“A banjo will get you through times of no money, but money won't get you through times of no banjo.”
- John Hartford
I bought a cheap pawn shop banjo recently. I've been working at it a little bit. I make an awful noise at this point. It's easier than the guitar to learn, but it ain't easy. Still, even when I'm doing it, I like the sound. I can almost hear some promise.
The banjo gets made fun of a lot. It's a well-worn punchline. People associate it with backward, slack-jawed hillbillies . Of course its image really took a beating when Deliverance hit the silver screen in 1972. From that point on, it's been forever linked with mongoloid inbreds and psychopathic mountain men. You've seen the t-shirts, “I hear banjos.” Ha ha. By the way, Deliverance is still one of the ten best movies ever made.
I call the banjo-haters unenlightened. When used appropriately in a song, it adds an extra something and I love it. I grew up around banjos, guitars, fiddles and such so I probably come by my affection naturally. I guess it's like a lot of things you grow up with, you either have a lifelong attachment or you want to get as far away from it as you can. I'm the former.
My maternal grandfathe, Cash Cochran, played the banjo but he died when I was five, so regrettably, I never heard him play. My dad used to play music with a local fella name Ed Cooley. Ed was a pretty fair banjo player. As a ten-year old I'd sit at his knee and beg for Foggy Mountain Breakdown just like I'd seen Flatt and Scruggs play on TV. Of course, Flatt and Scruggs were also responsible for the Beverly Hillbilly's theme song and what kid of the 60s didn't know that one? Late in the decade along came a guy named John Hartford on TV. He wrote Gentle on My Mind and was a fine, laid back picker. I thought he was all kinds of cool. And there was Roy Clark on Hee Haw. He was mostly known for his guitar playing, but, man, he could cook on a banjo too. And about that time, Steve Martin began to appear on different shows. His stand up comedy was outside the box zany and he often had a banjo with him at the microphone. It wasn't just a prop, though. He could kick butt on the thing.
Those were some early influences and then the banjo started showing up in the music of my generation. Bands that incorporated it really shot up on the happenin' meter for me. They were hip enough to know the magic it contained. The combination of rock infused with traditional instruments was an intoxicating mix for me. It has remained so.
So, Hail, hail the banjo, by golly. Long may it twang.