 In 1963, I made my first traditional instruments: a Kentucky dulcimer and a fretless banjer neck. I wanted the banjer
to fit inside a wooden fiddle case so I mounted it on a little bird's eye maple banjo mandolin rim. I played it for a decade
but it was not quite what I had hoped so in 1976, for the Bicentennial, I refurbished the neck and made an octagonal box of
flame maple. The direct antecedent was Stu Jamieson's octagonal box banjer of more conventional dimensions (see above). His
had been inspired by one he had seen while collecting and studying with Rufus Crisp in eastern Kentucky in the 1940s. (In
the 1980s, at a workshop with Jean Richie in Hindman, I saw a photo of an old woman, sitting on a porch, playing an octagonal
banjer. Sure enough, it was Aunt Liz Hill, of Martin.) Stu's instrument had a small, circular skin tacked over the center
of the wood face and violin-type "ff" holes in the back. I was curious what an all-wood face would sound like, I figured if
I didn't like it, I could reverse the box, cut the hole and tack the skin later. But I like it. The front has the "ff" holes
and the back has sound holes in my stylized initials.
[Not to intellectualize it too much, but the crescent "c" could allude to my studies of the Middle East and the "b" is
reminiscent of an early C-clef, blah, blah, blah.]
[This banjer is on Down the Road, track 5.]
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I had been collecting old wooden fiddle cases for years, with the intent of making more banjers, or mountain dulcimers, to
fit inside them. Bob Webb had always admired my little box banjer, so I finally got around to making this one for him when
he made one of his infrequent visits back out to his old stomping grounds in 1984. The neck is walnut and rather larger and
more flamboyant than mine. But then, so is Bob. The box is a great piece of bird's eye maple. I left the finishing off of
the case to him.
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