So every year I do a freebie for the local Rotary Club’s annual Christmas fundraiser.
It’s a house tour which raises roughly $100,000 every year, and part of the ritzy house tour experience is having local musicians playing at each house.
(So I think I shared my story last year about playing outdoors near a propane heater which set the headstock of my guitar on fire?
And I had to blow it out like you blow out a burning marshmallow? because it turns that nitrocellulose finish on your instruments is EXTREMELY flammable, watch out!)
So anyway, this year a got a cushier location. It was in the horse stables of this lovely mansion, but the stables had sort of a staffroom with a nice wood burning stove which I could sit near—- well, not too near as you know!
Anyway.
This year I decided to leave the guitar at home and I learned a bunch of Christmas songs on my plectrum banjo.
I have some cool arrangements of Christmas tunes I like, so I would sit by the stove and play and the house tour guests would come trooping into my cozy little room and listen to a number or two before continuing on their tour.
So anyway, right after I finished playing “Silent Night” in duo banjo style, aka “red garter” style, this one old dude gave me a big smile and two enthusiastic thumbs up and shouted
“EARL SCRUGGS!”
Which I thought was hilarious, but it turns out that if you’re not a banjo player, you probably don’t get the joke…
Merry Christmas to all,
Will
Not bad as a compliment!!
I'll take "Earl Scruggs!" over "Paddle faster! / Squeal like a pig! / etc." any day.
Plectrum banjo and nobody mentions Ken Aoki?
While -I'm a three finger picker to the bone myself- Earl certainly is one of my all time heroes, sometime ago, while preparing for a duo set with @dutchtenor that a.o. had My China Town in it, I stumbled on Ken playing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqh2JK5tBuA
Now that's banjoplaying!
Wow, awesome Ken Aoki banjo
Thanks for sending, Bruno
And of course if you play "Chinatown, My Chinatown," you've got to follow it up with "China Boy"---and so they do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB4QdryoY08&list=RDYB4QdryoY08&start_radio=1 (Ken Aoki: China Boy)
