There are lots of different things you can do with a banjo. You could frail or clawhammer a banjo. You could put some picks on your fingers and pluck it in the ol’ three-fingered Scruggs-style. You could flatpick some big band and dixieland chords on it. You could strum it in a folk circle. You could write a dissertation about jazz banjo players or even use one as firewood. You could also play Elvis Presley songs on one for your friends’ wedding in the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, VA (though I’m still ashamed that NOT ONE PERSON told me that I wasn’t supposed to wear all-white to a wedding! Live and learn, I suppose.).
But if I’m being honest, my favorite use for the banjo is that flatpicking banjo twang heard on early '50s honky-tonk and rockabilly music. Before rock and roll was a fully-defined thing separate from country music, lots of western swing, honky-tonk, and rockin-adjacent bands featured the banjo. It’s a great compliment to thumb-picked electric guitar and even steel guitar. A few years later, lots of bluegrass groups began covering rock’n’roll songs–I’m thinking here of Jim & Jesse, the Stanley Brothers, Jim Eanes, Flatt & Scruggs, and many more, and that's always fun to hear.
And in the 1950s and early ‘60s, flatpickers like Joe Maphis, Arthur ‘Guitar Boogie’ Smith, Grandpa Jones, Grady Martin, Cousin Arnold, Frank Evans, Ronnie Dawson, and so many more were setting their five banjo strings ablaze with a pick. In recent years, the flatpicking rockabilly banjo torch has been passed on to players like Brian Setzer, Mitch Polzak , and Carter Logan to name a few. It’s a beautiful thing and worth celebrating. So that’s what we’ll do tomorrow (5/5) on Back to the Country. Rock’n’Roll Banjo! Tune in via 89.9FM in southern Wisconsin or stream via wortfm.org from 9am-noon (cst).
