A Phone Call That Changed My Life

I was an extreme traditionalist in my musical tastes for the first nearly 30 years of my life. I was interested in knowing the root of every old song that I played. I wanted to know its history and I wanted to know exactly how it was played. I had absolutely no interest in any song written after the Great Depression. I had no interest in modern song writers. I always figured that if a song needed to have been written, A.P. Carter would have written it.

I was interested in playing an instrument "correctly". Playing correctly meant playing the way everyone else did. That created a great deal of tension for me. I despise conformity and one of my greatest fears is to be accepted by any establishment, be it the established horse world, other lawyers, fashion arbiters, or culinary critics. If I do anything in conformity with the bland world around me you can be sure that it is a mere coincidence.

 An off hand statement made to me by a total stranger opened my musical world up around 1996. I began playing Carter Family songs about thirty years before that. After we got married Beth and I went to see her family in the mountains. I saw a traditional bluegrass band in which a teen age boy picked up an instrument that I had never seen before. Its fret board was diatonic like a mountain dulcimer. It had only three strings and the sound box was small, smaller even than a pie pan.

The sound intrigued me, but I had played music very little while in law school and suspected that performing was one of the things slowly slipping out of my new life as a lawyer and locally elected official. Like playing baseball it was simply something that I felt like I was aging out of.

I saw one of these instruments for sale in Abingdon. At the music store they referred to the instruments as a "Neely Banjo" or as a "Mountain Banjo".  There were no instruction books for this instrument. I decided to buy one and hope that I could find some way to learn to play it.

Eventually, I put together a thumb-lead style of playing that played the melody with a thumb pick while brushing the cord with my first two fingers. Throw in a lot of hammers that I used when playing and guitar and slides that I used when playing a mandolin and it sounded right good.

I had tht banjo for a long time before I noticed a little piece of paper inside. It had Mr. Neely's name and phone number. He had created this banjo. Finally I would be able to learn how to play it.

I hate talking on the phone and I hate talking to strangers, in general. But I was excited about this call. I got him on the line. He sounded very humble and perhaps a bit shy. I told him what I had and I asked him several questions about the instrument.

"What kind of wood is it made from?"
"That depends, I made them from different odds and ends that I had around. What does the top look like?"
"Looks like spruce to me. And the back looks like curly maple."
"Sounds about right I made several out of spruce and maple."

Now that the chit-chat was over I was ready to get to the heart of the call.
"Mr. Neely, how do you play this instrument?" He answered without the slightest hint of irony."
"Son, anyway you want to play it is fine with me. Tell you the truth, I never good much music out of them myself. You play it how you want to."

I hung that phone up a free man. Never after that have I told anyone that I was teaching that you were supposed to play an instrument any given way. Instead I show them some different styles of playing and let them go look for the sound that they want.

The five string wooden banjo in the bottom picture is one that Daddy and I made in the nineties. I have never learned a three finger roll and I have never mastered clawhammer banjo. I enjoy the music that I get out of it playing something based on what I have read of Maybelle Carter's banjo playing style. I am not aware of her ever being recorded playing banjo.

I am bothered by it because the high string does not drone on a regular basis.  I read a description in recent years by a man who saw Maybelle Carter play banjo. His description seems to match  the style that I developed, which was based only on descriptions and my hunches.

I like the sound that style produces for many songs. Most other people do not even get far enough to evaluate the quality of the sound. Instead I have perplexed looking people who explain to me that that is not how you are supposed to play a banjo.

I just think of Mr. Neely and tell them that any way they want to play a banjo is fine with me.