Good morning, BHO Citizens.

A 25-page long article of mine, on the fiddler Kerry Blech’s banjo playing capacities, is available as an eBook – and, shortly, as a paperback - on Amazon.Com at:

amazon.com/dp/B0GN3D2CS9

It is also now available as a paperback via:

amazon.com/dp/B0GP6L1281


Here’s the abstract:

Kerry Blech, An Old-Time Fiddler Who Was Also A Banjoer

By Lew Stern

Prepared for the Banjo Gathering
Carrboro/Chapel Hill, North Carolina
30 October to 2 November 2025

The fiddler Kerry Blech (1947 – 2023) developed an insatiable curiosity about old-time music history, and an intensive interest in the creative lives of elder fiddlers – as well as contemporary traditional musicians. Beginning in the early 1970s, he built a notable collection of field recordings, LPs, and copies of old-time music recorded during the 1920s and 1930s.

Kerry wrote insightful, detailed reviews of recorded old-time music, books, and videos for the Old-Time Herald from 1987 to 2008. For close to fifty years, he contributed meaningfully to old-time music projects – liner notes for commercial recordings, presentations to audiences on the music of elder fiddlers, research on tune origins, and the derivations of versions and variants of old fiddle tunes.

Importantly, Kerry was also an accomplished banjo player in multiple styles: clawhammer, two and three finger down picking – as well as a mandolin player and a guitarist who brought his rhythmic playing to several bands in multiple performance contexts and recordings beginning in the 1970s.

This paper is focused on the banjo playing dimension of Kerry Blech’s creative trajectory through decades of old-time music making.

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The KINDLE EBOOK edition is 2 bucks.

It will be available as a paperback on Amazon.com – watch this space . . .

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My book on Kerry Blech will probably be published in March, though pre-sale advertisement appears on the publishers website now:

mcfarlandbooks.com/product/Kerry-Blech/




THANKS for your attention. Have a good banjo-filled day.

Lew Stern
Durham, NC

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