The Murphy Method Blog

I was recently looking through some of the old stuff I’ve held onto for lo these many years (in various “keeping boxes” as we call them), throwing out things I can’t remember why I kept, and trying to organize the rest and date some of the letters (sans envelopes) that Mama started off with “Tuesday morning” or “Wednesday afternoon.” (Love the perpetual calendars on the internet!)

And why am I telling you this? Because I ran across two banjo books! One is titled Fun With The Banjo (Five String or Plectrum) by Mel Bay (copyright 1962) and the other is Modern 5 String Banjo Method published by M. M. Cole Publishing Co., (copyright 1941).

I am a little reluctant to poke fun at the Mel Bay book since the company now distributes our DVDs (and are wonderful people, let me add). Suffice it to say that both books were simply wrong for me because they were all about flat-picking the banjo which was tuned in “C.” I’m guessing they came with an el cheapo banjo I got one Christmas (and never learned to play). Since I could already play guitar, I could strum the banjo easily but it sounded awful, and I never really quite got the point or understood what it was all about. This was before I’d had my life-changing Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus experience at the Lavonia, Georgia, bluegrass festival in the early seventies where I finally “got it” about bluegrass and also met Red!

And you know, it wasn’t like I hadn’t heard bluegrass before that. I actually got to watch some of the Flatt and Scruggs shows on TV. I think they came on Saturday afternoons, along with other shows like the Porter Wagoner Show and the Wilburn Brothers Show. I liked watching them and enjoyed the music, don’t get me wrong, but they just weren’t any big deal. The thing I remember most is how funny I thought they all looked when they took off their hats to sing a gospel number. And the song I remember best is the Pet Milk commercial: “When you go to the grocery store buy the best milk you can get/You’ll start cooking with a golden spoon when you start cooking with Pet/Evaporated Milk.” I realize now that it was sung to the tune of “Boil Them Cabbage Down.”

I guess it just wasn’t time for the bluegrass bug to bite me then. I was content to play my baritone ukulele at various church and Girl Scout camps, singing all those great old folk songs like “Kum By Yah,” “If I Had A Hammer,” “Michael Row The Boat Ashore,” “Stewball,” “The Cruel War” (a heart-rending fave especially for a tomboy like me who loved the lines “I’ll tie back my hair, men’s clothing I’ll put on and I’ll pass as your comrade as we march along”), and “Blowing in the Wind.” Eventually I graduated to guitar, continuing to play it like a uke at first (on the last four strings) because the chords were so hard to make. And finally I found my way to the banjo. But that story will have to wait until another time because this blog is long enough already! Thanks if you read this far. You could have been practicing your banjo!