 10/14/2009:  23:06:17

I don't know about genetics, but when I was young and went to family reunions in Spencer WV, there was always banjo music playing. I had one uncle who would frail and clog ... a great, cheerful man. I ate this up in my larval stages!!! Part of my family was Jenes Cottrell from Clay County, who recently has become legendary. He was as famous for his jokes and manufacturing banjo rims out of torque converters, as he was for his music. He was also at these reunions.

I certainly loved the music, and requested a Kay banjo at an early age. Still have it. I have three brothers, and two of us pick guitar and banjos. My dad played fiddle and mom piano. They both encouraged a musical foundation in their children.

But, the funny thing is that my mom and her parents did not encourage the old time music. They sort of looked down upon it, making fun of those old,sad songs. They encouraged classical music and literature. But, it's not this simple. At one time my grandad owned a small mine. Sometimes he would invite a group of men over to the house to play and sing local music. So, to this day close harmony, mountain music singing will bring my mom to tears. Imagine that!!! She's now living in Maine, addicted to opera .... but still .... this music touches something deep inside.

Anyway, we can all thank out lucky stars for influences ... wherever they come from.

Bob Robert - Posted - 10/15/2009:  06:21:52

There has always been a lot of appreciation for music on my mother's side, but they were more into "proper" type instruments that you could play in an orchestra. A violin never would have been a fiddle to them.

On my dad's side, my grandfather and at least one uncle both played guitars. It is also rumored that my grandpa built a double necked guitar, but I don't know if that's true.

Nobody on either side of my family is reported to have ever played a banjo, which is kind of odd, considering my dad's folks were from Kentucky and Tennessee, and they were large families. Maybe I just haven't dug deep enough.

Now, if anyone were to hear me play, they'd say for sure that there's no musical ability in my genes anywhere. However, my son does seem to be musically inclined, so I'm hoping he'll take up the banjo.

Bob

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot

Edited by - Bob Robert on 10/15/2009 06:23:12

barbbanjo - Posted - 10/15/2009:  06:27:07

Solo, maybe that is a really important thing - the way old time music touches our souls. Maybe that's why it just keeps going from generation to generation. My great grandmother was Jane Gentry, renowned for her Jack Tales. One of her daughters lived in a nursing home in Alaska and she didn't want people to know about her mountain family history and the Jack Tales. When an author, searching for information for her book about my great grandmother, visited my aunt and told the residents of the nursing home what a famous person my aunt's mother was and told some Jack Tales, my aunt "came out of the closet" and fessed up to her mountain roots and from then on wore them proudly. I think that generation felt like their heritage was a shameful thing. But, like your Mom, that heritage was connected to something really deep inside of them. Maybe it meant home, simplicity, authenticity, love, living with nature, etc. I'm glad we can be proud of our family history.

wrentree - Posted - 10/15/2009:  06:36:23

Our famblys had music on both sides. I spose that is a good indicatr of inbreedn. My fambly picks it, blowze it, strumz it, singz it, and dainces to it.
Earls boyz played and so did Don Renos boyz. Its like some disease, just keeps on spredin thru the town.
Course when I was a boy, ya coudnt go fur without shuze cuz the stones hurt. An we needed somthin to do. So we did what cum naturl like, ya know.
We'd make a lot of nice soundin noise on our side of the mountin and then try to git the naybors to walk them stones and come over to where we were so we cud sochulize. Thats where that Mountin Dew cum from, by having sore feet. Ya see the naybors wud git sore feet coming over to sochulize and told us thet they wud have to stay longas they still had sore feet. After a few hours with the Dew, theyd forget about their feet and decide to go on home for nuther month. or so. Then we cud get some more vittles bilt back up too.

Harold

Charlie-Gumba - Posted - 10/15/2009:  06:42:28

My grandfather played banjo, My Dad Plays banjo, and I try to play banjo as good as them.

People are often influenced by their environment/surrondings. Look at most anything and you can see this. Nascar Racing -Dale Sr & Dale Jr, Football- Payton/Eli & Archie Manning, and the list can go on. Didn't Hank Jr write a song about Family Traditions? So, We can pass along good or bad hobbies. My opinion is that passing along the banjo ain't too bad.



The 2stepper
www.coalmtramblers.com

maryzcox - Posted - 10/15/2009:  12:31:18

Hello,
My Grandad Thompson (maternal) was a professional banjoist during WWII. He also played piano, sax, and clarinet. His Dad was an old time fiddler from St. Joe Missouri. Mom played sax and clarinet.
I remember wanting to play the piano as kid, but there was no money for a piano or lessons. A neighbor girl (who had both and didn't really like her lessons) would show me her lesson every week and she made me a cardboard fingerboard to practice on--but I could never really get into the sound of that silent cardboard keyboard.
When I heard the banjo and wanted to play--my folks got me one for Christmas. It was from the Sears catalog and not expensive--but boy did it ever sound better than that cardboard keyboard!

www.maryzcox.com
If you suspect you need a new banjo--you do. Trust your musical instincts. If a banjo calls to you to buy it, don't fight destiny. It was meant to be. :)
http://banjoquest.blogspot.com

Field videos of banjoists, banjos, tunes, and banjos in locations you may or may not have seen or heard before :)

Edited by - maryzcox on 10/15/2009 12:32:00

mandolin123 - Posted - 10/15/2009:  14:39:24

My grandpa is 85 and I have his grandpa's fiddle. A real tone box. It has a rattle in it with about 12 rattles on it. No telling how old it is.

blah blah blah

mandolin123 - Posted - 10/15/2009:  14:39:42

My grandpa is 85 and I have his grandpa's fiddle. A real tone box. It has a rattle in it with about 12 rattles on it. No telling how old it is.

blah blah blah

Glenn Tate - Posted - 10/15/2009:  15:42:46

One of my grandfathers played guitar, banjo, fiddle and piano. The other one, who died before I was born, played the fiddle and French harp. My dad played guitar, fiddle, and French Harp, and played in dance bands before he and my mother met. As a matter of fact, they met at a "house" dance. In those days, they would move all the furnature out of a room in a house, and hold a dance.

My dad taught me how to play the guitar, and I am self taught on the banjo. I sure do miss playing music with my dad, and wish I could do it again. If any of you have dad's that play instruments, play together all you can. Some day you are going to miss that. Music has been a big part of both sides of my family.

"Politicians are like diapers, both should be changed regularly, for the same reason."

Glenn

TN_Picker - Posted - 10/16/2009:  05:23:05

My Granddad on my Dad's side picked the banjo. I remember watching him when I was very young, maybe 3 or 4 years old. By the time I was old enough to ask about the banjo he had his hands were so arthritic and beaten from working in the mines all those years that he couldn't pick anymore. I've always thought that was where I got the desire to try to learn to pick.

“Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help! I'm being repressed!”

midnightcall72 - Posted - 10/16/2009:  05:54:36

me, my uncle and my great grandpa played. My grandma told me a story bout her mom either selling or tossing her husbans banjo. soo sad hehe

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
God is good.

Micki - Posted - 10/19/2009:  06:27:59

My great grandfather was a old banjo picker from Greyson County va. His son lived in wheel chair all his life and the sides were let down so he could pick his banjo, my grand mother ( also from greyson Co) picked banjo in her early years, and several of my cousins and kin folk play and pick numerous intruments still. My bloodline on the maternal side is the Rutherfords and this involves a lot of pickers and bluegrass, so I have exposed to it all my life. My husband played bluegrass for approx, 50 years and had several bands and until he was diagnosed with als , he played and sang till he no longer could. I don't hesitate to say that most young musicians from this area picked at our house at least one time in their careers. We love and admire all of them and have enjoyed watching them come into their own and growing and making us very proud to have known them. Micki

farley - Posted - 10/19/2009:  09:44:29

Banjoitus; Earl's boys did play banjo, at least Randy, and Stevie did. I wouldn't say anyone plays better than Earl, just my own belief, but to me there isn't any body comes close to what Earl has played, or done for the banjo. Back years ago I was lucky to see the Revue many times, and open for them several times. Stevie was featured on most of those shows playing the banjo, most of the time it was "Earl's Breakdown", and if I remember, he did great job on it (as good as any of us will ever do). Once when we were playing with them in Indiana, I got to spend over a half an hour with Steve backstage, asking him every concievable question about Earl I could think of. We had a great time, laughing, till just about the whole time until the Revue went on. It was a great nite, I have been lucky. Farley

freakydays - Posted - 10/20/2009:  07:42:34

Ma father played the mandolin until he broke the mandolin's neck in a bicycle accident and he also played the guitar until he bnroke the guitar by playing it in the rain a t a campfire. THen he stopped but still plays the harmonica. He's a natural talent and never had any music lesson because his parents never sopent money on music. He learned some chords somewhere in a backyard asking old men. He plays folk music
My mother has a lot of musical talent as well but never played any musical intrument except a wooden flute, but she was craving for playing the cello. She only loves classic music. Both iof my parents are singing in church.
Am I talented? At a mediocre level I would say. OKay, I'm not the worst singer, but all my instrumental playing has never reached a level beyond mediocrity. I'm a bit "homemade". Sometimes I'm inventing songs (lyrics, tunes etc), but I'm unable to write them down. I just sing them, without any kind of audience, I just write the lyrics and when I'm sad I'm singing the bkues, when I'M upset, I sind protest songs, when I'M fine, I sing my own gospels. I'M always a person with a message and the message is more important than a high musical standard or quality.
I'M living in a cty with beautiful old houses like the victorian houses of Haight Ashbury. Many of them are abandoned. Now there``s a law that allows to destroy them if the owner can't be found after 3 months. THis makes me sad and that's why I took the tunes of a folk song (Wagon wheel) and changed the lyrics. Maybe I'll go to some meeting and just sing the song?
Many greetings, freakydays

What's the result of teaching myself 5-string-banjo? neopsychedelic countrystyle, yellowsunshine purplegrass - who knows?
I'm not a musician - I'm just a pickin' monkey!