This past weekend was Gene and Angela's annual "Spudacular" aka: The First Potato Salad of Summer Picnic in St. Paul MN. While this event always attracts some pretty darn good musicians (and me), this time the legendary banjo picker Billy Faier performed. He had done a gig at the Ginkgo Coffee House on Thursday. The stars and frets were aligned such, that he put on a house concert on Gene's back deck for about a dozen or so lucky folks on Saturday afternoon.
Meeting and spending time with Billy is an experience, privilege, and a pleasure. He shoots from the hip and is very economical with his words in the course of conversation. I aptly listened a lot and was fascinated by his recollections on his career in folk music. On Friday afternoon he took my friend Wayne behind the proverbial banjo woodshed. He said Wayne's banjo "had no bottom" and it's neck was too skinny (as in narrow). Also he told Wayne "You don't play any notes!" No kidding! Wayne is more adept at frailing. Like I'm more comfortable strumming or flat picking my guitar than actually trying to play music...Sheeesh.
Jo (Deermouse) and I were attempting to tune my guitar to her autoharp, but it took too long and Billy mumbled something and ambled away. I suspect when you've played with the giants of the genre, you don't have a lot of patience for a neophyte suffering from "chain-saw ear".
Billy is a gracious guy and has a wry sense of humor, and I get the sense he's always thinking something. Or maybe playing something. Twice while I was at Henriksen's Billy sat down at the piano and played...West Texas Rag? Shit, I don't know, but it was darn good. I'll try and post a picture from his show soon. As Rambling Jack Elliott wrote in his song 912 Greens:
"We had the name of this 5 string banjo player named Billy Faier to look up, so we found Billy Faier, down there at 912 Toulouse Street and the rest, well that's a whole 'nother song".
So thanks Billy, Gene & Angela. You guys really know how to mix banjos and potato salad.
2 comments:
I am a lifelong Billy Faier fan...I have all his recordings (most of which I have bought directly from him in the past 2-3 years). His early albums (especially "The Art of the 5 string banjo" and "Banjo")inspired me to learn the 5 string (along with Dave Guard & Pete Seeger, of course). I was in Minnesota this summer and would have loved to have heard him in person, which I never have.
I had the pleasure of meeting Billy Faier this week of March, 2009. He reunited with his partner Frank Hamilton, who played guitar on The Art of the 5 String Banjo, and jammed with Mick Kinney, the excellent old time fiddler. I'd never seen picking like that before.
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