Aint No Sunshine

[@wadeparker9685]

For those of you that don't know, in addition to being a gifted banjo picker, John is also a gifted luthier. He can do any kind of work you need done to a banjo. My wife calls him 'The Banjo Whisperer.' And JOHN, someone in the comments mentioned The Dead South. We do a song by them called 'In Hell I'll Be in Good Company.' Check them out on YT, they have some great songs.

[@JohnBoulding]

Thank for the kind words Wade! Oh yeah the dead south are youtibe sensations. That songs video has over 150 million views!

[@lawdayl]

Beautiful John

[@JohnBoulding]

Thanks Neil, good to hear from you!

[@Quokkat7]

nice job!

[@JohnBoulding]

Thanks!

[@guntherpuchalla8688]

I really enjoyed listening to that moody evergreen, but why not add some techs like for instance tuning etc. A vid instead of a pic wouldn't be bad either, so one could learn by looking at you playing. Besides I think it's far too seldom that we can see/hear modern songs played on banjo. It's a great instrument for bluegrass but its voice should definitely enrich other musical forms too.

[@JohnBoulding]

I'm glad you enjoyed it , but this wasn't intended as an"instructional video". I multitrwcked this with two banjos and guitar. It was originally an audio file, which you cannot upload to KZbin. I added the cover picture to turn it into a video with the audio file as it's "sound track". Tuning is standard G for banjos, with all of this being played in the key of Aminor.

[@JohnBoulding]

The banjo is very versatile and I've have used it for m y Years to play all genres of music. But there are many other well known players doing the same thing. Whether the banjo will ever be accepted as "mainstream" is anyone's guess. But e music being played on it is eccelctic.

[@gprh52]

Dear John, thanks for your answers. There are of course groups like Mumford & Sons, The Dead South and others using the banjo today. And in Europe the banjo is known to a wider public by Irish folk musicians doing a fantastic job in their field usually on a 4-string. But as far as I know there are hardly any songs (beat, rock, pop, reggae, blues and what have you) of the sixties and seventies or eighties or... where the banjo is part of a (mainstream) band. And that's a pity as that means a loss of sound. By the way that's another reason, why I enjoyed listening to your version of Aint no sunshine as I love to hear the sound of a banjo in my kinda music. Greetings from southern Germany

[@JohnBoulding]

gprh52 thanks for your thoughts. The banjo has been in mainstream music at times, as in the Eagles early country rock with Bernie Leadon playing five string Bluegrass style banjo on r cording like "take it easy", Linda Ronstadts "faithless love" and there are many other examples. But typically, the banjo is mixed on the background, and not really allowed to take "solos". Even country music, which was always banjo friendly, has devolved into six sting banjos being only strummed, for the most part. I know of many great players who inspired me to play banjo in rock, Reggea,blues,jazz,etc like Bela, Tony Trisha, Bill Keith, Pat Cloud ,Marty Cuttler and a host of others but they aren't considered "mainstream except maybe for Bela. Anyhow, I will continue to use the banjo anywhere and everywhere I can as I always have, to showcase what it is capable of doing!