Early Banjoists on Recordings

[James Tyler]

It occured to me that, although some of us older players probably have some of the few issues on CDs of banjo players from the 1890s to ca. 1910, others may not be aware of the interesting resources on the web in this line. A useful site is from the University of California at Santa Barbara which has a large number of cylinder recordings to be heard. Using the search word banjo, I get 110 "hits" which include some of the classic players of that era, including Ruby Brooks, Fred Bacon, Parke Hunter, Olly Oakley, Shirley Spaulding, Frank Stanley, Al Reeves, and of course many cylinders by Ossman and Van Eps. These are all downloadable. Go to http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu.
Another site which has some little known items to be heard is www.tinfoil.com. Some of these records may inspire some young players.

[David Wade]

Thanks James, I'd not come across the tinfoil site before. Norman Field's Neovox tapes were a fantastic resource -they still turn up from time to time at Rallies.

[Jody Stecher]

About 10 years ago I contacted Norman Field about some of his cassettes that I wasn't able to find. He transferred them on to CD for me and sent them to me across the Atlantic all for a reasonable fee. Yeah, he really put some good records on those tapes.