Customer Reviews

Clawhammer Banjo, Volume One

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Yahoo!! This is the first volume of a three-CD set... These are some of the most welcomed reissue records in all of bluegrass-land, extended versions of the original three-volume series of vinyl LPs from the 1960s and '70s, that feature some of the sweetest, simplest examples of the downpicking, or clawhammer, style of banjo playing... These tracks were all gathered by folklorist Charlie Faurot, who recorded informal sessions by Tommy Jarrell, George Stoneman, Wade Ward, and many other, less well-known clawhammer pickers. Most of the tracks, but not all, are instrumentals, and while you might think that three albums worth of the same style of music on the same instrument might wear thin after a while, I actually found these to be some of the most enjoyable records I've listened to recently. You can just kick back and let the music flow, washing you in waves of a bygone time... As the liner notes point out, since these records were originally issued, all of the artists featured on them have passed away, and with them went the direct connection to the older, backwoods world they came from. Sure, there are folks today who can play in the same style and who know all the old songs, but somehow there's nothing that quite matches the feel of music made by people who really grew up in rural communities without electricity or many of the other amenities of modern life, folks who have felt the sweet side of hard times, players from another time and another world altogether. Anyway, these discs all sound special to me, and I think you'll like 'em, too... And for present-day students of clawhammer banjo, you couldn't ask for a better guide to the style... Highly recommended!

Classic and hugely influential recordings of down-picking clawhammer banjo (aka rapping, knocking, framming, frailing, beating, banging, etc.). Required listening for anyone serious about this style of banjo. From intricate, virtuosic pieces to thrashing breakdowns, all three volumes will appeal to lovers and students of clawhammer banjo. If you don't know what that is, take a listen to the samples (as Larry King so obviously should have done). The one gaping hole in this collection is the lack of African American players. Excellent examples of these can be found on Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia.