Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 21, 1995 TAG: 9511210112
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JEANNE JOHNSON DUDZIAK SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Q: What's the difference between a banjo and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you cut up a banjo.
Q: How can you tell there's a banjo player at your door?
A: The knocking speeds up and they don't know when to come in.
No question, certain segments of the music world love to pick on the banjo.
But how can anyone harbor resentment toward this folksy instrument, with the friendly, down-home name that even sounds like it comes straight out of the backwoods? (You know, meet my country cousins - Billy Jo, Bobby Jo, Ban Jo ...)
Blacksburg banjoist Marcia McKenzie thinks the answer may have something to do with the very qualities that endear the instrument to others - a pure-toned clarity and distinct sound that, without discretion on the part of the banjo picker, can overpower other instruments.
"The banjo is loud and some musicians may not know when to back off," she says. "Some may lack an appreciation for the subtleties of dynamics, which can annoy other musicians."
That has been particularly true of the banjo since it evolved into its present form, with metal strings and a closed back. The sound resonates toward the audience.
McKenzie plays a unique, handmade banjo with an open back and a carved-out fretboard at the base of the neck to accommodate her thumb.
Such a banjo suits McKenzie's "clawhammer" style - a pre-bluegrass banjo playing style that alternates strumming with thumb-plucking of the fifth string to create an underlying, foot-tapping rhythm. Some melodic strings are plucked but it's a largely improvisational style. "There's a melody and rhythm that helps drive the music and then I pick out notes," she says. "I usually don't play any song exactly the same way twice."
Along with her husband, Woody, who plays guitar, mandolin and fiddle, The McKenzies perform at local festivals, fairs, private parties and other events. Marcia McKenzie also calls square dances while playing rhythm guitar. She works at the Virginia Tech library and periodically teaches beginning clawhammer through the continuing education department of New River Community College and through the Virginia Tech YMCA Open University.
Perhaps that accounts for her knowledge of the instrument's history.
"The banjo probably began as a skinned gourd with gut strings that was brought to America as an African slave instrument," she says. It may have been the slaves' primary instrument by default since many slave owners banned drums out of fear they could be used to send coded signals.
"For awhile in the 1920s, four-string banjos were popular in urban areas," she says, "but eventually the five-string became the standard."
The McKenzies primarily play "old-time" music that has its origins in the fiddle and banjo music played at community gatherings to celebrate harvests and barn raisings.
In this part of the country, there's a sub-culture devoted to this indigenous music, involving jamborees, square dances, flat-footing and clogging. The McKenzies also perform an eclectic music mix they jokingly call "New Wave Old Time," a unique hybrid of Appalachian, swing, children's, jug band and original music. As part of their other band, the 6 String Swing Band, they perform "Texas Swing," where traditional western stringed instruments like the guitar, fiddle, mandolin, steel guitar and bass are used to play big band standards made famous by such artists as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and George Gershwin.
"We like to mix it up," says Marcia McKenzie. Their blended voices have a plaintive, expressive quality that's suited to everything from a mountain music ballad to the blues.
What many people may not realize is that there are different "camps" within the Appalachian music world, says Woody McKenzie, who is currently working on a doctorate in education at Virginia Tech. Some are purists, devoted to preserving the music in its original, simpler, community-oriented form. Others are into bluegrass, which is more stylized and performance oriented, he says. Still others might be strictly into Celtic or Irish music.
"At music festivals, the old time musicians are in tents and the blue grass followers are in RVs," he jokes, adding that the finger-picking precision of the bluegrass banjo tends to appeal to the mathematically inclined, while "a lot of folk revivalists from the 60s," are likely to play old time.
"A hot picker is more likely to want to play the fancy licks of bluegrass, where each instrumentalist gets the chance to take a break," he says. "Bluegrass also attracts vocalists who love the high-energy three-part harmony that it features. By comparison, in old time music, the emphasis is on a driving dance energy and voices and instruments are heard more in unison."
"There's power in it," says true believer Marcia McKenzie.
The son of a coal miner, Woody McKenzie grew up on "beans and corn bread" in Windmill Gap, W.Va, surrounded by a musical family. He briefly rejected what he viewed as "uncool Hillbilly music," but eventually returned to his roots.
Appalachian music comes so naturally to Marcia McKenzie that she seems to marvel at the fact that she's "originally a Yankee" from Ithaca, N.Y. The two met in Arizona where he was working as a fire look-out, and a mutual friend introduced them.
"I wanted to learn to play mandolin and he was introduced as the resident mandolin expert," says Marcia McKenzie. They've been married for 12 years and have two children.
After learning the mandolin and guitar, she learned clawhammer by hanging out with local old time musicians who let her record and practice their techniques. She learned a lot from Mac Traynham, the owner of Mac's Custom Woodshop in Christiansburg and "one of my favorites," she says. "This is a rich area for music," where you might discover great musicians by hanging out at any of the local Appalachian music events.
Marcia McKenzie doesn't think there's anything malicious about banjo bashing. She likens it to the teasing a brother or sister might inflict upon a sibling. And as any Mom would say in such a situation, "Don't pay any attention, honey, they're just jealous."
More information on The McKenzies and the 6 String Swing Band is available on the World Wide Web through the performing arts menu at: http://www.bev.net/community/NRAC.
A World Wide Web page devoted to banjo jokes is at: http://www.wsnet.com/~phil/banjokes.htm
by CNB