What's the beef with banjo players?

[Roger Rettig]

When I did a UK tour with Slim Whitman many years ago, I was looking forward to playing with, and hanging out with, some guys that were a pretty big deal to me, being a kind-of country player myself, and living in near-isolation - in musical terms - in London!

Imagine my surprise when I sat with Jimmie Crawford, and the other guys - Andy Reiss, Harold Bradley, et al - started in with the steel-guitar jokes:

"What d'ya call fifty steels at the bottom of the sea?"
"A good start..."

"What's the difference between a pedal-steel and an onion?"
"No-one cries when they cut up a steel-guitar!"

It was interesting to note that minorities are in for it wherever they happen to live. I guess me and Jimmie 'got it' on that tour 'cause there was no banjo-player (or no-one who'd own up to it, at least.....)

[Rick Collins]

Install an extension nut to raise the strings off the frets, lay it on your lap, re-tune it, play it with a thumb and finger pick and a bar, and what do you have?

...an acoustical fry-pan steel banjo.

[Alan Brookes]

...Imagine the beautiful sounds of a washboard clicking and clacking NEXT to you and your steel guitar on stage. It doesn’t get any better than that! A washboard on one side of you and a banjo on the other. Perfect....

Doug, you've missed the best one. The mediaeval racket sounds so bad that the very word "racket" has come to mean "noise". The expression, "What a racket" referred to the instrument, not to noise per se.

The racket sounded like a mid-way stage between a comb and paper. a kazoo, and a fart, but with a low growl. It was most offensive to most ears.

...but the daddy of them all must be the rumble pot, which was a pot of any size, with a pig's bladder stretched across it, and a sharp stick poking through it. You turned the stick and pulled it in and out, creating a monstrous buzzing/squeaking noise that would set anyone's teeth on edge.

[Doug Beaumier]

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[Larry Bressington]

It is mostly the humour of shows like Hee-haw, that brought about banjo jokes.
Maybe it was the bus drivers jokes also.
Man.. I love a good banjo picker, but he has to drop out when i take my ride, better yet, just stop playing and stair!

[Jeff Evans]

Either you like the sound of an instrument or you don't . . .

The sound, huh? Because instruments have just one sound. Steel guitars have that whiny sound, right?

Did Hal Rugg not know that pedal steel and banjo cannot coexist? Maybe he was just not as evolved and discerning as you are, Doug.

Rugg first played behind the Osborne Brothers on their 1967 Decca session which produced the hit "Rocky Top." Following that, Hal played on every subsequent recording session the Osborne Brothers did for Decca/MCA that featured a pedal steel guitar. Rugg's talents are heard on nearly every cut in the second Osborne Brothers Bear Family box set encompassing the years 1968-1974. The Osborne Brothers wouldn't do a session without Hal--and for good reason--he always knew exactly what to play. . . . On many occasions Hal told me that he was as proud of the cuts he made with the Osborne Brothers as anything he ever recorded. Earlier today I spoke with Sonny Osborne about the way Hal felt about their music. Sonny responded, "That's really nice. I think one of the reasons that he felt that way was because we never tried to hold him back. We just told him, 'You're the steel guitar player. Just play whatever you want to and whatever you think fits,' and he always did. He was a great talent and a super guy. I sure hate that he's passed away. We're going to miss him." — http://bcftu.blogspot.com/2005/08/hal-rugg-rip.html

There's another steel guitar duffer, Jerry Douglas, who didn't get the Memo from Massachusetts. What a hack . . . on stage playing non-pedal steel and resophonic guitars while Ron Block is over there frailing away. Alison Krauss must not know anything about music; no wonder she's so wildly unpopular.

[Doug Beaumier]

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[Dave Mudgett]

... who didn't get the Memo from Massachusetts.

Hey - this ain't about Massachusetts. Banjo is big in Boston. No joke. I grew up there during the Great Folk Scare, and listened to bluegrass every Sunday on the local radio - late 50s and 60s. Or down to the Hillbilly Ranch in the Combat Zone - late 60s, early 70s.

I hafta admit, sometimes it's nice to see some of the negative attention deflected away from us lead guitar players who - as we all know - are all totally tasteless jerks who always throw lots of obnoxious "noise" all over all our pedal steel solos - right?

Hey - I think we should make it a weekly exercise. Let's find a new instrument or music style that we can vent our spleen about. Let's see - next week harmonica, followed by bagpipes, jaw harp, accordian, ukelele, marimba, mandolin, fiddle (you know how out of tune they can be, right?), and then let's not forget "drummers".

[Ulric Utsi-Åhlin]

NOOOO,the six-string Banjo is to be considered a
guitar w/ a Banjo-shell etc,and has absolutely
nothing to w/ Banjo-playing,don´t buy a guitar-
banjo if Banjo music is Your cup of...moonshine.
McUtsi

[Gary Lee Gimble]

personal attacks against other forum members

Doug, you got a bad haircut....

[Phil Halton]

Allen wrote...

"Let's stop putting down the banjo. It's offensive to banjo players."

A slight correction to this statement--It's only offensive to the offendable banjo players, the rest of us don't give a D$$$ bout what others think of the banjo.

I think I'd like to give a copy of this thread to Bill Keith, Eric Weisberg, Allen Munde, Bill Evans, and Tony Trischka when two or three hundred of us 5-string pickers gather for the 9th annual Banjo Camp North weekend in Groton Mass this May.

They'd get a hell of a kick out of it! Trust me, there's nothing you say here that they don't say themselves and have a good laugh over.
.

[Alan Brookes]

NOOOO,the six-string Banjo is to be considered a
guitar w/ a Banjo-shell etc,and has absolutely
nothing to w/ Banjo-playing,don´t buy a guitar-
banjo if Banjo music is Your cup of...moonshine.
McUtsi

An instrument is defined by its shape, not by the number of strings. I have 4+1, 5+1, 6, 6+1 and 12 string banjos, and they are all validly banjos. (I refer to 4+1 rather than 5 string to avoid confusing the 5+1 and 6 string banjos, both of which have 6 strings.) Indeed, of the banjos made in England, MOST of them were 6+1 string.

A banjo with 6 strings, tuned like a guitar, is just as much a banjo as any other configuration. The 4+1 string banjo was designed mainly to play folk music on, but the banjo is used in a lot more music than just folk/bluegrass/country. I think the derision comes from bluegrass banjo players who look upon 6-string players as guitarists who can't be bothered to learn how to play banjo chords, but that is too simplistic an explanation.

Look at other instruments. The lute comes in dozens of different string configurations, but a 6-course lutenist would not say that an 8-course lute was not a lute. Likewise, no-one would say that a 7-string guitar is not a guitar.

[Ulric Utsi-Åhlin]

Pete Burak clearly indicated that he wanted to play
Bluegrass(Old And In The Way)and he will need the
original incarnation of the instrument to do that ;
also,a lot of 5-string players WILL,be they regarded
stubborn or whatever,deny any relationship between
the original configuration(though now fretted)and
the instrument sporting 6 strings,tuned like
a Gibson Les Paul or whatever ; I see what You mean
but I also know that the bros & sis´s in Banjoland
get MY point.McUtsi

[Gary Lee Gimble]

Ulric, Sonny Osborne, at some point during his career, picked a 6 string banjo. The 6th I believe, was tuned to C. I have heard that Sunny was running mates with Emmons when they were teens, but don't quote me. What is for sure a certain fact, Sonny emulated plenty of BE's steel language on banjo. and now we know the rest of da stowreee

[Ulric Utsi-Åhlin]

When skilled players step out of the frame to create,
I´ll listen,open-minded fashion ; actually,anyone is
entitled to be experimental ; I may be conservative,
but I´m not dead.McUtsi

[John Steele (deceased)]

It's only offensive to the offendable banjo players, the rest of us don't give a D$$$ bout what others think of the banjo.

haha.... thank you Phil ! I'm down with that.
As far as positive audience reaction is concerned, my view from the best seat in the house shows people's ears immediately pick up when a banjo is played... they shout, cheer, clap their hands, and sometime stand on tables and chairs to yell approval. Just my humble opinion, but in the arena of public approval and positive reaction, any reasonably proficient banjo player could annihilate a fantastic steel player in about 4 bars.
Therefore, the fact that absolutely everyone hates them comes as a complete surprise to me.
When I played alot I was firmly in the Scruggs-Style camp, but with regard to 5-string versus six-string, etc ... any of them is banjo to me. No, you can't play scruggs-style on a six or four string, but to say that Scruggs Style is the one and only way to play the banjo is kinda silly.
I can't frail, but I really enjoy hearing someone who can.
The "original" banjos weren't set up for Scruggs style picking. But in fairness, there are many aspects to potential banjo styles... frailing, 3 finger style, ragtime and even classical. In the 1890's it was a huge fashion rage, and all the uptown New York ladies wanted to learn to play banjo.
Anyone's personal likes and dislikes are fair game to me, but like Phil, it doesn't matter to me what you like, or if you like what I like.
That's my shave and a haircut, two bits.
-John

[Doug Beaumier]

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[Roger Rettig]

This is getting too academic - I preferred the jokes!!!

[Jeff Evans]

Banjos should stay with ACOUSTIC music, [sic] where they belong. The annoying, rattling sound of a banjo does NOT blend with a steel guitar . . .

Steel guitars should stay "with" Hawaiian music where they belong — you know, that ching-a-ling, coconut crap. The MAJORITY of Hawaiians, steel players, and citizens of the world feel this way. Anyone who attempts to assert his own actual opinion to the contrary will be personally attacking me. Once I've told people what their opinions are, this Forum doesn't need them piping up with something different.

[Doug Beaumier]

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[Doug Beaumier]

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[Les Green]

I always thought a perfect pitch was when someone threw an accordian in the dumpster and it landed on a banjo......which in turn threw up a big glob of gook, which landed on a tamborine in the corner and covered it up......

[Ulric Utsi-Åhlin]

I must say there seems to be a refreshingly loose
& cool relation between THE typecast All-American
musical instrument and the nation that gave birth to
it,great jokes.McUtsi

[Doug Beaumier]

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[Alan Brookes]

Doug, are you going to be publishing that tome. If ever you do, let me know and I'll sponsor you for the Nobel Prize for Literature.