There are several others in the series, including one of him playing a resophonic guitar.

No, this isn't a repeat from three months ago.

Clockwise from upper left, the makers/brands are: Jason Burns, Doc Huff, Will Fielding, Johannes Bonefaas, Mike Ramsey, Vega (Lo Gordon neck), H.C. Dobson, John Bowlin, Chuck Lee, Brooks Masten, Slingerland baritone uke, no-name soprano uke, unknown minstrel, no-name 5-string, Jeff Mezies gourd, Bisbonian gourd.

Even if you have no interest in playing it, it makes a nice wall decoration.

I paid $117 for it in 2009. It's yours for $100, including shipping in the U.S. Send me an email if you're interested.

I put a wig on my banjo and I called it Steven. Geez I'm lonely.

Some people give names to their banjos, but I've never done that because I don't believe in it. Nor do I believe in putting a wig on a banjo

She's Martha Spencer, and she kicks up her heels.

It's a pretty little waltz written by Dawn Petty, of Birdseye, Kansas. It sounds old, but it's not.

It's played on a Chuck Lee Prairieville banjo (with no tone ring), strung with nylon strings. Standard G tuning, capo at the 2nd fret. These chords work, but they are a note lower than the banjo:

G// Bm// Em// G//
G// G// D// D//

D// Am// D// D//
D// D7/ G// G//

G// Bm// Em// G//
G// G7// C// C//

G// A7// D// E7//
A7// D// G// G//

It even has words. Listen to a snippet sung by Judy Coder here.

Up for sale is my one of a kind 52inches tall and 48 inch wide roster hand made out of paper mache
the roster is playing the banjo this is the only one made like this in the world like i said before
this is a one of a kind art peace my asking price for it is $2,000 obo if you are interested give me
a call at 786-226-5811 thank you for reading

Yeah, the guy can't spell, can't write a sentence, and he doesn't even know how to rotate a photo before posting. But like he says, it's one of a kind.

i have been sculpting with cardboard for sometime now. i decided to create a cardboard banjo sculpture with the intention that the only acceptable legal tender for the artwork would ba a real banjo. i am offering to trade art for something that creates art, but also will encourage my artistic process. not to sound pretentious, but i feel there is a purity in the exchange that extends beyond money.

i brought this banjo sculpture to the milwaukee avenue arts fest in chicago and exhibited it. someone asked if they offered $7000 would i take it. i told them they could take the $7000 to chicago's old town school of folk music and buy me an american banjo, then we would trade. pretty serious about that fact.

It includes a cardboard case.

Found at Flickr.

And remove the duct tape from under the bridge, which says "this banjo doesn't sound good unless I muffle it."

Lots of banjo playing mistakes, because I'm still working on it. Give me another 5-6 months. That's wormpicker on vocals at the beginning and end.

Here's what it's supposed to sound like (at YouTube): Walking the Dog.

So I went, and it was very fun. You never know how many musicians will show up, and how many dancers will pay to dance. Last night, I was playing on stage with about 15 others -- most of whom were real musicians (but no bass!). They even put a mic in front of my banjo. We were entertaining about 30-40 dancers, led by JP (who I met a few weeks ago).

Here's a photo of a random open band from their web site.

It was very different from the old time jams that I normally play at. The main thing is that it's not banjo friendly. In an old time jam, they stay in the same key for a long time, because banjo players (and sometimes fiddlers) need to retune for every key. I heard about this, so I brought two banjos. I was able to play in four keys with minimal tuning.

But the the problem is, a single contra dance lasts a long time and the band often plays a medley of tunes for a single dance. So last night, I had my first experience of: (a) quickly retuning from A Sawmill to A Standard in the middle of a medley, and (b) actually switching banjos in the middle of a medley.

It was fun. But hotter than hell. They had a few fans in the room, but I was sweating like a pig. Probably just stage fright.

Police are looking for the people who burglarized a St. Petersburg veterinarian hospital twice in recent months.  Among the stolen items: an antique banjo - a Gibson RB3 Mastertone 5-string.

She has uploaded 23 videos, and they have a total of only 678 views. In other words, she's an unknown who could be the next TouTube phenomenon. When she becomes famous, I want to be on record as the person who discovered her.

Let's start with this one. She just got a banjo. She can't play it yet, but she likes it a lot.

Here she sings. I suspect that future music videos will have banjo accompaniment.

Here she acts (at least I think she's acting):

Please spread the word about Jolene McNulty. And remember: I discovered her.

In the early 1990s, I was an archivist at a small college and had student assistants working with me. I asked the students to help logging tapes in the archives—essentially recordings of oldtime music. When I saw what some of the students were writing down from mishearing things on the tapes I began to collect their often amusing interpretations. For lack of anything better, I called these "anguished titles" after hearing about a book someone had written about the ways people were misusing English.

A few years later I was exchanging some emails with friends about this phenomenon, and was delighted when Bruce Baker forwarded me the following that he'd received from Keith Dunn.

A few examples:

• Angel and a Baby - Angeline the Baker
• Can't Come Back - The Cat Came Back
• Cincinnati Gal -  Susannah Gal
• Hen at the Springhouse - Hannah at the Springhouse
• Mott The Camel - Martha Campbell
• Sadie Rose - Shady Grove
• Sugar on the Floor - Sugar in the Gourd

Check out his Projects page for lots of other good stuff. Here's a good one that led me to this site: Title, Text, and Tune Interrelations in American Fiddle Music. Well, AZJohnB might like it.

Then, buy the album.

It's my very first non-computer or non-psychology related magazine article. In fact, it's been 10 years since I published anything that wasn't a book. I need to update my list.

For more than four decades, Jim Griffith has been devoted to celebrating and honoring the folkways and religious expression found along the United States-Mexico border. "Big Jim," as he is affectionately known, is the personification of the intent of the Bess Lomax Hawes Fellowship due to his influential work both as an academic and public folklorist that has proliferated into numerous cultural ventures, including directing the Southwest Folklore Center at the University of Arizona and founding the annual Tucson Meet Yourself Festival.

This award is the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts and each of the nine recipients will receive a one-time award of $25,000. The NEA National Heritage Fellowships public programs are made possible with support from the Golden Corral Corporation.

I've had the pleasure of playing music with Big Jim several times at jams. It's much better when I put the banjo down and just listen.

He's recorded a few CDs with Meghan Merker on fiddle (under the name Arivada Ramblers). Unfortunately, they make it impossible to actually buy the CDs. And they have virtually no presence on YouTube. But if you'd like to hear what they sound like, go here and download #20, "Walk Jimmy Walk."

Click here to watch the 20-minute video.

Highlights:

• 1:04 - The pole shed, a jammer's paradise. It makes me want to move to within driving distance of his place.
• 20:38 - Sponsors & Friends

It took 15 days to get there. It could have been 14, but the first delivery attempt failed. The most interesting part occurs during the first three days. It went from Tucson to Phoenix (~180 miles) by way of Oakland and Los Angeles.

All in all, it traveled 15,000 miles in 15 days. That's an average of 41.6 miles per hour.