Encountering Pete

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Long Neck Banjo

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... for those of us who prefer the tuning and singing differences the LN provides. All questions & help welcome!

273 Members, Created 1/30/2011 -

Administrators: TonyS (owner) , Gary Blanchard , pastorharry , vega long neck

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From Lew H on 1/28/2014 8:11:41 PM

Pete Seeger played a concert at our local university (SIUC) along with his grandson Tao. This became an even more exciting day for me than I could have ever imagined. Word spread from the sponsoring unit of the school that Pete had forgotten his banjo by his front door as he was heading out for the plane for the trip down to southern Illinois. Two of us, myself and the current Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, vied to donate our longneck banjos for Pete to play in the concert. Alas--or luckily--his grandson had a Vega Ranger that Pete used that evening.

With some secret help, my wife and I crashed a reception for Pete later that evening. We listened to the crowd chat with Pete; we jammed with Tao. I brought my longneck Gibson along to ask Pete to autograph it. He did so, then played a Bach religious piece on it, and then held it up, stared at it for a minute, then said, "That's a nice banjo."

I'm posting some pictures, but I don't know how to do it here, so I'll start a forum or add to an existing one--if someone else has started one--and put them there.

3 Comments
	kwfolk1 says: 1/28/2014 8:15:57 PM Great story! Thanks for posting it.
	Lew H says: 1/28/2014 8:40:33 PM Thanks. I posted a version of the story and 3 pictures on the OT picking advice forum "So long, Pete".
	TonyS says: 1/29/2014 12:07:20 PM Thanks Lew- and RIP Pete!
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