"Old Mother Flanaghan"

A simple fiddle tune, played on banjo (me) and guitar (Nancy Levine).  It's a little slow, but I like these tunes a little on the slow side, as opposed to rushed.

Update: Boyne tow-path and castle, County Meath, Ireland; photo by Wade Tarzia.

Mike Seeger, 1933-2009

Mike Seeger, long-time collector, performer, and teacher of traditional American folk music, passed away on August 7. Mike was proficient on a number of instruments including guitar, autoharp, fiddle, mandolin, and harmonica, but he claimed that the banjo was his main instrument.

Mike was a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a group that formed in the 1950s and continued performing and recording into the 2000s. It was their album String Band Instrumentals, given to me by a fellow St. Johns College student around 1965, that ruined my life by presenting me with the old-time music of the Appalachians and southern Piedmont.


On the album cover Mike is in the middle, and that's his autograph. It reads "an artifact! Mike Seeger 2/05."

I was listening to the Beatles at the time, and this rustic, acoustic music didn't immediately grab me; however, a few of the tunes did tickle my ear, and as I continued to listen I gradually became aware that, somewhere deep in my mind, I knew I had to do it. After a false start with a tenor banjo, I got a 5-string banjo. Then I found Pete Seeger's famous instruction manual in the Hagerstown Public Library and got started in earnest. I've been learning ever since.

I first met Mike at the Florida Folk Festival in 2004. Then in 2005 he was an instructor at the Suwanee Banjo Camp, a weekend series of workshops held at Stephen Foster State Park on the banks of the Suwanee River. I took a couple of lessons with him and found him to be a clear, patient teacher, very hands-on. I have some photos of these workshops and will post a few when I find them. It was at this camp that he kindly autographed my copy of the old album that got me started.

Anyone wanting an introduction to the sound of old-time, traditional, acoustic American music can do no better than to listen to the New Lost City Ramblers. I recommend the two compilation cds The New Lost City Ramblers: The Early Years (1958-1962) and The New Lost City Ramblers Vol. 2, 1963-1973: Out Standing in Their Field. But there are others; just do a search on Amazon.com. There is also a new (2009) documentary film, Always Been a Rambler, available on dvd. You can view the trailer here:



Mike, if you can hear us, we're already missing you.

One time, at banjo camp...

Yes, last weekend was our annual Suwannee Banjo Camp, and I more or less survived. The camp is held at O'Leno State Park, a really nifty place in north central Florida about two hours drive from Jacksonville. The photo below shows where the Santa Fe River disappears into a sinkhole inside the park; it reappears a few miles away before flowing into the Suwannee.



There are screened but unheated cabins, which makes for an interesting time with temps falling into the 40's at night. There's also a dining hall, where campers are fed pretty well by a catering service.

But mostly, there are workshops, each lasting an hour and 15 minutes. As at academic conferences, it's often hard to decide which of two competing workshops to attend. Do you go to Ken Perlman's "Celtic Reels, Clawhammer Style" or Laura Boosinger's "The Art of Singing with Banjo?" I mostly did old-time banjo, and learned some good things from Paul Brown, Bob Carlin, Adam Hurt, and Brad Leftwich; I also did one fiddle session with Brad. Google any of these folks and you'll get an idea of how good they are.

I started attending the camps in 2005, after about 35 years of playing banjo mostly by myself and learning most of what I knew from instruction manuals. I had been living with performance anxiety for many years, limiting myself to playing around the house. As I was about to turn 60 that year I felt that I needed to do something to force myself outward. Banjo camp was my solution.

It was hair-raising at first, playing in front of or along with people who are world famous (the first camp included Pete Seeger's brother Mike, whose group, The New Lost City Ramblers, helped jump-start the revival of interest in traditional American rural music). But it was comforting to learn that my instincts about how the tunes should sound were pretty good, probably a result of listening to them and singing them at Howard Street Elementary School in Hagerstown, Maryland, back in the 1950s before the No Child Left Behind act started leaving children culturally behind.

Being at the camp has helped lower my anxiety, not enough to call myself a performer but enough at least to make it possible for me to demonstrate traditional banjo styles in a course on Appalachian Literature here at UNF.

It's never too late to go to camp.