Quote:
Originally Posted by George Henry
After having played guitar for 30 years and bluegrass banjo for 20 years, I became enamored with the sound of old time music and clawhammer banjo in particular. So I bought a Mike Ramsey Standard Chanterelle and set out. Little did I realize how different clawhammer was from three finger. I had great difficulty transitioning from up-picking to down picking!
Struggling with my slow progress, I went through a series of banjos. I traded the Chanterelle for a Ramsey Whyte Laydy, that for an old Tubaphone conversion, that for a Cedar Mountain, then a Bart Reiter. Although these were all excellent instruments, I was getting the sound I wanted.
During a vacation to Eugene, Oregon, I stumbled across an ancient banjo at McKenzie River Music. It bore no identication, but it was very pretty! I ended up buying it and only later identified my purchase. It turned out to be a Rettberg and Lange from approximately 1901-02. I later traded a guitar for an even older banjo, a Luscomb from 1893. Both these instruments sounded fundamentally different from the generic sounding banjo tones I had previously experienced in my banjos.
So I decided that my searching is over. I seem to be satisfied with what I own.
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Now, all you need to do is fit your old banjos with calf-skin heads, if they don't already have them, for an even more authentic old-timey tone.
