Welcome!   this is a great site, lots of good people & tons of info, have fun!

Just caught  the tunes from your recording.... In my opinion they are fabulous!!! It is so delightful to see/hear original composition, lyrics and performance with an early style fretless  banjo. I very much enjoy contemporary narrative song writing and performance. And wow!! What a fine looking banjo!

Bart

Dena:

I think what struck me is the contrast between the antique and the contemporary without viewing the antique as an artifact but rather as a viable instrument. and then combining it with a narative voice speaking of the now. If that makes any sense. I don't think of the banjo as a particularly mellow instruement... Kind of harsh in fact. I viewed the performance as kind of minimalist in that it was sparce and a little raw. I will listen to them again to clarify my feelings but to me your performance was quite unusual both in tone and content. I am always thrilled when I am surprised, and I was surprised.

I play, (tenor banjo and mandolin primarily) but mainly for myself, or maybe, as my wife might say, to irritate her.... (joke!). I am fairly skilled and have a good ear, but tend to clench up when trying to play for others and would never attempt to sing for an audience.... Thus I haven't gotten up the courage to submit anything, but I love the idea of the contemporary narrative as heard in your tunes.

Bart

Hi Dena,

Welcome aboard - It's great to have some new members who aren't grey-bearded middle-aged men. (not that there's anything wrong with that!) I enjoyed your tunes on Myspace.

I'm not middle-aged. I was born in 1945, so I'm probably considered "old".

Hi Dena,  No , no recordings I'm afraid,  have been known to strum a guitar and sing along to it, but havn't got my fingers around Banjo accompaniments just yet, I am practicing though  : )

Jimmie Stothers sings and plays Cripple Creek.  Thank you, Mr. Lomax!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPV0X9fif-g&feature=related

His accompaniment sounds quite complicated to me, with the guitar I just strum sometimes and sometimes just arpeggio.

I like the look of  your tackhead banjo. I've just been buying a new "old " Classic banjo and would like to get a gourd banjo in the not too distant future.  I like the sound of the lower tuning for singing.

Hi Dena,

I live in a pretty small town (Paris) so there's not really much right around home. (Well, actually there's a really good clawhammer player in town whom I've known for 30 years - we just hardly ever get together and play unless we have some kind of gig)

There are quite a few old-timey players in Toronto these days and I believe they must get together but that's a loop I'm not really in. Arnie Naiman and Chris Coole are the ringleaders it might be worth Googling them.

Hello Dena,

Yes--we just put out Drumming On the Edge of Banjo last year. We were so lucky to have Yazid as our Afro/Caribbean drummer. (He used over 50 different percussion instruments on this cd--everything from djembes, congas to pots and pans and the windchime outside my front door. :) George Clinton (yes--that George Clinton) even sings on "John Bowlin's Groundhog Strut" with us. :)

It's available on itunes, Pandora, cdbaby, Amazon, Elderly, and of course from my website :)

www.maryzcox.com

Dena,

I'm looking forward to meeting you this summer at the early banjo gathering in Sharpsburg. 

You should be able to get a copy of the application here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14974300/Banjo%20ConferenceEd.pdf

Dena, I just stumbled on this article- is this you who gave this awesome talk?:

Gourd banjo talk