Banjo Story Part One - How the Neufeld Was Lost

The kitchen party of this blog, for the moment anyway, is down in the comments section of the 3rd post. "Company" has company. I'm even down there, posting anonymously. Didn't mean to do that. Thought I couldn't get on my own site. False alarm.

The rest of the story of my old Neufeld went something like this: I played with my banjo all summer in an outdoor show at the Caravan Farm Theatre called 'The Ballad of Weedy Peetstraw' opposite the great bluegrass virtuoso and banjo-maker (and banjo-pick maker) of the Okanagan Valley, Gord Acri. He played the bluegrass-pickin devil and I the yound naive clawhammering country-boy who sells his soul to become a city-slickin' banjo-pickin' country star. (The city set was made out of walls of empty liquor bottles, which is funny when you contemplate how and where those bottles got drained.) The play was by Vanouver's Peter Anderson and Toronto's true contemporary heir to Uncle Dave Macon, John Millard (of which and whom, more later.)

The musical trick went like this: When Weedy played with his pure country heart, he frailed, and all the playing was my own. However, once Weedy's soul was in the possession of said dapper devil, my banjo was replaced with a fire-painted stringless wonder, and Gord did all my playing for me, standing above me on the stage in a white suit and a very subtle pair of horns in his bald head. For my part, I concentrated on dressing well and pretending.

(Gord Acri)

The climax of the play came when I had to battled with Mister Acri for my soul - his flaming bluegrass against my simple clawhammer. Now, the fact of the matter is, this was a battle I could not win, no matter how hard I tried, (no matter how nice a guy Gord Acri was in real life.) I could be pretty and heartfelt on my banjar, but the fact is, so could Gord. I dragged around the moral authority of a broken heart that summer, but he wore his life-creating love for the banjo on his sleeve, and I could never beat him. I could play with him, which is all he ever wanted to do, but in a scenario in which he was the devil and I the grass-chewing hick, I coud never win.

Also, I played everything below the 5th fret (which, btw, as Daniel Koulack once told me, is perfectly respectable) whereas Gord flashed up the neck and made liberal use of a bender, that allowed him to laugh with his banjo even as he was relishing his victory.

What saved me and the production (since the script demanded that I win on my own and I could not - not in a way that the audience could really believe) was the band, the other singers and the small town sweetheart played by Jennifer Lines, who had a far better set of pipes than I. In the climax of the final number, they all came over to my side of the battle and (with the help of a great Millardian arrangement incorporating the Clinch Mountain Backstep into the climax of the song), matched the Acri magic with pure energy, choral variety and gumption. The battle for Weedy's soul came out in a draw and the devil proved a gentleman by tipping his hat and walking away.

So... that was the summer of 1999. Outdoor theatre in Armstrong BC. In that environment of challenge and excitement, my beautiful Neufeld banjo, with its most basic brass tone ring and an open back, began to sound too quiet to my ear. Gord took it apart one day and discovered that my tone ring was in fact bent out of shape, somewhat, and shoehorned into the pot. He hewed it back into a circle, put the whole thing back together, and made my banjo sound finer and purer than ever. No soul in the bargain either. But I still wasn't satisfied and felt that it wasn't measuring up to his fine bluegrass instruments. They had a warm sound, neither too much plunk or too much twang, and yet their tone could travel for miles.

I had taken it into my head to be seduced by volume. My own rich devil I guess.

So when the summer was over I went to Victoria for a few days en route to Vancouver, and I found an Epiphone long neck down at Old Town Strings. It was ugly, but it had a hefty tone ring and it was loud. It also had the long neck, which was something that I had always appreciated. I prefer the A to the C, the E to the G, if you know what I mean. I like that deeper lower sound. That was legit, but it wasn't a good enough reason to trade my Neufeld. Still that's what I planned to do. I asked the guy behind the counter if they ever did straight trades and he said on occasion but he wouldn't count on it. And then I put my case up on the counter, opened it up and showed him my Neufeld and he said S-sure th-thing.

So I traded it. That's what I did. Over the course of an afternoon. Went to Vancouver. Eventually went home to Toronto. Entered my tiny apartment. Sat down to play and realized what I had done.

The Epiphone was loud and it was ugly. I had tried to convince myself that the outer beauty of the banjo did not matter. It was what was inside that counted. And yes that's true. But of course, what's inside a banjo is entirely dependent on the materials and craft with which it is made. That translates to beauty. Outside and inside are the same thing. There was nothing really wrong with my new Epiphone. Except it wasn't my old Neufeld. It was crude and loud and ugly, and it very nearly made me stop playing the banjo. I rang up Old Town Strings on the Left Coast and they told me the Neufeld had sold almost immediately. It was gone.

Stay tuned for Part Two of the Banjo Story. Hopefully Part Two won't have to be written on a borrowed computer.