"Once I had an Old Banjo" - My Visit with Frank and Mary Hamilton

The things that's keeping me up tonight is that I had the evening to get into some of the stuff that Frank gave me; ideas, skills, tools, recordings.

One of the tangible gifts he gave me is a CD of banjo recordings that he found important, inspirational, educational, musical and all of the above.

The CD was created after a long night talking about the sound of the banjo.  Frank was listing album after album by artist after artist that I should listen to. I started to get al little overwhelmed and I said, "I've found over the years that if someone gives me 100 things to listen to I don't listen to any of it, but if they give me just a few, I really get into it."

Frank took it as a challenge and he made me a CD of tunes he wanted to share with me. I'm just listening to it for the first time tonight. What is it about the banjo? What is it about a some singing a song and playing a banjo?

The one I'm listening to over and over is "Once I Had an Old Banjo" by Fleming Brown.

Once I had an old banjo

It was strung with twine

Only song that I could play

Trouble on my Mind

That makes me so sad.

Which makes me so happy that I play so much music.  But sometimes I get sad when I play music.  But at least I have music to fall back on.  And so it goes.

Here's a list of the songs on the CD.

1. Cindy - Pete Seeger
2. Oh! Liza, Poor Gal - Pete Seeger
3. Blue Skys - Pete Seeger
4. Once I had an Old Banjo - Fleming Brown
5. Cuckoo - Flemming Brown
6. Rakes of Mallow - Billy Faier
7. Green Corn - Billy Faier
8. Croation Tune - Billy Faier
9. Spanish Fandango - Billy Faier
10. Three Jolly Rogues - Billy Faier
11. The Sky - Derroll Adams
12. John Henry - George Pegram
13. Unreconstructed Rebel - Fleming Brown
14. Bowling Green - Cousin Emmy with the New Lost City Ramblers
15. Cuckoo - Erik Darling
16. Fight On - Weavers with Erik Darling
17. I'm On My Way - Erik Darling
18. London Bridge - Peggy Seeger
19. Love Call Me Home - Peggy Seeger
20. Portland Town - Derroll Adams
21. Sing About These Hard Times - Peggy Seeger
22. Wedding Dress - Peggy Seeger

There you go.  Maybe we'll get some of these going.  If not, I'm very glad to have these recordings and to have gotten them from someone like Frank.

Northern Illinois Steelband

Boy, so much has been happening I haven't been able to keep up with the blog at all.

Here's a short thing, though.

Tonight at went to a concert by the Northern Illinois Steelband at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

Check out this picture (Courtesy of Pat).  I have never in my live heard anything like all these steel drums coming in loud right at the same time.  Like a symphony of falling icicles.

I made a quick count from the balcony (where I could only see 2/3 of the group) and I think there were about 30 musicians.  Imagine - some of them were playing between two and six drums.   What a sound!

I've been spending a lot of time editing more video of Frank and putting together a video of The Gather-All.  Stay tuned!  Thanks for reading!

Jason