Soldier's bluegrass banjo falls silent

Saturday, May 27, 2006 - By CHRIS ETHERIDGE

The concrete holding up the flagpole outside Hansen Lumber was still wet Friday afternoon when employees from the office added a memorial honoring Pfc. Caleb Lufkin.

Employees of the lumber company - owned by Caleb's father, Tammy, for six years - added the American flag and poster board sign to the graying wood of the fence around the lumber yard at Water and Academy streets.

Caleb died from heart failure Thursday afternoon during surgery on wounds sustained in a roadside bomb explosion in Baghdad, Iraq, on May 4.

"It's been a tough day for most everybody here," Hansen employee Russ Sharp said. "He's a part of the family."

When working for his dad, Caleb spent most of the time with his cement-pouring company, Hansen employees said, but he sometimes helped stack boards in the lumber yards at Hansen.
On Wednesdays and some Thursdays, Caleb brought his banjo to the lumber yard and "picked and grinned" with Tammy and a couple of his friends in the display room.

Caleb and Tammy liked to entertain visitors at Knoxville's Scenic Drive weekend, Caleb's friend Kenny Knox said. The younger Lufkin drove a pickup truck around the city while his dad sat in the bed and played with his band.

"They were real close," Dave Marshall said of the relationship between Caleb and his father. "When he was home from Iraq, they spent as much time as they could together."

And Chad Clevenger, a friend of Caleb's since kindergarten who also liked to play music with him, said the two would put on concerts for the Clevenger family. Larry Clevenger, Chad's father, said they have a tape of the two playing banjos together from several years ago when they first started.

God Bless our Soldiers
Angie

18 Million Bluegrass Fans

The May/June issue of International Bluegrass, the trade newsletter published by IBMA, has a story citing recent polling data from the Simmons Research firm that says there are 17,977,000 bluegrass fans in the US. That’s 8.5% of the adult population who listed bluegrass as the the musical genre they liked most. Bluegrass music found the 18th slot on a list of the 38 top choices for music genre. Here’s a little more data on this same group of people.

The bluegrass fans are:

52% aged between 25-5453% male
80% own their home
20% have an income of over $100,000

posted on the Bluegrass Blog - 5-20-06

Keep on Pickn'
Angie's Banjo.com

The first step in your banjo journey

Here is the first step of your banjo journey - and this is a fun part.

Listen to some of your favorite banjo recordings and get a flavor for which type of banjo tone you find the most appealing. Some banjo players prefer a real sharp, bright, cutting timbre (timbre is a fancy word for sound quality) other banjo players prefer a sound that is a little more earthy or tubby.

If you are really into newgrass and the hard driving bluegrass or some of the progressive styles you will want to go for a tone that is bright and cutting.

If you are more into the old-time banjo styles like claw hammer or frailing you will be looking for a more tubby timbre.

Have fun pickn'

Angie's Banjo.com
Gold Tone Banjo Dealer

When did bluegrass get started?

Bluegrass as a style developed during the mid 1940s. Because of war rationing, recording was limited during this time, and the best we can say is that bluegrass was not played before World War II, and it was being played after. As with any musical genre, no one person can claim to have "invented" it. Rather, bluegrass is an amalgam of old-time music, blues, ragtime and jazz. Nevertheless, bluegrass's beginnings can be traced to one band.

Today Bill Monroe is referred to as the "founding father" of bluegrass music; the bluegrass style was named for his band, the Blue Grass Boys, formed in 1939. The 1945 addition of banjo player Earl Scruggs, who played with a three-finger roll now known as "Scruggs style," is pointed to as the key moment in the development of this genre. Monroe's 1945-48 band, which featured banjo player Earl Scruggs, singer/guitarist Lester Flatt, fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Howard Watts, aka "Cedric Rainwater," created the definitive sound and instrumental configuration that remains a model to this day.

By some arguments, as long as the Blue Grass Boys were the only band playing this music, it was just their unique style; it could not be considered a musical genre until other bands began performing the same style. In 1947 the Stanley Brothers recorded the traditional song "Molly and Tenbrooks" in the Blue Grass Boys' style, and this could also be pointed to as the beginning of bluegrass as a genre.

It is important to note that bluegrass is not and never was a folk music under a strict definition, however the topical and narrative themes of many bluegrass songs are highly reminiscent of "folk music". In fact many songs that are widely considered to be "bluegrass" are older works legitimately classified as "folk" or "old-time" performed in a "bluegrass" style. From its earliest days to today, bluegrass has been recorded and performed by professional musicians. Although amateur bluegrass musicians and trends such as "parking lot picking" are too important to be ignored, it is professional musicians who have set the direction of the genre. While bluegrass is not a folk music in the strictest sense, the interplay between bluegrass music and other folk forms has been studied. Folklorist Dr. Neil Rosenberg, for example, shows that most devoted bluegrass fans and musicians are familiar with traditional folk songs and old-time music and that these songs are often played at shows and festivals.

Keep on Pickn'

Angie's Banjo.com
Gold Tone Banjo Site.com

The Gary Sosebee bridges

Gary Sosebee makes several different styles of custom bridges, all of which are superb. Gary's standard bridge is made from recovered maple that came out of a cotton mill located near his home that was not completed until 1924. The wood is heartwood, not sapwood-in comparison with the trees of this generation.

When I first started doing business with Gary, I asked if he would send me several of his bridges to test for consistency of transmission of tonal qualities. They were all excellent: if you were to weigh them by the gram weight, they would be interchangeable (should anything ever happen to the bridge you've worked your setup around). Gary gives great attention to detail in the manner in which he initially cuts the wood-stock that he uses for his bridges. If he can't cut a piece to align the grain lies perpendicular to the angle in which this bridges leans, he refuses to use it in the production of his bridges. Gary also uses extremely fine grained ebony on his bridges and only buys stock that meets his consistency requirements.

He also cuts his string notches in a manner where the string sets no deeper than needed to keep the string in place & give maximum string vibration. His attention to relief notches on the tailpiece side is something that is often over looked by many bridge makers. It is this attention to detail that makes Gary's bridges outstanding.

He has also embarked on making bridges out of submerged wood from Lake Superior. This wood is very dense & possesses great tonal qualities that other woods do not. They are several reasons for this, cell structure being one, and the "age" for the wood being another. Once the banjo is setup taking into account the compression of the material from the water pressure & the density of this wood, the quality of note separation is superb.

Only the extremely old distressed wood, through many years of drought, can come close to equaling the transmission qualities of note separation of this wood. This wood is from truly first-growth canopy trees. It transfers bass & midrange tones superbly, and really accentuates the bass strings transmission & timbre. All of Gary Sosebee's bridges are superb in consistency in tone, timbre & and attention to detail.

Keep on Pickin'
Angie's Banjo.com

Flying with your banjo?

Here's a new way to fly with your banjo :)
(picture submitted by Bob Cherry - Cybergrass.com)


Keep on Pickin' - Angie

Sounds from my gastro-intestinal tract

Some weeks ago I was in the middle of practicing the banjo when I decided that there was something I wanted to discuss with my better half. I walked into the living room with my beloved Calico slung around me neck in the playing position, i.e. resting against my mid-abdomen. Whilst talking I suddenly noticed some deep growling noises emanating from the banjo pot. A few moments consideration brought me to the bizarre realization that the sounds were from my gastro-intestinal tract at work on a meal eaten just previously, and that these were being considerably amplified via the banjo. Has the banjo a role to play in diagnostic medicine I wonder? Mike

Bluegrass Chords and Tab

I found a nice site where you can get chords and tablature for many bluegrass songs for free.

If you know of any web sites that cater to the bluegrass community to share with others please post them to the blog.

Keep on pickn'

Angie