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Editor:  tomhanway

Name:	Tom
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Home Page:	http://www.tomhanway.com

Arts: Music: Instruments: Stringed: Banjo  (115)
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Profile

Like many who discovered roots music during the 60s "Folk Scare," I learned to pick from a guy who had been to college - actually my fourth grade teacher, Ned Paulsen, who taught me how to fingerpick and strum the guitar when I was eight-and-a-half. The youngest of five, I had a staple musical diet of The Beatles, The Stones, The Beach Boys, The Turtles, Cream, AM radio ("77 - WABC") and my Dad's traditional jazz and big band music. Harmony singing caught my young imagination before I picked up the guitar.

Years later at college, I discovered that Hampshire's library had many scratchy LPs of country blues masters which included "Lightnin'" Hopkins, Elizabeth Cotten, Larry Johnson, Rev. Gary Davis and others. In 1983, a friend turned me onto Doc Watson's music, and I dreamed of one day meeting and picking guitar and banjo like Doc.

In 1985, I consciously changed my musical diet from blues to bluegrass and began training on the 5-string banjo with Tony Trischka. I began to devour tune after tune and everything he could feed me over a period of almost four years, concentrating mainly on the playing of Scruggs, Stanley, Keith, Reno, Trischka and Bela Fleck.

I played my first big bluegrass concert in Zanesville, Ohio in 1989, as a member of the John Herald Band. Here I met and jammed onstage with Bill Monroe, who paid me a life-changing compliment: "You sound just like Don Reno." The Reno tradition and family is still a huge inspiration for me, as is the Monroe bluegrass tradition.

Inspired and hungry for tunes, in the early 90s I began to tackle traditional Gaelic and Brythonic (Celtic) music forms from Ireland and Scotland, England and the Celtic diaspora.

Since childhood, I have absorbed old-school jazz and pop music influences from my father Jack, a trumpet and cornet player. Traditional jazz, with roots in 19th century country rags and melodies, laid some of the groundwork for the rise of 20th-century improvised string-band music, including Western Swing, Country, Bluegrass, Rockabilly, Rock'n'Roll, Newgrass and Dawg music in the post-World War II era.

Always a tune collector with an appetite, I'm a journeyman picker who bounces around from town to town hoping to discover subtle nuances and tunes from local players, from as far away as Perth and Sydney, Australia. The quest for well-played *traditional* and *original* tunes is never-ending and a continual source of joy for me. These terms are not mutually exclusive, regardless of what some purists prattle on about.

In the late 80s I began to write instrumental tunes, touching on many idioms, recording "Bucket of Bees," with thirty-two bluegrass musicians (1991). "Bucket" incorporates bluegrass, blues, jazz, Gaelic, classical, folk and world music. I sought to demonstrate that the five-string works in a variety of styles, e.g., Scruggs, Reno, melodic and crossover styles, including bluesy and Celtic realms. I have recorded original, bluegrass and Celtic tunes on various labels, including Prime Cuts of Bluegrass, Mel Bay, Yee Haw and Joyous Gard Records.

In 1998, at the urging of Geoff Stelling, I dreamed up the Tom Hanway SwallowTail, now manufactured by Stelling, an instument that is suit for both bluegrass and Celtic music. Stanley Jay of Mandolin Bros., a vintage instrument dealer, informed me that I have the unusual distinction of being the "first Yankee banjo player" to have a Southern-manufactured production model named for him. I am honored, and I am part of a long line of "Yankee" banjo players who have become enraptured by some shifting combination of Southern, African-American, Appalachian, Celtic, old-time and bluegrass music forms. During the antebellum period, players were learning from each other and from tutors, typically crossing subcultural boundaries in pursuit of mastery of that hybrid American instrument known as the banjo.

More recently, pioneering New York banjoists Roger Sprung, Bill Keith, Steve Arkin, Tony Trischka, Mark Horowitz, Marty Cutler, Bela Fleck and Akira Satake have traveled backwards and forwards in time to contribute to a fantastic tradition of great banjo music.

I am a history-oriented banjoist and a big fan of all kinds of traditional music forms. My research begins at the roots. Many interesting musical innovations may be found in past, if one looks carefully. The 5-string banjo came into use before the American Civil War, but traditional country dance music is much older, and is based, in large part, on the musical traditions of Scottish and Irish settlers. "Miss McLeod's," a Gaelic tune and the prototypical Virginia reel, immediately comes to mind; it has many strains and goes by many titles in old-time and bluegrass music. Much pre-banjo instrumental music, including but not limited to fiddle, harp and piping tunes, can be played "fingerstyle" on today's five-string -- any five-string.

Bill Monroe spoke fondly of his Uncle Pen Vandiver, who was the first man he ever heard play the fiddle. Monroe said, "He got the wonderful Scotch-Irish sound out of it." Monroe also spoke reverently of "the ancient tones," which hint at the Gaelic modes -- usually played hexatonically (six notes) or pentatonically (five notes), which he used everywhere, especially in tunes such as "Jerusalem Ridge" and "Crossing the Cumberlands". Bill Keith, who was the first to play fiddle tunes on the banjo in Monroe's band, told me that Monroe sometimes, at home, would pick out Highlands strathspeys on his mandolin. There was a strong Celtic influence in some of Monroe's compositions.

In the field of Celtic music, I have written an Irish and Celtic banjo tutor (found in music libraries, for example, in Cape Breton) and recorded a companion CD, the Complete Book of Irish & Celtic 5-String Banjo (Mel Bay Publications, Pacific, MO: 1998), with 101 tunes, and a glossary of Celtic music terms. I also have an original composition transcribed and recorded for the book and CD, Mel Bay's Banjo 2000, Featuring Solos by the World's Finest Banjoists (Mel Bay, Pacific, MO: 2000). I was the banjo columnist for Acoustic Musician magazine in the late '90s and have contributed letters, articles and transcriptions to the Banjo NewsLetter, 5-String Quarterly, the Banjo Gazette (UK). I have written articles on Celtic music for the Celtic League and for Mel Bay. My training is in the field -- at festivals, jams, sessions and privately with musicians devoted to traditional music forms.

I have hosted several weekly bluegrass jam sessions in New York City, where pickers met and traded songs and licks. These jams still go on in NYC, are free and open to all players of acoustic stringed instruments. The Big Apple Bluegrass Society (BABS) was an association of die-hard pickers and fans who got together at weekly jam sessions in New York City. My first wife, Kathleen and I were the founders and promoters of the annual Big Apple Bluegrass & Folk Festival, a three-day bluegrass and roots-music event. It was our privilege to donate Fourth Annual festival proceeds to the Twin Towers Fund. Big Apple Bluegrass 2002 celebrated the life and memory of Kathleen Mary Low Hanway. Kathleen, in her last days here on earth, told me to keep going, keep playing, keep teaching, and so, I have. Now re-married (to Denise) and living in a lovely part of Ireland, I teach, perform, promote and write.

I am compiling tunes from Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, and the Celtic diaspora, while completing several more books for Mel Bay Publications -- all on traditional Irish and Celtic music (hopefully to be published in 2008). These projects keep me learning and meeting fantastic musicians all the time, for which I feel blessed.

I now play concerts and festivals with the Ireland-based *Tennessee Hob*, a roots music act featuring "brother-style" harmonies. The group plays festivals far and wide and is known for its bluegrass songs, hoedowns, jazz and Celtic instrumentals, off-the-cuff stories and humour. I am also one-half of *The Badbelly Project*, a guitar and harmonica country blues duo. I have released a country blues and gospel CD - The Badbelly Project: Hesitation Blues - with my old pal, fiddler Vassar Clements, recently deceased, on Joyous Gard Records (JGCD 1964). All my recordings are available at www.tomhanway.com.

My big goal in helping these international roots music communities is to spread the news that these deep arts are "living traditions" belonging to all who search earnestly -- not to be exploited for selfish or egoistic purposes. It's not about "taking a bluegrass holiday" when it is convenient. The music and its fans come first.

Living traditions are continually evolving, and nobody has a monopoly on them. To this end I also teach, give workshops and perform at festivals, and help other artists through contacts, and at concerts and festivals.

All these related traditions may be re-invented, combined and transformed in personal, creative ways while still paying homage to the original quests of the founders, who themselves, as innovators, were evolving unique styles while adapting from earlier traditions and stylists.