David Holt interview: Kinney Rorrer Old Time Banjo

[@bluetoad2001]

wow, if i shut my eyes i hear Charlie's band once again. wow i sure am glad i found this video

[@jazzayr1]

Just magic ,i could listen thse guys all day !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@davidsawyer988]

Kirk's back up is killer!!!!!!!! it is.

[@banjobilly32]

The old Model A surely adds to this song! Nice job.

[@MrMKH2010]

That's the Gibson Mastertone that Charlie bought with his residuals from "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down".

[@SashaisCoolish]

Michael Hill that's his Orpheum 3 that he used for years til maybe 1929 he endorsed Gibson...probably with a nice payment and banjo.

[@PLINKER]

I do not think the instrument being played in this video is a Gibson Mastertone. It might be an Orpheum. The peghead and inlays to not look like Gibson's to me.

[@williesmith9282]

That is an Orpheum banjo.an Orpheum #3

[@williesmith9282]

From what Kinney has told me and if I’m not mixed up, the Gibson burnt in a house fire long ago.

[@writerrad]

Mastertones even the one Charie bought in 1927 when they first came out are resonator banjos. If you look at Bluegrass players they play either Mastertones or banjos modeled after them, Kenny is playing an Orpheum #3 that Poole owned and played. A well known old time banjoist I have taken lessons from for years now owns and plays the banjo shown in this video

[@jazzayr1]

Charlie Poole ,Fucking Legend!!!!

[@MrMKH2010]

smokealongthetracks, check out Clarence Ashley, Uncle Dave Macon, Vess Ossman, Dock Boggs.

[@darrellmcgrady2761]

Charlie's last recordings were done with my great Uncle Reid Rake's banjo. Charlie finished the recordings, pawned the banjo in New York and came back to Virginia without it. Uncle Reid had to get the pawn ticket from Charlie and take a train to New York to retrieve it. I saw the banjo in the late 60's or very early 70s but was too young to know it's story. Uncle Reid's daughter was not very forthcoming about it, calling it just an ole banjo.

[@writerrad]

That being a Mastertone. Ask Kenny. I was involved with a bunch of other people and Kenny in trying to set up a Banjo museum memorializing Poole and others in the old Cotten Mill in Eden, although that came to naught given the town big shots of Eden probably thought bringing in mud wrestling was more their thing.

[@writerrad]

I have heard that before and know its true. Charlie was a slave to the bottle, and essentially drank himself to death in 1933 when he learned that Hollywood wanted him to come out there and play banjo in the new talkie movies. I have a friend who is a great Bluegrasser from SW Va who is now in his late 80s ---like several ace banjo players I know he is actually a retired ROCKET SCIENTIST--who told me his father and grandfather told him Charlie would come twhere they lived to get moonshine and get so drunk that he would try to stand on his head in their living room!

[@JustClaude13]

C Bass (Classic C) is the old standard banjo tuning from the late 18th century. If you're interested you can look at "Mel Bay's Banjo Method" by Frank Bradbury for the original 3 finger parlor style. The banjo is an accordatura instrument, where the banjo is frequently retuned to match the music, so besides Classic C and Open G (modern tuning) I'm also learning Sawmill and double C. Some songs are a lot easier if you know the alternate tunings. Plectrum banjos normally use Classic C.

[@writerrad]

Yes. the C tuning was the mostly widely used banjo tuning across the 19th century and in the early 20th century on an international level. TW0 KINGS OF ENGLAND PLAYED THE BANJO THIS WAY. Charlie Poole was an exponent of what is properly called the Guitar-Style of banjo playing which swept the popular music and formal music world from the late 1850s on. Poole wanted to make recordings of ragtime influenced recordings of tunes introduced by the major banjo recording artists of the early 20th century like Van Eps, but the record company thought his hillbilly recordings sold better, If you walked into a music store in New York City or for that matter in London or Capetown South Africa in 1900, and asked for proper banjo lessons this is what you would be taught. This is similar to classical guitar where the thumb is assigned to the lower strings and the other two fingers to the other string.

[@writerrad]

I grew up in Connecticut on the other end of a bus line that you could get to Bradbury's house. I had band mates and pals who took lessons from Bradbury. Bradbury was actually an associate of the great Fred Bacon, He was from Forest Dale Vertmont, a place where briefly Fred went up to live in just before WWI and briefly made banjos and then brought Bradbury down to Connecticut where Bacon lived. Actually the style especially if you go by SS steward is a 4 finger style. Charlie Poole wanted to record pieces that would now be considered "classic banjo" and pieces like those recorded by Van Eps and Vess Ossman, but the record companies would not let him though I think he did get to record one or two,

[@writerrad]

We do not know exactly how banjos were tuned in the 18th century. We do know that in general banjos were tuned 2 or 3 or more steps down from where they came to be tuned in the late 19th century until somepoint in the 1880s. In the banjo world this is called the A notation. Across the late 19th century, the architecture of banjos was dramatically changed in Britain and the US , the center of the banjo world. Banjos that could be tuned up 2 or 3 steps or more were produce to make a clearer ringing tone. This tuning as originally 3 steps down in general with massive variations. By the late 19th century it was raised to the current DBGCg. The raise took place earlier in both practice and written music in the United States and took longer in England. Especially in England, people continued to play music written in the A notation three steps up in C. A big impetus to the Brits catching up with this style and adopting the 3 finger style as opposed to the stroke style was the migration of Black Banjoists like the Bohees and James Bland who came to the UK in the 80s, found it more hospitable than Jim Crow America and introduced both the techninqiues and the banjos prevelant in the USA to England and the world.

[@writerrad]

In the Mill Villages like Eden where Poole worked as a cotton mill hand, the companies imported music teachers to teach popular music banjo styles like the c based guitar style of banjo playing as part of a corporatist approach like the set up baseball teams, LOL Poole went from one side to the other, injuring his hand fundamentally catching a baseball on the Mill team, and banging his hand into a perfect shape for banjo playing.,

[@Tylerjamesnall]

I cried.

[@oldtones]

OLD TYME AT ITS BEST GREAT JOB

[@BlueGrassPeteF]

Nice interview. I'd have to differ with one remark, however, about the number of finger-style banjo players around in the 1920s. There were plenty of them, and not that many so-called "clawhammer" players. For example, Uncle Dave Macon used at least five different finger styles when recording, and only switched to clawhammer style later in his career, when arthritis slowed down his playing.

[@writerrad]

Yes 3 and 4 finger (the proper way of playing this style is with 4) As Peter well knows this was the most widespread style of banjo playing in the world in the early 1900s and late 1890s.

[@BlueGrassPeteF]

@@writerrad Yes indeed! Thank you, Tony! Happy New Year!

[@writerrad]

@@BlueGrassPeteF I think I will be doing something with the BOTMC this year that will allow me to get out to California and we must get together.

[@BlueGrassPeteF]

@@writerrad That would be wonderful! Do keep in touch.

[@BlueGrassPeteF]

@@writerrad Yes! Please let me know! 🙂

[@mb20gday]

@Waurd2 But Charlie's wife was Posey's sister and therefore Kinney's great - aunt, so Kinney was his great nephew But like you said, great video anyway

[@Tony_02]

Is Kinney still alive?

[@PLINKER]

Any information written down on his style and tunings? Tutorials?

[@writerrad]

Poole played in the standard banjo tunings of the late 19th century and early 20th century popular music, ragtime, and even classical music banjo playing used internationally., He played in the C tuning, DBGCg which was the standard internationally accepted tuning in the late 19th and early 20th century. Folkies call it the pete seeger tuning since Seeger used it. Poole added popular ,music and ragitme music banjo styles to old time music rather than playing the traditional or older styles of clawhammer or 2 finger picking., He constantly fought with the record companies because he really wanted to perform ragtime and popular music songs from the 1900-20 era, but they told him his Hillbilly recording sold.

[@PLINKER]

@@writerrad Thank you for the very nice reply! Tom (PLINKER)

[@marymartin165]

Kirk on fiddle. They don't make m like that anymore!

[@Fozzymaple]

I believe John Cohen (of the New Lost City Ramblers) does a fair amount of playing like Charlie Poole, as well as a number of other well known banjo players. The late Mike Seeger also used to play like Poole (and others, though not necessarily like his better known brother, Pete).

[@writerrad]

The ramblers were pretty well know for reproducing the Poole sound with John usually playing the Charlie Poole banjo style, although both Mike and Tom Plaey were quite good at it. Sad to think all three have passed.

[@Fozzymaple]

@@writerrad The only one left is Tracey Schwarz, and he's gotten to be quite an old man now!

[@writerrad]

@@Fozzymaple The original New Lost City Ramblers founded in 1958 or 1959 were Mike Seeger and John Cohen and Tom Paley. Paley was probably the best musician of all of them. Paley had played with Woodie Guthrie when Paley was still in high school. John was a professional photographer learning to be an art professor, and Paley was a Physicist. Mike who had no college education because he had dyslexia, was the only one who depended on the band to support himself and his family. Paley ended up taking a position in Sweden where he lived for a while before going to England where he spent the rest of his life. For a while they pitched around even asked Doc Watson if he wanted to replace Paley. Mike I think found Paley. Tracey did not join until 1965. I remember the afternoon in 65 I bought the first post Paley record Gone to the Country, I was 18 or 19 in college in DC and remembered putting the record a bit under my book bag for college, lest any true old time music purist. People were afraid that without Paley the Ramblers would turn into a rock group or something.

[@writerrad]

@@Fozzymaple Tracy is still alive because he is much younger than Mike, John and Tom, especially Michael and John. No Tom & John were college roommates at Yale so must have been the same age. LOL Paley would still complain about how he didnt think John--who in my estimation of knowing him was almost a saint, probably would not have bob dylant without him,---was a neat enough roommate LOL. Paley would talk about that visiting from England or when I saw him in England 60 years after they had gone to Yale in the 1950s.

[@writerrad]

@@Fozzymaple Tracy is more my age, like in his 70s and not dead. He added another tinge to the NLCR a little bit more modern a little bit more bluegrass.

[@damevid]

bluegrass people

[@OriginalRitz]

Awesome stuff! Love the sound of that banjo. Great to get a bit of insight into Charlie's distinctive style. And Bob Carlin rockin' the rhythm guitar like it's nothin! Great vid.

[@chalino987_2]

Beautiful Fucken Music Man , Holy Shit🔥🔥🔥🔥🪕🪕🪕🪕

[@PLINKER]

Dang thats some great stuff. Sure wish I could do it!

[@smokealongthetracks]

These guys are amazing. One of the coolest bands around. Sure wish more people played in ''C-Bass'' or whatever you want to call it. Thanks so much for posting! Anybody know of anyone else around that plays like Poole, Dock Walsh, or Wilmer Watts? I'm figuring a lot on my own but sure have some unsolved mysteries. Cheers.

[@writerrad]

Most banjoists who played popular music and ragtime and most Black banjoists folk or not from the time of the Civil War until the end of the folk Boom Played in the C tuning as it is properly called. Pete Seeger played in this tuning so much that many folkies call it the Pete Seeger Tuning. All Bluegrass banjoists including the late Earl Scruggs usually tune their banjos into this tuning if they are playing tunes in C or D. Two Kings of England in the early 20th century played their banjos in this tuning/ This was the standard tuning used for Banjo Playing across the late 19th century into the 20th century. Bluegrass has shifted the tuning in the direction of the G tuning, but Bluegrass did not exist when Poole lived.

[@EricFlatpick]

Great video. Thanks to the producers, all in it, and for posting it. Question: does anyone know if there's a video of Kinney Rorer playing banjo to Poole's "Leaving Home" (in the same tuning, I assume)?

[@writerrad]

Poole played everything in the C tuning or drop C tuning, including leaving home. Charlie never ever played as much lead as Kenny plays on this recording. He was the singer and band leader and his banjo knitted together the whole band. I am sure that today if you just put in Charlie Poole leaving Home you could hear Poole's recordings.

[@buckhendrix]

AWESOME! I didn't realize Charlie's banjo had survived all these years.

[@writerrad]

Charlie had several banjos. In fact when he went up from the Orpheum Kenny Rorer is playing here, Poole purchased several Gibson Mastertones. I haven't talked to Kenny in about 10 years but the family still had in its possession several of Charlie's Mastertones at least backj around 2009.