Mid-Mo Banjar | Banjo Rehab Center, Banjo Restoration

Bio

BRC launches the Holiday Season

November 28, 2014

The BRC clan kicked-off the Holiday Season by gathering for a Thanksgiving dinner albeit sans our Texas kinfolk who celebrated their festive weekend along the meandering shores of the Rio Grande. Despite yet another deficit BRC fiscal year, all the assembled were in good cheer as evidenced by our annual Yuletide family portrait.

Our Thanksgiving feast was highlighted this year by an extraordinary feathered visitor who we hope might happen-by your home sometime during this Holiday Season. Guess what up tempo tune our guest performed for us prior to departure (answer below). The grandkids wondered what to call this sphinx-like creature: a turkjo? a bankey? You decide for yourself and keep on picking`.

Best Wishes to All for a joyful and blessed Holiday.

Answer: Turkey in the Straw

Cell Perches & HVO

Historic Banjo Art Rediscovered at nearby Army Base

November 17, 2014

To commerate Veteran`s Day this year, the local `Missourian` newspaper published an article chronicling the rediscovery of an all but forgotten mural painted circa 1945 in a building that once housed a Black Officer`s Club at Ft. Leonard Wood, an Army training base in southern Missouri. Although a mystery for many decades, the identity of the artist was confirmed in recent years by diligent detective work. The 4 x 10 foot mural was painted over the building`s fireplace by Staff Sergeant Samuel Albert Countee, and the pastoral scene depicts an African -American couple having a picnic while the man quietly strums a banjo. The small building`s stone works and chimney were constructed by POWs.

The work was completed when the end of World War II was in sight. All soldiers, regardless of race, longed for peace, demobilization, and resuming life at home. University of Missouri professors are working to have the historic oil-on-wood mural restored.

Albert Countee (1909-1959) was an aspiring young artist who earned a scholarship at the Boston Museum of Art and later became its Artist-in-Residence. He was briefly an art fellow/instructor at Harvard. He painted scenes of African-American culture including “My Guitar” in 1936 which celebrates the 6 string instrument`s role in black folk music and its offspring- the blues.

The US Armed Forces were desegregated by Executive Order #9981 issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman, a Missouri native son. The BRC founder salutes all his fellow veterans and gratefully thanks all men and women in uniform for their service to our nation.

BRC Events

BRC Celebrates new DR&D and Success of “Peace Dove ” banjo

November 6, 2014

The Banjo Rehabilitation Center is pleased to announce the designation of a Director of Research and Development whose first task will be to refine our prototypical and successful “Peace Dove” 5 stringer popularized on eBay. In addition to his hands-on workshop responsibilities, the new DR&D will serve as a Member-at-Large on the BRC Board of Directors alongside his cousins.

The new Director is pictured is this recent file photo , as he acquaints himself with the current iteration of the Peace Dove instrument.

No strangers to the BRC, his parents can be seen (left and right of center) on the May 22, 2011, earlier home page post “Introducing the Research & Development Team.” Coincident with this newly established R&D leadership position, the BRC also readies itself to celebrate the upcoming milestone of 400K visits to our website which should transpire in the next few days. With Thanksgiving only weeks away, our workshop staff is immensely grateful to our faithful readership and mailbox correspondents.

All blessings to you this Season of Thanks.

P.S. Check-out the BRC `Peace Dove` banjo offered on eBay November 9-16. (sold)

The new owner appraised, “Many hours of loving work in this banjo. It is beautiful!!! I am well pleased.”

Bio

Ode to a Banjo Legacy

October 12, 2014

While traveling to Boston last month, the BRC founder set aside an afternoon to again visit with instrument designer, award-winning clawhammer musician, and banjo uber scholar Ed Britt. The two pickers share a common love of Ode banjos that were manufactured in Boulder, Colorado, from 1961-1966.

Included in Ed`s marvelously extensive collection of vintage 5 stringers, and pictured below cradled gently in the BRC founder`s hands, is the ornate Muse banjo (right) featured half a century ago on the cover of the 1964 Ode banjo catalogue- held by its owner Mike Ford. This same image was pictured on the back cover of the 1963 Ode catalog.

Ed is holding a special edition Martin guitar for which he designed the elaborate mother of pearl inlay. The ornate top of this 00-45 Custom is shown in Dick Boak`s book ” Martin Guitar Masterpieces”– as a full page photo, on page 12. Ed is cited on pages 10 and 11. The pearl work was cut and inlaid by Britt`s longtime friend, Dave Nichols, of “Custom Pearl Inlay.” Dave also did the highly-figured inlay on the first Martin Custom D-45, for Neiman-Marcus, in 1979 (shown on page 11) which established a precedent for decorative high-end guitars.

Because of his encyclopedic fund of knowledge, Ed is frequently sought online as a resource and arbiter of banjo history issues, and it is fabled in chat rooms that he has forgotten more factoids about banjos than most folks have come to know. The two Ode banjo fans spent the afternoon admiring Ed`s instrument collection which, incredibly, contains the Ode banjo imprinted with inaugural Serial No. 1. As a threesome, they jammed with Ed`s masterful Scruggs-style picking pal and fellow recording artist Don Borchelt. What better way to spend an autumn afternoon in Beantown?

Vega Martin Stories

Vega Vox V: The Vega Martin Apogee of 4 String Banjos

October 6, 2014

Vega Vox models I-IV, high end plectrum and tenor banjos, can trace their Boston beginnings back to the Jazz Age 1928 Vega catalogue. The penultimate Vega Vox V was designed for banjo wizard and consummate showman Eddie Peabody (1902-1970) in the late 1960`s. Although the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City does not have a rare Vega Vox V, it has a Model IV donated by Peabody`s son George. The glitzy ” Vox-Ultra V” model first appeared in the 1972 Vega Martin catalogue as an end note on a back page devoted to “Special Models”. In the 1976 Nazareth, PA, product brochure, the Vox-Ultra V plectrum/tenor banjo occupied a full page with its photos and descriptor.

This flashy 4 stringer featured an engraved and hand-painted deep resonator with similar appointments on the peg head. It had a brass tone ring and engraved chrome armrest. The Vega Vox V sported a gold plated tension hoop and flanges bejeweled with 24 rhinestones. Engraved mother of pearl inlays figured the fretboard, and still more rhinestones studded the rococo peg head.

The Vega Vox V banjo SN 130316, shown here, was manufactured 1971-72. There were only a handful of these spectacular instruments ever made, and this one was rescued from overseas in an exhausted condition in recent years.

It was returned stateside to be professionally and meticulously restored, and it is one of the few such marvelous relics extant.

Deering now owns the Vega brand and is contemplating re-introducing the Vega Vox banjo series. Vintage Vega Vox models I-IV were manufactured in Boston for decades and not infrequently come-up for sale online. The Vox-Ultra V, however, will remain an endangered species until Deering resurrects it. For a detailed history, click-on the above Vega Martin Banjo Info header and scroll down the mailbox to post (#26) for Dr. Ron`s extensive Comments, and the BRC thanks him for the historic details and photos.

READER QUIZ: Can you name the model of this banjo? Click-on the `4 Comments` immediately below regarding the 1979 (post Martin) Vega catalog cover and a banjo photo from the BRC mailbox and enjoy.