Bear with me, there's a point to this all that I think will make it worthwhile, even if you're one of those who doesn't like the subject at hand. And that subject is the banjo. So, there are probably plenty of people reading this who do fall into the category of not liking the subject at hand. I admit it, I like the banjo. As I've written here, I've gone to the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest for many years. I have a bunch of bluegrass albums. When I was a little one of my parents' best friends in Chicago moved to California, and a big going-away party was thrown for them, with the music "California, Here I Come" playing as the family entered. It was from an all-banjo album that my folks had bought for the occasion, and I loved playing it beforehand. (I remember there was a riverboat on the cover.) When I came to California decades later for grad school, I got back in touch with the family -- they'd stayed in periodic touch with us over the years. And when I went over to their house for the first time, one of my first questions was if they still had that banjo album. It was a crushing blow to learn that, after several moves over almost 20 years, they did not. I not only like the banjo -- I have one. I even learned to play it. I took group lessons at the wonderful McCabe's Guitar Shop, where I bought the banjo, in Santa Monica. (Wonderful because they also have music concerts in the back, and I've seen the great Tom Paxton there twice, as well as Steve Goodman, among many shows I've seen there.) By the way, I didn't learn to play the banjo well, mind you -- though I'm not sure if many people can tell about those who play the banjo, one way or the other. But I did learn. The past tense is the operative semantics here, since I haven't played my banjo in a long time, and I've pretty much forgotten. This may be a blessing to my neighbors, but it's a disappointment to me. I suspect if I took a refresher course I'd be reminded reasonably quickly, but I just haven't gotten around to that for a long while. And if I do so, I'll be all the more happy about it because my banjo is in very good shape, and I simply like the thing. There, proof positive that I actually do have a banjo! Not that the proof is necessary -- after all, who would lie about saying they owned a banjo? But that's Old Betsy. (To be clear, until this moment I never referred to my banjo as "Old Betsy" -- or any other name. But it fit the occasion. That said, as much as I love the banjo, I came across the live-concert piece a couple days and thought it was terrific. It's called, "Songs That Should Never Be Played On the Banjo." Making it all the more fun is that for people who, for 40 years or more have heard about Livingston Taylor, younger broth of James, but never actually hear on perform -- good news, this will be your chance. A couple of notes: Fun as this is, I don't agree with him that all these songs are ones that shouldn't be played on the banjo. A couple of the songs actually have a sort of folk sensibility to the them, in their original version, and they sort of fit the banjo, even if just a little bit. Though most of them don't fit at all and are pretty funny. And also, know that although this says it's seven minutes, it's not. As I said, this was performed live in-concert, and it comes at the end of the show, so there are about two minutes of him given thanks and appreciations to a range of people
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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