A Banjo Story

A Banjo Story

I'll tell a banjo story.

My sister Nancy and my parents chipped in together and bought me a used long-necked Vega banjo as a present when I graduated college in 1968. Such a gift it was, too. It's a wonderful old instrument I’ve hauled all over this country and half way around the world, and leaned against chairs and couches in countless abodes--always at the ready to launch a new day with a song or, with syncopated patterns of melody interlaced with hope, rescue a somber night from the burden of sad truth or just to take a ten minute ditty break and give relief from toil. Over the past 40 years it's been a rare situation so bleak as to daunt the restorative energies of the Vega as a three-chord source of self-survival. Regardless of curse or discouragement, I almost always feel better after a solitary session of rhythmic escape.

I'm a decent plunker. I don't believe in hobbies and approach all my artful endeavors with passion and commitment. Though there have seldom been calls for public display, I am a professional musician even if I sound like an amateur. I play a limited collection of old-time banjo tunes and a variety of my own songs. My life's work could be expended in one extended set at a roadside tavern and then another act would have to finish the night. Old Vega and I just sing the same old songs most of the times and are pleased to know them.

There's a great music store down the road at Newport, Red Lotus Music. The owner, Evans Longshore, knows his music and knows instruments to be more than just tools of a craft. When I brought my banjo into his shop he knew by its chips and stains and the sweet report of a simple strum that it had a good long story. I asked about some simple maintenance and upkeep and he gladly agreed to pass it on to his luthier. I left it there for a week and, even playing my guitars and my backup 'el cheap-o' banjo, I missed it every day.

I came back when it was ready, touched a few strings and notes up the neck, paid him a fair price, told him to thank the repair guy for a great job and then, man, how I wished I could just start wailing away and knock Evans right off his stool back there behind the counter. You know, explode with such fiery articulation that he would say, "Wow, Bob, you sure can pick a banjo."

But, of course, I couldn't. I'm not a performer, I'm a player. I just grinned and said so long.

I was really excited about my banjo, the way the neck had been shimmed for tone and the action evened and the ring nuts adjusted like they never had been before. I sped to a parking lot that overlooks the jetty and the surf and whole wild Pacific to the edge of sky, sat down on the stone wall facing the sea and started playing the most amazingly clear and responsive banjo in the whole singing world. With head flung back and eyes closed and nobody near by, I cut loose and, oh, how that beat up old friend of stretched string and dingy drum sang our old tunes.

And this could have been the whole story:

Man and his banjo.
Stone wall by the raging sea.
The Gods tap their toes.

But it wasn't. In a five-minute encounter with purpose, my music transcended therapeutic personal bliss and became art.
During a moment's respite from revelry, I stretched and looked around. I was surprised to see a car parked just behind me with windows opened. The driver, a middle-aged man with a somber face spoke to me. "Sir, would you mind coming closer and playing a song for my parents? They're hard of hearing and I know they would like to hear a banjo song."

"Sure," I answered as I rose, strode over to the side of the car, and leaned to peer in. Father was in the passenger seat and mother in the back. Clearly, they were both lost to the zombie-like curse of dementia. Oh, sadness.

"They are very old," he said. "And quite disabled."

He introduced them and I met their time-stunned, impassive faces with a smile and said, "Hello, My name is Robert."

'My dad was in World War II," he said.

"My father and a couple of uncles served that war," I told them. The old man might have understood. I couldn’t tell.

"I'm honored to play you people a song."

Then, with 'fiery articulation' and heartfelt passion, I gave them all I could of "Cripple Creek."

Now, dear reader, if, in the course of your acculturation you have not encountered "Cripple Creek," forget your degrees in western civilization, ethnomusicology, and your Julliard master sessions with string quartets; forget your complete set of pristine Led Zeppelin vinyl; forget the blunting bludgeon of Musak's ubiquitous hum--you've got a real deficit there in the portfolio of your life. The wit, wisdom, and mantric marvel of "Goin' up Cripple Creek, goin' in a run; goin' up Cripple Creek to have some fun". . . and "Girls on Cripple Creek, 'bout half grown, go after boys like a dog after bone . . ." may well provide an elusive essence vital to this lifetime's sojourn of your soul.

So, I played my heart out standing there in the parking lot overlook at Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.

"Goin' up Cripple Creek, goin' in a whirl; goin' up Cripple Creek to see my girl," I sang and then with plinky-plunky finale working up the neck for a final twang, my song was over. I grinned into the car and looked past the pale, sad son and into the eyes of the parents and received such a marvelous gift. From the backseat, Mother stirred faintly and found my eyes. And father . . . why the old man's face beamed in a smile and he vigorously clapped his hands.

"Thank you," said the son.

"Oh, no." I countered. "Thank you."

Forty years I had practiced for this five-minute concert. And, oh, the immeasurable significance of art given and art received.