The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The thing about the banjo is, when you first hear it, it strikes many people as 'What's that?' There's something very compelling about it to certain people; that's the way I was; that's the way a lot of banjo players and people who love the banjo are.
I didn't realize until I was older what a huge music fan my daddy really was, and actually that my grandma played banjo at one time, and I didn't even know that until a year or two ago.
English banjo players really were a law unto themselves - you don't find that kind of brisk banjo playing on the original Louis Armstrong or Bix Beiderbecke records.
I want you to hear a new version of Dueling Banjos. Anyone else is welcome.
They think the banjo can only be happy, but that's not true.
I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.
What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.
I just loved the guitar when it came along. I loved it. The banjo was something I really liked, but when the guitar came along, to me that was my first love in music.
I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface.
When we moved back to the US, folk music was all the rage. So I traded in my banjo for a guitar.