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Garyflksngr |
Playing Since: 1966
Experience Level: Purty Good
Interests:
[Socializing] [Helping]
Occupation: Teacher
Gender: Male
My Instruments:
Guitar, Banjo, Harmonica
Favorite Bands/Musicians:
John Hartford, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Paxton, Townes VanZandt, The Dillards. (I met and played/jammed/ partied with all of them back in the sixties)
Classified Rating: not rated
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Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 4/10/2012
Last Visit 6/29/2021
My mother's relaltives always played guitars and fiddles when I was growing up, and in 1963, somebody gave me an old Harmony Sovereign, and I started learning to play the guitar. The folk revival had started when I was in high school and while most of my classmates wanted to be Elvis, I was more into Dylan, Baez and the Kingston Trio. Being into who wrote the songs, as well as who they were recorded by, when Glen Campbell was launched to fame and fortune with Gentle on My Mind, I discovered John Hartford . When I bought his first album, I got hooked on the banjo and started working up his songs to add to my folk act. Throughout the sixties and early seventies, I played in coffee houses in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico.; even ranging as far as Massachusetts one summer. I don't know what happened to my banjo in that time, I think I gave it to my brother, but I was without one until 1998 when my wife bought me one for Christmas. I played on it a little, but as I was no longer performing and didn't really have any friends that I hung with anymore who were musicians, it mostly stayed in the case. Six years ago, I lost my leg in a motorcycle accident which almost ended my life. During my recouperation, I realized that a lot of the musicians I had admired and played with were now dead, and without the recording of their music, all I would have had was the memory, So, now being more aware of my own mortality, I decided to produce a homemade CD of some of my favorite songs. I wanted to start where i had started, with the Kingston Trio's recording of Tom Dooley, which required that I pick up the banjo again. I recorded the music, wrote the liner notes, copied the music to itunes and made a cd which I give away when I play in local coffee houses and book stores. My banjo style copies Harford's, but I have added my own picking style, which is a double thumb forward roll that gets me the same synchopation as the four beat roll he and Rodney Dillard use. Now that I am back into the banjo, I perform about half my set with it, and have adapted songs like Early Morning Rain, Tennessee Stud, Mr. Tamborine Man, and a host of others that I used to play on the guitar. I just set up a Youtube sight, Garyflksngr, but I don't have anything on it yet. I'm planning on doing a live cd within the next few weeks, We'll see how it goes. Hope to have some time this summer to get it put together and on the sight. That's about it. As Townes VanZandt wrote, "Where you been is good and gone; all you keep's the getting there." Here's to the journey.
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'Wildwood Exotic Wanted' 10 hrs
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'Slow Going, Some Pics' 12 hrs
