I am wanting some recommendations of banjo players/performances more in the rock guitarist vein. By that I mean a more rock sound or by a rock musician or if country/folk artist something thats really not in a typical country style of music. Basically I don’t know what I want but I will know it when I hear it. What are your favorites and what do you not like?
One of the most technically-proficient banjo players in the world is Bela Fleck, of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. I’d consider him a jazz musician first and foremost, but his style is most like jazz-bluegrass-fusion. AMAZING musician, and he is partnered with one of the greatest bass players ever, Victor Lamonte Wooten. I’d check out anything from Bela Fleck – maybe sample the album Three Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for a start.
I’ll heartily second a vote for Bela Fleck as just a banjo virtuoso above all others. I would recommend Live at the Quick, or The Bluegrass Sessions-Tales from the Acoustic Planet vol 2 as a good sampling of his range.
I like the banjo guy in The Duhks. Even his hair looks rock 'n roll.
Also the banjo guy in Crooked Still.
As well as Courtney Johnson, the banjo guy in the New Grass Revival before he quit and Bela Fleck took his place. He sounded particularly good on this live album, which I owned as a college freshman back in '78 and all the Eno freaks and Deadheads would come in and say “WHAT is this cool music?”
Here’s an interesting use of banjo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1_RVEflvnk
Kind of weird blend of styles there …
Steve Martin, get some of his rare banjo recordings.
Earl Scruggs too… if you want master.
Pete Townshend played a short banjo solo on The Who’s “Squeeze Box.”
Kings of Convienence: I’d rather dance with you. I think banjo really defines their music in a rythmic mode, the birdsong in the rain.
Alison Brown. She’s very jazz influenced, but has done alot of jazz/bluegrass fusion stuff, too.
The band Marah, especially on the CD Kids in Philly and their cover of Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia.” A rock band that often uses a banjo in place of the rhythm guitar. His main influence seems to be the Mummers.
Not much virtuosity, but there’s a banjo in a lot of songs by Flogging Molly, including the most prominent strings on Drunken Lullabies off the same album.
How about Sixteen Horsepower (e.g. their song “Black Soul Choir”)?
Otis Taylor often plays blues on the banjo.
Not sure if this is what you are looking for but I love Nathaniel Saunders. He is the reason why I bought a banjo. He’s a hundred and eleventy billion years old at the time of the recording and you can here it is his voice and I love his voice.
I’m not too happy with the snippets they chose for their samples but Dover House has a nice banjo piece in the snippet.
After seeing this thread, I checked the local listings because I know that Bela comes through town a couple of times a year. Amazingly enough, he was playing Friday with Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet. So, I went down and checked it out. The band was really amazing. Abigail is a petite pretty woman who plays a banjo so there were two banjos, a cellist and a fiddler. They played quite a bit of bluegrass and country-ish types of music but get this, most of their songs were Chinese of sorts. Apparently, Abigail has spent a lot of time in China and she is fluent in what I would guess is Mandarin. The band was the first American band ever to play in Tibet or something like that.
In the first “Chinese” song they played, Bela played while doing this awesome string tuning thing by futzing with the tuning pegs to mimic some sort of Chinese stringed instrument. The effect was incredible. Abigail is singing her heart out in Mandarin and the fiddler and cellist are playing what sounds like in my own limited brain, Chinese instruments (they are playing only their standard cello and violin).
The cellist performed an entire solo plucking his cello like a rhythm guitar. All in all, a pretty fricken’ amazing performance. Catch them if you can, but they said they were only playing about 7 gigs on this tour.
Unfortunately, Bela never played any “Rock”, so I can’t comment on his rock chops. I did listen to a couple of clips off his classical album (I might have to buy it), so I assume he can play any type of music he wants on a banjo.
OMG OMG OMG!!!
I just checked Bela’s site to see if I might catch the sparrow quartet tour, and dicovered that he’s touring with Chick this June. OMGOMGOMG!!!
:: Containment of excitement failing ::
I got into Bela just after Chick sat in with the Flecktones, I guess early 90s-ish, and always hoped I’d get to see them do something together.
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Check out Danny Barnes, formerly of The Bad Livers, a great Austin TX band that was doing punk blues and bluegrass way afore of the current bluegrass influenced craze:
He’s a fine genius at taking traditional instruments, including banjo, up to a modern ramped-up level. All of The Bad Livers’ albums are amazing; I particularly like “Hogs on the Highway”. Danny currently records with an array of musicians, and has a lot of solo releases, ya can see 'em on that website. He’s got an arch sense of humor, too, that enhance his lyrics. His songs aren’t reaching back for a sweet nostalgic sound; they are modern compositions, and he can really wail on that banjo, and anything with strings.
One of Mr. Barnes’ and Bela Fleck’s banjo mentors was John Hartford, who really took the banjo to another level wayyy back yond in the 60’s and 70’s: he’s the bridge of traditiional music to a modern take on it:
Hartford was instrumental in the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack, and got a bit of attention from it, a Grammy, before his death in 2001. It was tragic, really; he had blazed that trail for decades, and OBWAT was the beginning of widespread appeal for new interpretation of bluegrass. He should have been the one to get more wind in his sails after that, but died too soon.
Joe Satriani plays a Deering 6-string banjo on “The Phone Call.” Warning: he sings on this one, too. :eek: