Playing Since: 1970
Experience Level: Purty Good

Interests:
[Jamming] [Socializing]

Occupation: retired

Gender: Male
Age: 79

My Instruments:
My main player is a 1920's(?) Wurlitzer converted from a tenor, 11" spunover maple rim with a Ren head, steel strings. The other one is a Buckbee with 11" spunover rim. skin head, 25 inch scale, Nylon strings.


Favorite Bands/Musicians:
Dan Gellert, Howie Bursen, Joel Mabus, NLCR, Bob Carlin, Mark Johnson, Bruce Molsky, Troublesome Creek, Jody & Kate, Highwoods, Gillian and Dave

Classified Rating: not rated
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Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 3/12/2006
Last Visit 7/1/2017

I started out playing guitar during the folk scare, late 1963. I bought a used Harmony for $17. I played fingerstyle. I learned some classical stuff along the way. I played Dylan tunes, Tom Paxton, Tom Rush, etc. I got a Gibson J-50 in 1967, the year I got married. I played it fingerstyle with fingerpicks. I was into Doc Watson, Leo Kottke, John Fahey. My wife bought me a banjo in 1970, a Harmony Roy Smeck with a black plastic rim and resonator. I started out playing with picks. I was into the Dirt Band stuff, and the Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Then I started to learn Neil Young stuff on guitar, with a flat pick. I began to like what the New Lost City Ramblers were doing. I got invited to join a string band, called Sugarfoot, as a guitar player and tenor singer. I sold the Gibson and bought a Gurian rosewood jumbo. We played bluegrass. After a job took me to another state, I built a couple guitars, after having made dulcimers for a few years. I got a basket-case banjo, a Silvertone, and refurbished it. Pretty good banjo. I traded it. I started collecting instruments. I got a Lyon & Healy banjo that I played for 20 years. I have a great old fiddle, a couple Martins, a D and an OM, an old parlour guitar called the Vernon (!!!), by C. Bruno, a Gibson Roy Smeck and an Advance Jumbo, and two more banjos. That AJ became my main player in another BG band, called Whistle Pig. Now I mostly play clawhammer on banjo. I love nylgut and real gut strings and I'm into fretless. I still like to play in fingerstyle on guitar as well as flatpick. I'm into recording at home now. Playing out is so much work for very little money. I applaud those who do it. You have to love it when you pay thousands for an instrument and get paid fifty bucks to play it. What a country.