My Banjo Journey

  First let me start by saying that this is my first blog anywhere ever. I feel like I actually need to write about this so let me just get caught up to where I am now. I have always been sort of fascinated by the banjo I have grown up in Texas on the gulf coast but I am originally from Tennessee.  I used to spend every summer in Tenn. We are from a really small town there and used to go to these town festivals and little jam sessions. To me Tennessee was sort of a mythical place. In my mind I have always thought of it as being inhabited by little gnomes living by mountain streams near moonshine stills. (Maybe the moonshine was why there were gnomes in the first place but who knows) I thought that it should be full of hillbilly’s  and that everyone sat on the front porch and played the banjo.(hey I was A little kid) and of course  I did see some of that but for the most part it was just a bunch of good old country boys huntin fishin and fourwheelin. As A result when I was at home here in Texas some body would always call me a hillbilly and I would say hell yea. That being said I felt like the banjo speaks to my soul. (At least that’s what I told my wife when I said that I wanted to learn to play the Banjo).

   I have listened primarily to heavy metal music for the last 12 years or so and most of my friends listen to metal so I don’t get much support on my choice of instruments I discovered Hayseed Dixie and then Iron horse and I really loved that sound it was awesome that someone would blend rock and roll and bluegrass together from there I was sort of reminded of the fact that I really kind of liked bluegrass music. I was talking to A friend of mine one day trying to show him some of my bluegrass music that I had collected (at the risk of being ridiculed of course) I happened to mention that I would like to play the banjo he said me-too … I was like what? Really. Just like that I suddenly had validation for my desire my next words were you know what I going to get one and start get learning. That very night I started doing research on Banjos (That was the night that I discovered this place) I researched banjos for A week strait my wife thought that I had gone crazy and still does I’m sure .I was scheduled to have surgery the next week and was going to have some time at home so I convinced my wife to let me get one right away (had found A deering Goodtimes II at guitar center for 200 bucks) she said go ahead and well here I am now.