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Archive for January, 2009

Stardom—of a sort!

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Today I have a musical memory to share, from one day in 1981 when we played for a REALLY BIG crowd. Our band (Red and Murphy & Co.) performed on a warm spring day in Florida Field (the old University of Florida football stadium) for a crowd of over 22,000 people!

Well, they weren’t actually all there just to see us. The event was the annual spring “Orange and Blue” game between the UF football squads, and the Athletics Department decided they’d like some bluegrass music before and after the game and at halftime. Well, this was a new challenge for us. How could we sound good– with a sound that didn’t echo and blur too much– in that huge stadium, which seated up to 60,000 fans for regular football games? I’d never tried it before, but we just went over there that morning and went to work. We drove our band van out on the field to reach the middle of the “visiting” side of the stadium, where we were going to play, and unloaded the sound equipment. Obviously our own sound system couldn’t fill the stadium with music, or even make much difference, so I provided a line feed to the stadium’s amplifiers and then set all our own equipment up right in front of us– facing directly toward the band! That way, even if the sound in the stadium got muddy and echoey, we could hear ourselves no matter what. Then we started playing, and it sounded fine!

In this cool photo taken by Jinx McCall, you can see us all facing the crowd. (Murphy sometimes says this is from our better side.) Left to right: Tuck Tucker on dobro, me on mandolin, Laurie Hicks on bass, Murphy on banjo, and Nancy Pate on guitar. We played several numbers before the game started, and sounded good. At halftime we did some more tunes, stopping only when we realized that the teams had run back on the field and started the second half regardless of the fact that we were still playing! Then, after the game, we did a few more numbers and packed it all up. It had been the first (and only) time we played for anything like 22,000 people! Thanks to the UF Athletic Department for a cool gig, and to Jinx for a good picture. And I’ve forgotten whether the Orange or the Blue side won… but we had a good time.

Tags: gigs, red, red and murphy and company
Posted in By Red, pictures, shows | No Comments »

Another Practice Tip

Monday, January 19th, 2009

OK, folks, this is gonna be short and sweet. I’ve got to get back to the football game. (End of first quarter: Pittsburgh Steelers are ahead! Go Steelers!)

Here’s something you might not have thought of, especially you beginning banjo players: Be sure to rotate the order in which you practice your songs. Don’t just start with BITH (Banjo in the Hollow), then CC (Cripple Creek), and on into either BTCD (Boil Them Cabbage Down) or CG (Cumberland Gap) and so forth.

Why not? Because this is what happened to Marty when someone asked him to play Cumberland Gap: He froze. He’d been so used to playing his songs in a strict order–BITH, CC, and then BTCD–that he honestly could not remember how to start Cumberland Gap without running through (at least mentally) all those other songs. After that experience he decided he needed to shake things up. I agree!

One more cute story on Marty: He was playing Cumberland Gap and I noticed he was failing to fret the third string at the second fret during the next-to-the-last lick in the first part. He was playing the string open, which actually didn’t sound terribly wrong. (In the backward roll of 1, 2, 3, 1.) So I told him that he needed to fret it at the second fret.

He looks right at me and says, “Really?”

Like he doesn’t believe me!

Then he says, “I don’t think that was on the DVD.”

So I said, “Right, Marty. Yours was the only DVD out of the whole batch didn’t mention that the third string should be fretted at the second fret!”

He did have the good grace to look sheepish!

That’s all for now. Back to the ball game! Casey is even now down in Tampa, Florida, getting ready to start helping our friend and banjo player Cap Spence coordinate volunteers for the Super Bowl half-time show. I’m sure she’ll be sharing her experiences on the Blog! Be sure to tune in!

Tags: murphy, practice tips
Posted in By Murphy, Practice | 1 Comment »

Workshop Schedule Updated

Friday, January 16th, 2009

I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that I updated the Workshop page on our website, so all the camps that I’m going to be at this year are listed now. The one coming up soonest is in March, in Delaware.

I also wanted to share this amusing thing that happened in a lesson today. My student was just playing her warm up song, “Banjo In the Hollow,” naturally, when we noticed that her fifth string was buzzing. I attributed this to the weather, which has turned quite cold in the last couple of days. Turned out the string was buzzing on the ninth fret spike. I suggested that she just put the string under the spike for the time being and re-tune the string. But she wanted to fix it, so when simply pushing the spike down didn’t work she looked in her purse to find something to use. She came up with her mascara. So she used her mascara to hammer the spike down enough that it wouldn’t buzz. I love the idea of using mascara as a tool to work on your banjo!

One last note: I leave tomorrow to fly to Tampa to work as a volunteer coordinator on the Super Bowl halftime show. The guy who hired me for the job last year (this is my second Super Bowl), Cap Spence, is a banjo player and Murphy Method student. I’ll be sending some updates of what is happening down there in the two weeks leading up to the big game, so stay tuned!

Tags: casey, mascara, super bowl, workshops
Posted in By Casey, General | No Comments »

What Marty Said

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Below you’ll find part of a longer email from a new student, Marty. He bought one of the last banjos, a Gold Tone, sold out of Brill’s Barber and Musicians’ Shop when he came up for a lesson in November. I’m gonna give you his credentials before I tell you what he said that is blog-worthy. He is an eminent cardiologist who used to be the head of the cardiology department at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He’s still in practice although he’s slumming now somewhere deep in South Carolina. <G> He’s originally from Jacksonville, Florida, (so he’s got little bit of the Southern Gentlemanly good-old boy thing going) and I think he told me he went to the same high school that some of the Lynard Skynard band members did. (Bluegrass content in last remark: Larry Cordle did a whole bluegrass tribute CD to Lynyrd Skynyrd, called “Lonesome Skynyrd Time.” I just adore that song that goes “Give me three steps, give me three steps, mister, give me three steps to the door.” Larry’s CD was the first time I was able to understand the words! I’d always loved the beat!]

Anyhow, when you see what Marty had to say, you’ll know why I am absolutely tickled to post this:

I spent practically my whole adult life raising two girls, so I really like to play Casey’s CD “Real Women Drive Trucks” because they have always been of the opinion they could do just about anything a man could do. They laugh though when I tell them I just want to learn to pick like a girl since I admire so many woman banjo players.

Thank you, Marty!

And just to remind you all of a few of the fabulous female banjo pickers:

Roni Stoneman
Lynn Morris
Alison Brown
Kristin Scott Benson
Gina Britt
Pam Gadd
Robin Roller
Cia Cherryholmes
Casey Henry (!)
Julie Elkins
Janet Beazley

Janet Davis

[Editor's Note: Murphy Henry (duh!)]

I would list more but I’ve got to quit so Red and I can start watching the first volume of the Harry Potter series. Mount your brooms!

Tags: murphy, women in bluegrass
Posted in By Murphy, women in bluegrass | No Comments »

Practice Tip #7

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

(Yes, I went back and counted!) My tip for today is this: keep up with your old material!! With one of my students, who has been coming to lessons for at least six years now, I’ve been doing a thorough review of old material for the last couple of months. Now, in six years you are going to cover a lot of stuff. And, indeed, we have lots and lots of songs on the list. If you don’t keep a list of the songs you’ve learned, you should. It is easy to let something slip through the cracks. Lots of his songs slipped through the cracks, so we’ve been going back and relearning lots of things that he would have remembered had he been a bit more conscientious about practicing.

I know that it is hard to keep up with the things that you don’t use often. I have that same problem myself. But as a banjo player you should absolutely be able to kick into any and all of Earl Scruggs’s tunes at the drop of a hat, even if you don’t play them often with others. It’s one thing to let an obscure fiddle tune fall out of practice, but it is unpardonable to let “Fireball Mail” fall out of practice. In theory all the tunes that you’ve learned should be treated equally, but in reality, some are more equal than others!

Tags: casey, earl scruggs, Practice
Posted in By Casey, Practice | 1 Comment »

Practice Tip # Whatever

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

(I’ve Lost Count! Being a banjo player, it’s hard for me to go above five!)

Anyhow, here’s the tip: Wear your picks!

I’m not kidding. One of my students was not wearing his picks to practice because he has a young daughter who was usually trying to sleep when he was playing. So, like a good father, he tried to keep the noise level down. By playing with his bare fingers.

The trouble was, when he came to his lesson I made him wear his picks. So he’d spend the first fifteen or twenty minutes just getting used to them. Naturally, he was not playing his best during this interlude. (Of course it gave him a wonderful excuse!)

Yesterday he came in and was playing great right from the start. What’s up? I asked him. Are you practicing more?

He allowed that he was practicing more, but, he said, I’ve started wearing my picks to practice. He controlled the noise by seriously muting his banjo—with a homemade bridge mute and a towel in the back. Viola! Little to no banjo noise, even when he used his picks to play. Daughter happy, student happy, Murphy happy. We had a very good lesson!

P.S. (After I saw his banjo mute I asked him if he’d seen the T-shirt with the picture of a sledge hammer on the front and the words “Banjo Mute” underneath. He had.)

Tags: murphy, practice tips
Posted in By Murphy, Practice | 1 Comment »

Phone Conversation

Monday, January 12th, 2009

Conversation I just had on the phone.

I’d like to order the Beginning Banjo Volume 1.

Would you like DVD or video?

I guess he wants the DVD, he didn’t say.

He must have gotten a banjo for Christmas.

Yeah. I could have gotten him a gun or a banjo. I should have got the gun instead.

Much laughter on my end of the phone.

He was fooling it with it last night when I was trying to go to sleep. I even had the fan on. It was too cold for him to go outside. I finally had to go out there and tell him to quit. I need a gun now to just shoot myself.

MORE LAUGHTER FROM ME. Then I said, “I’ll send it as quick as I can.”

The End.

Tags: banjo, gun, murphy, phone
Posted in banjo, By Murphy | 4 Comments »

Banjos, Two at a Time: One Moment in 1969

Friday, January 9th, 2009

Folks, I just ran across this old photo, and thought you’d like to see it. This was take in Florida on a warm day in August 1969 (every day on August is warm in Florida!), and it shows banjo wizards John Hedgecoth and Mike Johnson showing off by playing each other’s banjos– Mike was doing the right-hand on his banjo and the left hand on John’s, and John was playing the right hand on his own banjo and the left hand on Mike’s!

(Click on the photo for a larger version. Mike’s playing his old Gibson bow-tie RB250, and John’s playing his then-new RB800.)

The tune they were playing was “Cripple Creek.” Mike and John could play it this way because they’d both learned it right (read: they’d learned Earl Scruggs’ version). This meant that they both knew exactly which left-notes to finger on each other’s banjos all through the tune, and they both played exactly the same rolls with their right hands, and it all worked and sounded great!

However, at the moment of the photo, right in the middle of the tune, John had detected that his second string was a bit flat. So, timing it just right (during the square rolls in the B part, so Mike’s notes would blend with his), he deftly reached over to his own banjo’s tuners and adjusted that B-string note, then went right back to playing those Cripple Creek licks on the fingerboard of Mike’s banjo. Nobody noticed. Unless, like me, they were right there watching. Or unless they saw the photo!

The moral is: Some pickers can tune a string in a short time. Also, don’t forget to practice Cripple Creek! — Just in case you ever get a chance to play two banjos at once…

Tags: cripple creek, john hedgecoth, mike johnson, red
Posted in banjo, By Red | No Comments »

Banjo Pickin’ Girls

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

I’ve just returned from our kinda-weekly jam session made up of women mostly living in the East Nashville/Inglewood/Madison area. I’ve written about them before (here) . We call ourselves At Least We’re Hot. They were tickled at the article I wrote about them in the January issue of Banjo Newsletter (alas, the article is not online; you have to get the actual print copy to read it). They made copies to paste in their scrapbooks.

We played our big hits: “Angelina Baker” (a favorite on account of it having only two chords), “More Handsome Men Than One” (an important fact to keep in mind), “Come Hither to Go Yonder” (not the banjo player’s favorite, but the rest of us like it), and we ended with what may be our all-time favorite: “Banjo Pickin’ Girl,” the old Coon Creek Girls number. (We played more songs than that, obviously, but I’m not going to itemize our whole set list. We don’t want anyone stealing our material! <G>)

We’re at the point now that we’re actually trying to play the tunes we’ve been playing for months now a little faster. We are even considering honing in on a dozen or so songs, working on our arrangements, and taking them out to play at some nursing homes. Look out big time, here we come!

Tags: at least we're hot, casey, jamming
Posted in By Casey, jamming | No Comments »

Another Poem

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

Here’s another banjo poem, this one written by Edward Morris who now writes for CMT.com. He says it was written “some time ago under the spell of Pete Seeger.” Thank you much, Ed, (as we say in the Shenandoah Valley) for letting us post it.

THE BANJO IS A RUBE

The banjo is a rube,
long-necking into town,
slick-headed and
defensively keyed-up
to glib impertinence.

It is the village infidel,
wise-cracking the bowed heads,
plucking from crinkled knees
to tapping toes,
the Sabbath zombies into sin.

It is a guerilla
starved down
to the desperate energy
of stretched nerves,
sniping at fat pianos in full dress.

It is a pensioner,
retired to dusty corners,
pin-striped and stiff,
humming at night
an agile frolic.

Edward Morris

I must tell you that I got acquainted with Ed last year via email when he posted an article about Rhonda Vincent (January 22, 2008) for the CMT.com Blog. Titled “Deep in the Bosom of Bluegrass,” the article quoted something I’d said about Rhonda when I was on a panel about Women in Bluegrass way back in 2003. Ed and I exchanged emails about his quote, that event, and his prodigious memory and from then on have been, ahem, bosom buddies! Ed is a wonderful writer, so check out the article. It’s still online!

NOTE: In case you read the article: No matter what I said back then (and I think I was just popping off without thinking, trying to be funny) I totally support Rhonda Vincent’s attire and her music!

Tags: murphy, poem, women in bluegrass
Posted in banjo, By Murphy, women in bluegrass | 1 Comment »

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