Middle Georgia Bluegrass Association Blog

The 5th Annual Suwannee Banjo Camp will take place at beautiful O’Leno State Park, in High Springs, Florida, from March 20-22nd. This year’s camp will build on the success of last four years, with an expanded bluegrass program as well as additional old-time instructors.

On the bluegrass side of the coin, Janet Davis and Bill Keith will be returning, joined by Bill Evans and Scott Anderson.

Janet has written numerous best selling books for the 5-string banjo as well as dobro. Mel Bay has several of her books listed as “Best Sellers.” Janet also teaches and plays ALL bluegrass instruments and several others. She has been a columnist with Banjo Newsletter for 30 years.

Bill Keith largely invented the three-finger picking style known as “melodic” banjo. He first came to international attention in the early 60s when he played and recorded with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. He co-authored the original Earl Scruggs banjo instruction book and record, and has also written several other banjo instruction books, including the first ones ever published in French and Italian. He has recorded several albums for Rounder, Green Linnet, and Hexagon, and has toured widely throughout North America, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia. He devised and, through the Beacon Banjo Company, still markets the famous tuning pegs that bear his name.

Bill Evans is well-known within the bluegrass banjo world as a player and teacher. A former member of Dry Branch Fire Squad, Bill currently tours nationally with Peter Rowan, John Reischman, Tony Trischka, and with his solo historical concert The Banjo in America. In addition, he writes a monthly instructional column for Banjo Newsletter and has produced instructional books and videos with Sonny Osborne and J.D. Crowe for AcuTab Publications and Homespun Tapes.

Native Floridian Scott Anderson has been performing in professional bluegrass bands since the late 1980s, beginning with The Bluegrass Parlor Band. In 1993, he co-founded Endless Highway, touring the Southeast and recording one critically-acclaimed CD. From 2004-2006, he toured in the US and abroad as a member of The Jim Hurst Band. He has also performed or recorded with Claire Lynch, Vassar Clements, Larry Rice, Byron Berline, Chubby Wise, Allen Shadd, the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra and many others. He currently fronts The Scott Anderson Band and plays as a duo with his daughter Amanda.

Most of the favorites will be back for the old-time track. Bob Carlin, Ken Perlman, Mark Johnson, Brad Leftwich, and Chuck Levy, have formed the core faculty for the last couple of years. Laura Boosinger, who made a big splash last year, will also return. SBC welcomes two additional outstanding players, Paul Brown and Adam Hurt. Paul, one of today’s most sought after banjoists, is also fine fiddler and singer. He is steeped in the tradition, having spent years learning music from some of the last fiddle, banjo, and guitar players to emerge before the age of radio and recordings in Virginia and North Carolina. Among his influences are Wade and Fields Ward, Tommy Jarrell, Gilmer Woodruff, Benton Flippen, Fred Cockerham and Kyle Creed. Adam Hurt, Deemed a “banjo virtuoso” by the Washington Post, draws on diverse musical influences from the North Carolina piedmont, the mountains of central West Virginia, the Ohio River Valley and beyond to create his own elegantly innovative clawhammer banjo playing. At age 24, Adam has already placed in or won most of the major old-time banjo competitions including Clifftop, Mount Airy, and Galax, and won the state banjo championships of Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Alabama.

We are offering a fiddle track with Brad Leftwich, Paul Brown, Adam Hurt, and Chuck Levy as instructors.

We are delighted to be bringing the African Roots Program back to Suwannee Banjo Camp for 2009, with instructor Sana Ndiaye, assisted by Chuck, Paul Sedgwick, and Greg C. Adams. The program offers instruction in the akonting (ekonting) an instrument that shares much with the American banjo in terms of sound and design, and whose manner of play (known as “o’teck) is very close to clawhammer.

In case some of you might not know Sana, he is a very interesting fellow. He grew up in the Casamance region of Senegal, where he learned to play the akonting from his grandfather (Sana says that an instrument with a small gourd is an akonting, and a large goaurd is an ekonting). Later he moved to Dakar where he and friends formed the hip hop group, Gohk Bi System. Sana plays the ekonting in this band. Currently he and the band live in the US, near Boston.

In response to the musical demands entailed in being a professional musician, Sana has altered the traditional instrument, adding an additional tone to the traditional pentatonic scale, and changing traditional technique to allow stopping of the second string. He also commissioned a wood topped instrument with geared tuners.

Joining Sana are Paul Sedgwick and Greg Adams, noted musicians and banjo scholars.

This year we feature an entire eight class track of African Roots offerings. Students are free to take just a single class to see what it’s all about, or engage in a full weekend of study.

Akontings will be loaned to participants at no charge, and also available for purchase.
See our full announcement of the program and bios on the website, http://www.suwanneebanjocamp.com.

Yours,
Chuck Levy
Co-Director

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Members. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.