Bigfoot Clawhammer Banjo Bridge

The Bigfoot Banjo Bridge
by Don New

I've been using Don New's barnwood Clawhammer bridges for about a year now. His clawhammer-specific bridges feature a raised fifth string which means that, at about the point where the neck and pot meet, the fifth string is even with the other strings. When I replaced a Snuffy Smith bridge on my Wildwood Troubadour with one of Don’s clawhammer specials I noticed a little more bass response, but what I really liked was the raised fifth string especially when dropping thumb. I liked it so much I ordered another one for my Mike Ramsey fretless banjo. The story should end there, clawhammer banjo player lives happily ever after, right? But recently Don contacted me to tell me about a new design. He calls it “The Bigfoot” and says it’s his best sounding bridge. How could I resist? The one I got has the same, wider "Crowe" spacing, as well as the raised fifth string feature of the “Spillway Dam” bridge I've been using, but the Bigfoot has more open space under the strings. It also has three big maple “feet” attached perpendicularly to the barnwood portion of the bridge. I decided to give it a try figuring if there isn’t a big improvement in the sound I would put the Spillway bridge back on. Well, I was pleasantly surprised, although I shouldn’t have been surprised at all; Don said it would sound better and it did. It has even better bass response and significantly more volume. It also seems to somewhat tame the overtones and even out the response between the fifth string and the other strings. Don goes by the name Stringbean45 on Ebay where he sells his bridges and some other banjo related stuff.

This review was re"printed" from the March 2017 issue my e-newsletter "Rooster Rick's Clawhammer Banjo Gazette." If you are interested in receiving the monthly Gazette contact me at:
rick@homegrownstringband.com

-Rick

Homegrown Two Show January 11th on Long Island

Our first show of 2015 will be a Homegrown Two, aka: Cackle & Crow, show at the North Babylon Public Library. Georgianne and I will be performing from 2 to 3:30 pm on Sunday January 11th. The show will feature ballads, blues, and banjo tunes played on banjo, guitar, harmonica, dulcimer, banjo-uke, ukelele, and doumbek.  I'm really looking forward to performing some of the guitar/dulcimer duets Georgianne and I often play together at home as well as some solo clawhammer banjo tunes that don't usually make it into full band shows.

The Mountain Dulcimer, an American Musical Tradition

2:00 pm January 11, 2015  

North Babylon Public Library

815 Deer Park Avenue

North Babylon, NY 11703

631-669-4020

Run Little Rabbit Run Run

Our friend Wells caught us having a "Little Rabbit" fun at Crazy Beans last Saturday night.

Little Birdie

A Little Birdie stopped in for a visit yesterday   photo by Georgianne Jackofsky

We've had very little rainfall for the past six or eight weeks. In a time period that we normally get six or more inches we have had less than a half an inch of rain. I've been filling our birdbaths everyday, so our yard has become somewhat of an oasis for local critters. Between the birds, deer, squirrels, and Rocky (our resident raccoon), pretty much all the water is being consumed every day. As I'm typing this a huge flock of grackles (several hundred) just landed in our backyard. Wow, what a racket they make!

This "Little Birdie", a golden crowned kinglet, knocked himself out when he crashed into one of our windows. At first I thought he was dead, but he woke up as soon as I picked him up. He didn't seem to mind being handled at all as he sat in my hand, let me stroke his head, and crawled up and down my arm for ten or fifteen minutes before he took off. When he finally did take off, he hovered in front of me, like a hummingbird, then did a few slow laps around my head before he settled on a nearby tree limb.

I made this quick recording of the traditional banjo tune Little Birdie. This song is a favorite of Ralph Stanley. It was one of the first songs he learned from his mother, who taught him to play banjo in the traditional frailing, or clawhammer, style.

Saturday, November 9, will find the Homegrown String Band performing at the Elwood Public Library, 1929 Jericho Tpke., Elwood, NY, at 2:00 p.m. Reservations are recommended. Please contact the library at 631-499-3722 to save yourself a seat!

The next day, Sunday, November 10, will find HGSB performing at another Long Island library. For those of you a little further west, we will be at the Franklin Square Public Library, 19 Lincoln Road, Franklin Square, NY; (516) 488-3444. The show is also at 2:00 p.m. The library is only open for the concert on Sunday, so please go to the side door entrance not the front door!

Sunday, November 17, will find Georgianne and Rick presenting the duo program, Homegrown Two, at the Bellmore Memorial Library, 2288 Bedford Ave., Bellmore, NY; 516-785-2990. Once again the show will start at 2:00 p.m.

Sunday, December 8, will find the full band doing their last Long Island show of the year. The Town of Oyster Bay, Cultural and Performing Arts Division, presents this program at the Bethpage Public Library as part of their Distinguished Artists Concert Series. Bethpage Public Library, 47 Powell Avenue, Bethpage, NY; 516-931-3907. 2:00 p.m.

* Many thanks for coming out to a show & for helping keep the music alive! *

 www.homegrownstringband.com

Minstrel Boy Banjo

Last year I used our midwinter downtime to put together my banjo book, Ragged but Right: The Ungentle Art of Clawwhammer Banjo. This year I have kept busy singing the Snow Shoveling Blues while making maple syrup, mead, and hard cider. I also decided to take some time to fix up a couple of old banjos that were in varying states of disrepair.

Yesterday I changed the head and restrung my Minstrel Boy banjo. This banjo, based on a mid-nineteenth century banjo made by William Esperance Boucher, was built in 2003 by Randy England. Randy made these historically accurate instruments to be used by fellow Civil War re-enactors. I played it quite a bit in school programs and fairs that featured Civil War encampments, as well as for a series of shows I did at The Long Island Museum at Stony Brook while they were hosting Jim Bollman's banjo collection in an exhibition entitled "America's Instrument - The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century." Two of the gut strings had broken and the calf skin head had a hole in it that was threatening collapse. I replaced the strings with a set of synthetic "Nylgut" strings and replaced the head with a synthetic "Renaissance" head. I guess it is no longer historically correct but it stays in tune better and should be more durable. I made a quick recording of myself noodling around on this low tuned banjo. I'll need some time to regain the touch required to play these lower tension soft strings, especially the short 5th string.



P.S That's Georgianne accompanying me on rattling silverware, banging pots, and running water.

Copper Finger

A new nemesis for James Bond? No, a new clawhammer banjo finger prosthetic device. I was working in my metal shop and I got my fingers a little to close to the bench grinder. I didn't get hurt (this time) but I gave my clawhammer banjo fingernail an unwanted manicure. Usually when this happens I will use a National or Dunlop metal finger pick spun around backward as a fingernail substitute. I was never really happy with the way they felt or sounded. I would often get the edge caught up on the banjo strings. So today I decided I would make a banjo specific metal finger pick. I made a sketch and paper pattern with a nice wide fingernail the same size and shape of the one I had accidentally ground off. I cut the shape out of 16oz copper and customized it to fit my middle finger perfectly. So far I think it sounds and feels pretty good. It's also loud! I may be hooked on my new copper top banjo pick!.

Rooster Rick's Copper Top Clawhammer Banjo Picks!

By popular demand, I am now making these unique picks available to the banjo pickin' public.

 I'll give it a full test run at our show this weekend at the East Meadow Library.

Sunday, November  18, 2012 at 2:00 pm.

East Meadow Library

1886 Front Street

East Meadow, NY

516-794-2570

Doc Watson Passes

"Doc" Watson 1923 -2012

Doc Watson, AKA Arthel Lane Watson, passed away today at the age of 89. Doc was born on March 3, 1923, in Deep Gap, NC. Blind by the age of two, Watson used his musical talent to support himself and his family while introducing a new generation of Americans to the traditional music of the Appalachian region. Doc, one of my musical heroes, was "discovered" in the early1960s by Ralph Rinzler who was in the neighborhood to make some recordings of Clarence Ashley. Rinzler asked Ashley if there were any other talented traditional musicians in the area. At the time Doc was playing electric guitar in a rockabilly band; he didn't even own an acoustic guitar. Nevertheless, Doc impressed the visiting folklorist, on a borrowed acoustic guitar, with his repertoire of traditional folk songs and early commercial country music. Doc Watson went on to become one of the most popular traditional artists of the 20th century, and one of the most influential flat picking guitarists of all time.

My first exposure to the playing of Doc Watson was a happy accident. It was 1972 and Doc was the opening act for the Paul Butterfield blues band. I was awed by the playing of this unknown (to me) blind country gentleman. Shortly after seeing Doc perform live, I picked up the, now classic, LP "May the Circle Be Unbroken" and I became more familiar with the playing of this exceptional musician. His album of children's music, "Songs for Little Pickers," provided much of the material I used to entertain, and, hopefully, inspire my children to have a life long appreciation of traditional American folk music. Doc's incredible flat picking was an inspiration to acoustic guitar players around the world, while his elegantly simply banjo technique demystified and provided the foundation for my own clawhammer banjo playing.

Sounds Across the Sound; Saturday & Sunday

The Long Island Sound

This weekend we will be heading across the Long Island Sound to Barrington, Rhode Island. On Saturday, March 31, at 2:00 pm Erica and I will be presenting beginner to intermediate clawhammer banjo and fiddle workshops at the Barrington Public Library in Barrington, Rhode Island. The following day, April 1st, also at 2:00 pm, the full family band will be performing in a concert setting at the same venue. Both events are free and open to the public.

The Barrington Public Library

281 County Road,

Barrington, RI 02806

(401) 247-1920 

New Clawhammer Banjo Book

Ragged but Right: The Ungentle Art of Clawhammer Banjo

A Celebration of America's Greatest Multicultural Musical Creation

Bump Ditty Press 2012

By Rick Jackofsky

I just published a new book about clawhammer banjo. Ragged but Right: The Ungentle Art of Clawhammer Banjo.

I had a lot of down time in February so I decided to organize the print-outs I usually hand out to my banjo students. I thought I would just staple a few sheets together to hand out at a clawhammer banjo workshop I will be presenting in Barington, Rhode Island on March 31st, but I got carried away and ended up with a 40 page, 8 1/2 X 11, perfect bound book. Topics covered include practical music theory, clawhammer banjo technique, resources, and some interesting historical notes from the instrument's ancient African roots through the twenty-first century.

Now Available Online, at Shows and at Workshops

Only $15.00 (+ $3.00 shipping)

Pickin on a Park Bench

I guess pickin' in the park is the modern urban/suburban version of front porch pickin'; an opportunity to get out, get some fresh air, and share your music with your neighbors. One of my fondest memories of growing up on Long Island was our Sunday summer excursions into NYC during the mid to late 1960s. My dad would load the family up in the station wagon for an hour long drive into Manhattan. Once we got into "The City" we would head down to Greenwich Village, wander around the shops and art galleries, and listen to the city folk playing blues, jazz, and folk music in Washington Square. The day would usually end with dinner at Jimmy's, our favorite Chinatown eatery.

In this video I'm playing the classic American folk ballad "Wild Bill Jones" in clawhammer style on my Wildwood five string open back banjo. I guess "Wild Bill Jones" falls into that ever popular murder ballad category I mentioned in a previous post. A version of the song, as sung by Viney Norton of Big Laurel, North Carolina, was collected by Cecil Sharp in August of 1916. The first commercial recording was made in New York City on April 24, 1924, by Eva Davis, accompanying herself on the five string banjo, of course.

Banjos, Murder, & Moonshine

For some reason it seems that banjo players have always had a fascination with murder. Is it because they are constantly being threatened with the possibility of meeting an untimely end, or maybe they are just a morbid group, who knows. In any case, solo clawhammer banjo and vocal seems to be the way to go when it comes to murder ballads. On July 29, 1927, in Bristol, Tennesee, at the same recording session that would launch the careers of The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, a banjo playing barber from Kentucky named B.F. Shelton recorded four tunes including two classic murder ballads. He chose the cheery "Pretty Polly," an Americanized version of the English murder ballad "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter," and the All American moonshine murder ballad "Darling Cora."  Doc Watson's neighbor, Tom (AKA Clarence) Ashley, recorded "Little Sadie" and "Naomi Wise" in 1929. The list goes on and on with murder ballads being prominently featured in the repertoires  of many early banjo players including Samantha Bumgarner, Dock Boggs, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and Buell Kazee. I've kept up the tradition by including "Pretty Polly," "Darling Corey," "John Hardy," and "Little Sadie" in my solo performances.

Several years ago I decided to write a new murder ballad, God knows there is no shortage of dastardly deeds to tell a terrible tale about. I decided to compose my murder ballad based on a murder that took place in Berlin, NY, in 1845. This was a time when banjos were just beginning to be manufactured commercially and the instrument of African origin was gaining popularity in mainstream America. I found the grisly details, along with a 24 verse broadside that was hawked at the execution of Henry G. Greene, in "New York State Folktales, Legends and Ballads" by Harold Thompson. Greene, who murdered his wife of one week, Mary Wyatt, with a lethal dose of arsenic, confessed to his terrible crime only after being found guilty and sentenced to hang. In a final act of repentance, Henry sang "Rock of Ages" as he stood upon the gallows. I borrowed some verses from the broadside, added some of my own along with a spooky sounding minor tune, to come up with my version of The Ballad of Mary Wyatt.

Listen to The Ballad of Mary Wyatt by Rick Jackofsky

Watch a video of Rick Jackofsky performing Pretty Polly

Buy the Mp3 or the book

The Ballad of Mary Wyatt

New York State Folktales, Legends and Ballads


Photo by Ed Neale