Another album of banjo duets is coming from Mark Olitsky and Cary Moskovitz. You may remember in 2017 that I reviewed their first album, aptly titled Duets. Moskovitz was in Northeast Ohio last week to record another batch of tunes with Olitsky, and while he was in town the duo performed at a couple of house concerts. One of which just happened to be less than a mile from my home.  It was a pleasure to see (and obviously, hear) Olitsky and Moskovitz play live. Olitsky played a 13-inch grain measure-style banjo that he built, and which Moskovitz said was the impetus for the fi ..read more

Banjos hit the silver screen last week when Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon opened in U.S. theaters. The filmmaker's latest opus features two banjos provided by the Oklahoma City-based American Banjo Museum, one of which appears in a scene with fiddler Rayna Gellert, who also put together a band to play a Hoyt Ming tune for the film.  Based on the 2017 nonfiction book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. The film is set in Oklahoma during the 1920s and portrays the murders of members of the Osage Nation over oil rights ..read more

The old-time music community lost one of its biggest champions this week. Kerry Blech died on Monday, Sept. 18, in Gainesville, Florida, and left behind an incredible legacy of musicianship, scholarship and fellowship. Kerry left a lasting impact on those who knew him. Upon learning of his passing, I started to see remembrances of him on Facebook from the likes of Alice Gerrard, Chuck Levy, Mary Z. Cox and many others. I never never met Kerry in person, but even still he had a huge impact on my journey into old-time music.  On the advice of Old-Time Herald editor Sarah Bryan, I began ..read more

Despite the proliferation of local music festivals, my banjo and fiddle playing time always seems to drop off during the summer. Perhaps it's having my son around all the time during the break or just the general glut of increased family activities, but I barely played music at all from May to July, and that includes attending a festival last month.  However, as August is coming to an end and as school has started back up, this month's tally exceeds my playing time for the last three months combined. Hopefully, that trend will continue as autumn approaches.  I'm happy to report that ..read more

More than a decade ago, I stopped into a record store in Ravenna, Ohio, and bought a couple New Lost City Ramblers albums, one of which turned out to be signed by Mike Seeger. I wrote a little bit about that visit in a post titled "Vinyl Hunter: The Origins."  What I didn't mention was a record that I passed up ... and it has haunted me ever since.  While flipping through the folk/country/bluegrass/misc. of that store, I came across a copy of The Watson Family, originally released on Folkways Records in 1963. The album features Doc Watson and various family members, including most n ..read more

Things got busy. That's why you haven't heard from me. That's also why my banjo and fiddle have sat dormant for about two months. All of a sudden I feel the urge to get back into the musical habit as several local festivals are on the horizon.  Between family, work, kids activities, a vacation, a death in the family and just the general schedule glut of summertime, I haven't found the time to play music lately. But I'm itching to get back to it. Thankfully, the upcoming Music in the Valley festival provides some much-needed motivation to resharpen my skills. Music in the Valley The ..read more

Scrolling through the winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize, one name should stand out for banjo nerds like us: Rhiannon Giddens. The former Carolina Chocolate Drops member and renowned solo artist was awarded the Pulitzer for Omar, an opera about enslaved people brought to North America from Muslim countries.  Of course, Giddens is no stranger to awards. She has won two Grammy Awards as both a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and as a solo artist. She received the MacArthur Fellowship in 2017. She won the Steve Martin Banjo Prize in 2016. She has also won two International Folk ..read more

Today marks 15 years since I started my banjo journey. Sometime in late 2007, I got the idea that I might  like to play the banjo. Pretty much all the music I was listening to at the time had a five-string, whether it was indie rock, alt country, bluegrass or old-time. Although back then, I didn't know the difference between bluegrass and old-time or that there were so many different ways of playing this plunky instrument. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I wanted to take the leap.  I try not to look back at my life with regrets, as I consider the mistakes I've made ..read more

Greetings, glorious readers! It's time for a quick update of my February five-string flings. Since my last update, I had two wonderful opportunities to play old-time music with friends.  First was a house jam to celebrate the birthday of Stephen Rapp, a regular player in Paul Kirk's Old-Time Tune of the Week videos. The festivities included a great gathering of Northeast Ohio musicians. I mostly played banjo. The group played a couple Ward Jarvis tunes for which I pulled out my fiddle, but I was too rusty to play along, so I went back the five-string.  Next was the 7th annual Lake Er ..read more

Planning for the future. It's an exercise many like undertake at the beginning newly minted years. Last year was a bit of a down year. My music playing didn't measure up to the plans I had made last January. This year is one I hope that ends with better results. So far I've managed to keep my daily playing streak alive. The problem is one I've had before. For the most part I'm only doing the bare minimum to mark off each day as one that I've played banjo and fiddle. Longer practice sessions have eluded me.  Despite the minimal playing, my logged time has still outpaced last year's result ..read more