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Here’s a little audio cut from last night. We picked at a place called the Cardington American Legions hall in Cardington, Ohio and had a nice time. A bit of a road trip for us, about an hour and half, and not to hard a trip. This is a song that Jeff and I wrote, an instrumental called Blue Nose Mule. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s an old Southern term for a special mule. Apparently those with a blue-grey muzzle or nose were lucky and good hard workers and all that. I get ribbed all the time about this song because the boys in the band don’t have a clue what it means and they always like to ask the crowd and rarely will anyone know what that means!! HAHA… But oh well, I do and now you do.

I took my camera with me, but dang, if I didn’t remember to get the thing out. We just need to travel with a full time press team to detail our adventures in media. Video, Audio and Visual. I’m sure we have that in our budget. Yeah, no problem.

Well, suffice to say, it was a good time, and we always have fun on road trips. I think sometimes, half the fun is the drive there and back as we get to spend time as a band, but not playing and singing. We talk and laugh the whole way there and back. Its a good thing. We tried to work on some harmony practice in the car but well, we’ll try harder next trip.

The Cardington folk were very nice and friendly for the most part. We did have one disgruntled individual in the other band that felt it necessary to inform us that they like LOCAL bands around there. But in the end, apparently it was more that HE liked local bands because we got an encore and almost needed security to keep the fans off of Tim after his rousing rendition of “Free Born Man” at the end. And the people that ran the event were SUPER nice and wanted us back next year for sure. They were very friendly and the gals at D-Squared Sound did a very nice job for us as well. It was a great evening.

One of the sweetest moments came when the banjo player from the other band offered me to pick his banjo. Now, normally, I’m a one-banjo gal and I don’t feel comfortable playing other people’s banjos. I don’t know why, I’m just weird that way. But how could I refuse… he was offering me a 1934 pre-war Gibson and oh my goodness, gentle readers, I was in love with the first roll. That thing was a hoss… it was so loud, and so clear and so easy to play, oh my. Tim and Rob knew I was playing it, but Jeff came over after the hand-off and didn’t realize at first that I had a different banjo. We played a song or two and the guys were laughing at the volume I was getting and Jeff was like wow, could you be ANY louder? And then I turned to show him that it wasn’t my banjo but an old Gibson! He laughed and then knew what was up! The other banjo player said I could play it on stage and I thought about it hard for a few minutes, but then, I thought, no, I can’t. Nice as it was, I’m used to my beautiful Stelling, and the sound and feel of the neck, everything. And it wouldn’t be fair to my guys, because I might not sound or be in the right groove for our material and such, no, I thanked the fellow profusely and declined politely. As we were getting ready to go back up on stage, another fellow in the band told me that he NEVER lets anyone else play his banjo. Wow! But Tim said it was because I was a girl. HAHA… well, I don’t care why… now I know that I need to start saving my pennies.

No, dollars.

A reasonable pre-war Gibson costs oh, about $20 grand on a good day. There’s one on Ebay that just recently went for about $72,000. Yeah. $72 GRAND!

Here’s a great deal on one… if anyone really wants to be my VERY BEST friend in the WHOLE WORLD>>> (gg) You can always get me this one for my birthday or something.

Gibson MasterTone Banjo

But until then, I’ll just have to hope that I find one at a garage sale or something for $100…. or maybe $150. Yeah, wouldn’t that be sweet? True enough, it has happened, and more than once! But I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a banjo at a local sale, let alone a Gibson. But I will keep hoping.

Well, that was definately a memory for the whole bluegrass scrapbook for me. I’ve never really had the time to sit and play an old one like that. I played a 1960’s Gibson Granada for a while, but that was kind of old and all.. but this one was just the bee’s knees… let me tell you.

There is one company out now that makes something super close to a old pre-war Gibson… it’s called the Huber Banjo Company and they are more reasonable. If I ever think to get another banjo, then it would be a Huber. Here’s one that is a lot more reasonable….

Huber Roanoke Banjo

Well, this conclude’s the Mobile Home Woman’s Guide to Her Dream Banjos! I know now that you know a lot more about banjos then well, just about anyone else in your world, I’ll bet.

(Of course, this excludes our blogging friend Sandhill Sis. I KNOW she knows all about banjo envy and her pre-wars!)

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