During the mid 1980s, a local shop owner established a Thursday evening jam session in the basement of his busy hardware store. Pickers were recruited by invitation, and a gracious and endlessly cheerful cowboy-song guitarist was instrumental in helping establish the weekly get-together. The shop owner was a former school teacher and had a special gift for cultivating musicians who had only faint familiarity with the Bluegrass genre. Within a few years, a family physician-guitarist joined the weekly jam, and his skills flourished in this setting to where he soon took up the fiddle. Later, a surgeon joined the ranks of these jammers circa 1990, and his banjo musicianship and harmony singing skills also benefitted in the learning environment.
The jams were convened year-round regardless of rain, sleet, ice storm, or snowfall. The surgeon soon established a spin-off band that performed for the benefit of the local Childrens Hospital. In the autumn of 1996 at the inaugural Pumpkin Festival in the nearby farming village of Hartsburg, the generous shop owner (seen below) played mandolin in the surgeon`s street-side band performance that collected donations for the University pediatric medical center.
The collegial Thursday evening jam sessions flourished over the years and attracted musicians with an array of skills. In the below photo, the generous jam host sits in the foreground, and on the right is the jovial guitarist who supplied a delightful compendium of classic cowboy songs. On the left is the guitar picking family physician who evolved into a capable Bluegrass fiddler per this weekly get-together.
After hosting decades of these Bluegrass picking sessions, our aging jam host sadly fell ill and succumbed in 2022. To honor the leadership and memory of this generous musician and band leader, the two doctors have ever since continued this Thursday evening musical tradition by hosting the jams on alternating weeks in their nearby homes. Our gentlemanly and beloved cowboy-song guitarist (above right) passed away peacefully in his sleep a month ago at age 94.
We sang at his funeral at the request of his widow and family, and his grand daughter (far right) joined us in performing the traditional gospel classic “I’ll Fly Away.” The congregation sang along with the familiar tune.
At a recent Thursday night picking session, the BRC domicile entertained two very special guests who reminded us all of the long and rich history of these weekly musical meetings and its friendships. In the center of the photo is the 90 year old widow of the founding jam host, and their daughter is far left in the picture. These two honored visitors delighted in listening to our music and singing that were cultivated in the basement of their hardware store in years past.
From the BRC: We are thankful for the privilege of sharing years of music and fellowship with two fine gentlemen.
The upper neck fretboard contains frightful visages of werewolves and the heads of hungry dragons.
The lower neck reiterates these scary mythological creatures and their claws.
As all BRC banjos contain an inlay on the heel of the neck for the eyes only of the musician, the base of this neck revisits the image of the fearless knight.
