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January-Feburary 2008

THE STATE OF MODERN OLD TIME BANJO PLAYING

TITLE: BANJO GATHERING

By Larry Rosenberg

One of the activities I enjoy most at traditional music festivals and multi-day workshops is the opportunity to thoroughly browse the pre-recorded music offerings. Those stacks of compact discs and digital video discs seem even more accessible than their vinyl and magnetic tape ancestors, and, unlike vinyl “records,” we can play the compact discs in our cars on the way home, so adding an appropriate final touch to a festival-workshop experience. The selections I see are sometimes unavailable anywhere else, and most others will not be seen (outside of Internet listings and occasionally in catalogues) unless one lives near, and frequents, a good acoustic music store. At a multi-day event, I find I have the time to reflect on the projects being offered, and the time to discuss them with other music appreciators in attendance, and even, now and then, directly with the musicians who are featured on the recordings.

With this opportunity at hand during the recent 2008 California Traditional Music Society New Year’s Camp in Malibu, California, I was rewarded by picking up a copy of Banjo Gathering, a two CD set brought to camp and offered by multi-instrumentalist virtuoso and old-time banjo master, Tom Sauber ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , www.tombradalice.com).

Banjo Gathering is a project produced by Steve Baughman and contains 50 tracks and spans two compact discs. All of the 50 tracks feature solo banjo playing by one of 22 other “of the best players in old-time music.” [The complete contents with all artists are listed at the end of this review.]

The liner notes contain a description of each tune by the artist, and also provide the banjo tuning used. Listing the banjo tuning can be a particular blessing for beginning and intermediate banjo players who wish to attempt playing along with the recordings, or even who wish merely to understand how the tune is being played. Traditional banjo playing cannot long be accomplished, or ever sustained, without leaving the safety and certainty of the “standard” open G banjo tuning that is almost universal in bluegrass style playing. Listing these tunings for each track is a great and deserved help to those brave students of traditional banjo as they venture outside of familiar fingerings.

Banjo Gathering bylines itself as “100% pure old-time banjo.” It promises that it documents the “stylistic diversity” of old-time banjo playing at the beginning of the 21st century, making this project quite a resource. The recordings are, indeed, 100% pure old-time banjo playing, and they are also a modern expression of the quality and enduring value of traditional banjo playing.

The songs are all solo efforts, no ensemble playing here. It was this solo playing that originally stirred my own profound appreciation of the banjo. Although duets, dance bands and old-time music jams can enhance, and certainly provide variety to, the sound of traditional banjo playing, this style of playing suits itself well to the rhythm and voice of one instrument, and, sometimes, as an accompaniment to a lone vocal.

The banjo, particularly when played solo as it is here, is first a rhythm instrument. The styles of playing on Banjo Gathering (particularly of “clawhammer” banjo playing, one of the most prevalent old-time styles enjoying current fortune) are excellent expressions of how an acoustic instrument can provide a steady and driving rhythm that in modern days we have sometimes come to associate with other instruments and other styles of music.

The tunes selected here are all long established favorites. Part of the enjoyment for me as I listen to these recordings is to imagine ... on how many front porches, at how many dances and for how many sweethearts these same songs have been played and sung.

It would be difficult to say that I really very much prefer one track over an other, or that one has more interest than any other, because each selection has something to recommend itself, including some fine examples of solo singing with old-time banjo playing . It is the whole of the experience of listening to the 2 CD set in which I find myself engaged.

That said, Bells March performed by Tom Sauber in “G modal, mountain minor or “sawmill” tuning (gDGCD) provides an authentic old-time feel, and he writes that he learned this tune from the son of a father who learned it in the Civil War. Tom Sauber also notes that although he plays it here as a “banjo version,” as opposed to what he might play in a duet with a fiddler, he has also shared with me that he and some of the other great banjo players on Banjo Gathering have been influenced by their experience with fiddle players and that he feels the presence of the fiddle even without one being present. His second offering of Piney Ridge in “double C” tuning (gCGCD) is equally old-time, but with the high energy and sustained rhythm which is so typical of this style of playing.

With a different but similarly compelling approach, Cathy Fink’s version of Little Billy Wilson in “open G” tuning (gDGBD) is up to her usual standard of excellence. Her highly energetic and steady rhythmic playing make for a memorable expression of this song, and she writes in the liner notes that she “... did her own thing with it.” Cathy Fink also did her own thing with the same rhythmic high energy on New River Train tuned to f#BEAD, which she learned at Pinewood Camp in 1982, and on Banjo Gathering she plays the seldom heard B part, as well. Check out her website: http://www.cathymarcy.com/

These are just four of the 50 tracks available. All of the 46 others on this 2 CD set areequally engaging and I encourage anyone with even the slightest interest in the banjo, or in traditional music, to give this one a chance.

Listening to Banjo Gathering will provide an education for those who have never considered the depth and versatility of the banjo as a solo instrument (and who may only know the banjo as part of a bluegrass ensemble), a delight for lovers of old-time banjo music, and a resource for all times.

Banjo Gathering is available at online music stores such as http://cdbaby.com/cd/banjogathering or http://www.elderly.com/recordings/items/TALLTR07.htm and all proceeds from its sale will benefit the Swannanoa Gathering Scholarship Fund for students of traditional music at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.

Larry “Banjodog” Rosenberg is an attorney with a general practice in Van Nuys, California, who admits to being a lawyer, playing the banjo and having a passion for folk, bluegrass and old-time music. He is currently the Prize Coordinator for the Topanga Banjo • Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival which will be held this year on Sunday, May 18th, at Paramount Movie Ranch. You can reach him concerning any of these subjects at (818) 989-2434 or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Banjo Gathering contents:

CD ONE

Pete Sutherland: Cumberland Gap

Dan Gellert: Sail Away Ladies

Scott Ainslie: Hammons' Piece

John Herrmann: Old man Can Your Dog Catch a Rabbit? / Protect the Innocent

Cathy Fink: Little Billy Wilson

Bob Thornburg: Liza Jane

Bruce Molsky: Rolling Mills Are Burning Down

Mike Seeger: Sally Gooden

Alice Gerrard: Fish on a Hook

Paul Brown: Brushy Fork of John's Creek