Banjo Rehab Center, Banjo Restoration

Happy Holidays from the BRC

December 2, 2015

The BRC family extends its warmest Holiday Greetings to our faithful readership and Best Wishes in the coming New Year. The mission of our Missouri workshop is to repair and restore damaged or neglected banjos and then sell them online as entry level instruments at bargain basement prices. What could be more fun?

Other features of the website include a welcoming introductory `about us` header, a seldom visited store, our pantheon Hall of Fame (mostly the BRC founder`s best pickin` buddies), and a busy Info column for aficionados of the coveted Vega Martin banjos manufactured in the 1970`s in Nazareth, PA. Could anything be more fun? Above are pictured the BRC founder and spouse, our Executive Committee and Board of Directors, and their parents all reunited while vacationing in the Lone Star State.

P.S. Did you ever wonder what ole St. Nick does with his spare time during the off-Season?

Check out the BRC `Peace Dove` banjo on ebay Dec. 11-18.

Bio

A Time of Thanks and Remembrance

November 18, 2015

To Fete a Feat of Feet

As the BRC founder and spouse ready to travel to The Lone Star State for a Thanksgiving weekend with the grandkids, there is a long list of things big and small for which to be thankful: Family, friends, fellow musicians, and our appreciative audiences who generously donate to the Children`s Hospital. A recent and frequent addition to our Sunday afternoon benefit gigs is a young lady who jumps up on the stage and dances her heart out for the audiences who then loosen their pursestrings to donate eagerly to the Children`s Miracle Network.

The band calls her “Dancing Girl”, and her mother tells us that the little whirlwind has no formal training in her footwork. Check-out and enjoy the below video link (IMG 0029) and decide for yourself whether this prancing little lady is Irish step dancing or clogging- or both. Thank you, Dancing Girl!

IMG_0029 (Ed.) Kiddo`s a natural…

A Legend Remembered

Last month, a giant in the Bluegrass world passed away, and the banjo community worldwide respectfully remembers Bill Keith as an innovative genius and craftsman. A friendly and unassuming guy, Keith was a pioneer in developing the ground breaking melodic style of picking the 5-string which increased the vocabulary of the banjo manifold. He brilliantly designed the inboard D-tuner pegs which bear his name.

keith3

In this 1963 photo, a young Bill Keith is holding a classic archtop bow tie inlay Gibson Mastertone. The brother of the BRC founder purchased an identical vintage banjo in 1963 and generously gave it to the BRC founder 20 years ago, and it still delivers the volume and timbre to power-through a bluegrass band in full flight.

Keith not infrequently lectured on the harmonic mathematics of Bluegrass music and is pictured here with the BRC founder who attended one of these insightful and fascinating seminars at a banjo camp several years ago.

Farewell Bill, and thank-you for all you taught us.

BRC Activities

Banjotropolis Update

November 1, 2015

Living in far flung corners of the US, the BRC Executive Committee held its annual meeting by conference call this year to avoid travel expenses. Old Business included analyzing the perennial financial shortfalls of the workshop which operates at a deficit of $125 per month.

From Texas, the CFO predicted the fiscal future of the enterprise as foggy, and no fiduciary strategies were promulgated to rectify the chronically negative revenue stream. The Senior Vice-President of Sales moved to refer this thorny agenda item to a subcommittee , and the ex officio member from the Board of Directors volunteered to chair the subcommittee. The motion was so amended and approved .

Under New Business, our CEO in Chicago updated the Committee on his utopian “Banjotropolis”” societal vision for a futuristic City on the Hill. He offered his own recent photo documenting that banjo graffiti was beginning to appear on street light utility boxes on Main Street, Hometown, USA.

During the subsequent hot chocolate break, the CEO performed a song for the Committee that he penned to celebrate his magnum opus and its emerging art form heralding a banjo culture as alluded to in his first BRC website post of May 08, 2011 (for song video click IMG 7611 link).

IMG_7611 (Ed.) Impressive….

In his report on Research and Development, our Director of R&D in Missouri encouraged all members of the Committee to closely reevaluate the clawhammer style of picking the banjo, as a studied assessment of this technique had stirred his thinking in new directions of growth.

He confessed that his imagination was so fired by this focused examination of frailing, that he even dreams now of banjos at nap time and wakes up marvelously refreshed.

As there was no other business, the meeting was adjourned by acclamation. While the Executive Committee officers returned to their respective family circles to prepare for Thanksgiving, the ex officio Board member closely studied clawhammering as recommended by her cousin (click below trim2 video link).

P.S. trim2 (Ed.) Kid can flog those strings…….

P.S. Check out the BRC “Peace Dove” banjo on eBay Nov. 1-7.

G&F Band

Banjos on Halloween?

October 14, 2015

The Gainor & Friends band recently performed a sunset gig for the Children`s Hospital at a nearby community autumn street festival amidst sweltering Indian summer temperatures. As darkness quickly enveloped the venue, the perspiring musicians paused for what proved to be a strangely eerie photo next to a disembodied bronze bust. “We have no eyes,” protested a singer in a subsequent e-mail. “Looks like the zombie apocalypse,” complained a fiddler. “Beware of bluegrass goblins, ” lamented a guitarist gravely.

To placate the alarmed pickers, the BRC founder circulated last year`s reassuringly cheerful band photo at the festival (where chilly weather had us shivering despite windbreakers and caps).

Still unconvinced that there were not unearthly spirits roaming in the gloaming during this year`s creepy picture, our bassist wondered. “Like a cross, will a banjo fend-off vampires?”

Nope, not a ghost of a chance. Have you gone bats?

Bio

Fiddling the Blue(grass) Danube Waltz

September 30, 2015

In search of an Old World cousin of the banjo, the BRC founder spent dappled days of autumn tracing the meanderings of the cobalt blue Danube River through eastern Europe. In Budapest, he briefly paused his quest to play harmonica with a friendly Gypsy fiddler. (Click all photos to enlarge.)

While visiting a farm for show horses near the Austrian border, the BRC founder and fellow travelers enjoyed the up tempo music of an Hungarian folk band during the dinner hour. A masterful musician feverishly played the cimbalom– a forefather of the American hammer dulcimer. After the meal, a tiny old man (seated center far behind the quartet) shared his memories of living under the heavy bootheels of the German and then Soviet occupying forces during his youth.

In the cobblestoned medieval city of Cesky Krumlov, a Czech trio dressed in 16th century garb performed lilting Renaissance tunes during an evening feast at the end of the tour.

Alas, the trip proved to be a cavalcade of violins. But, no banjos were found- like the one held by the unknown picker in this archival photograph of rural Americana . Can you identify the fiddler?

Answer: Bill Monroe`s fondly remembered Uncle Pen.

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