Banjo players gather in SH to celebrate Fourth of July
Dozens of banjo players honored the birth of the United States with the only American musical instrument at the VFW on the Fourth of July.
The group, which meets in Sweet Home annually, came from all over the United States, some from as far away as Mississippi and Florida to meet at Ralph Martin’s North River Drive home for a week of banjo playing and camping.
Ralph’s driveway was packed with campers and vehicles. Inside an open pole barn, 20 or more banjo players were gathered playing Dixieland tunes. A couple of tubas and a guitar accented the music. Rhythm came from a washboard.
Hal Simpson, a veteran pilot with the U.S. Air Force, was among those who joined the event, which has been going for the last nine years.
Hal of Sacramento, Calif., has been playing banjo for 40 to 50 years. He was in three wars, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
“I spent time in the military,” Hal said. “In between wars, I’d get rid of the banjo.”
Then he’d get another in a pawn shop. In those days, banjos were cheap. Now they cost well over $1,000.
“I just like music,” Hal said. “In the military, we’d get in isolated places. We’d pick up a guy with a piano and get the music going. Next thing you know, we’ve got a party.”
Banjorama is about bringing back an important piece of American musical history, Hal said. “It’s bringing back the old tunes that everyone’s forgetting in the rock ‘n’ roll age.… When you get people dancing in the rain with an umbrella, it’s happy music. We have fun at it. That’s why we do it.… Plus, we have excellent friends.”
Ralph started a similar event in Southern California in 1972. After moving to Sweet Home nine years ago, he continued the tradition, drawing banjo players to Oregon instead. The group plays the VFW each year to honor the country and its veterans, which are a large part of the banjo enthusiasts visiting Ralph.
For 20 years, Ralph had a band in Los Angeles, which included many of the youths he taught to play banjo. His son, Dick Martin of Mississippi, near New Orleans, led the band. Dick’s wife, Helen, brings Dixieland cuisine with her, and catfish definitely is on the menu during the week. She also sings and plays the “gut bucket.”
All of the banjo players know each other from gatherings all year long around the United States.
“It’s kind of a big fellowship,” Dick said. “They’re like family.”
“The banjo was developed in the United States,” Dick said. Organizations around the United States and events like this one are put together to help promote the banjo, the only instrument that is entirely an American creation. Organizations and conventions typically provide proceeds to charities.
There are three types of banjos. A five-string style is used primarily in bluegrass. The plectrum is similar but has only four strings. The smaller tenor banjo is tuned differently.
Banjos are expensive now, ranging from $1,000 into the $10,000 to $15,000 range. One visitor estimated the value of the banjos in the circle of players at well over $100,000.
Banjo players don’t make money traveling to these events, Hal said. They typically cost them money.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Dick and his band often played nightclubs and pizza parlors. He also spent time playing in Disneyland parades.
Hal called Dick one of the best banjo players in the world.
When his father started the band in Los Angeles, Dick decided to learn to play it. Among Ralph’s other students and band members were Howard Alden, considered to be the top guitarist in New York, he said. Ira Levy, a top New York arranger, also was in the band. All 18 of the youths in his band became professional musicians.
Elaine Long was among the youths in Ralph’s band. A Salem resident, she plays regularly in conventions and other gatherings. Among her musical accomplishments were jobs at Disneyland and recording soundtracks for television and motion pictures.
She started playing at the age of 12. She ended up in Ralph’s band then her other work. She later attended college, earned her nursing degree and began rearing a family. She started playing again after moving to Salem. She recently performed in New Orleans and St. Louis.
She is a part of the Riverboat Jazz-Dixieland Band aboard the Queen of the West riverboat based in Portland.
“These are all my friends,” Elaine said of the Banjorama. “I’ve grown up with a lot of these folks. Dick and I were kids in Ralph’s band together. This is like my extended family. It’s just happy music. You can’t be sad and here banjo music.”
“It’s a unique instrument,” Ralph said. “You take a banjo any place, people want to hear it. You take a guitar, they could care less. Of course, after awhile, they care less about the banjo too.”
Ned Poffinbarger of Sacramento was responsible for putting together the first banjo convention in 1967. He also had a hand in building Ralph’s enthusiasm for the instrument, encouraging him to play. Two years later, Ralph was putting on his own show and putting together the Southen California Banjo Band.
“His son is a star in most of the banjo shows throughout the country,” Poffinbarger said.
“It’s really a tribute to (Ralph) that there are this many good players coming from so far to play here,” Rex Inglis of the Sacramento Banjo Band said.