Any Tune's A Good Tune: My Interview With Old Time Mandolin Player Curtis Buckhannon

In the ongoing search for albums that capture that old time mandolin sound, I came across the Buckhannon Brothers' 1993 CD Little River Stomp.  On that collection of old time mandolin instrumentals, mandolinist Curtis Buckhannon, with his brother Dennis on guitar, run through 25 tunes ranging from rags and Celtic, to Scandinavian and Southwestern, and of course a healthy sampling of tunes from their home state of Missouri.

Rather than sounding like crossover music or a jumping across styles, there's a consistency to the album as Curtis and Dennis impart the modest qualities of the old time folk musician regardless of a tune's origin.  Upon hearing this broad, well chosen selection of melodies I just had to find out more about mandolin player Curtis Buckhannon and learn how and why he draws from these far reaching sources.  So I interviewed him!  Below is a transcript in Curtis' words.  I hope you enjoy reading.

L to R: Curtis Buckhannon, Vince Corkery and Dennis Buckhannon

Definition of Old Time

(CB) The type of tunes I play are all pretty much fiddle-based tunes either from different cultures or American based tunes.  Pretty much everything I do has been played on the fiddle.  I like to interpret it on the mandolin.  

Any tune's a good tune.  I even do some Tex-Mex things.  There's some neat stuff going on in the Southwest with the tunes.  Cleoffes Ortiz knew so many unusual tunes - stuff I had never heard before.

I've always had a wide taste in music.  All my life I've listened to classical, to jazz, to blues.  More or less (my repertoire) might just be an expression of my likes in music, rather than standard old time music.  It all seems to fit on the mandolin. Then I get my brother playing on it and it's like wow this is fun!

Musical Influences

(CB) My earliest influence is Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band.  I fell in love with the way he played.  He didn't just play old time music. He did a variety of things.  

I've always loved ragtime from the get go.  It's fun to play rags on the mandolin.  The Etcetera Stringband were so scholarly about the music - so knowledgeable about it.  That very first Etcetera Stringand record was one of my best finds ever.  It was a running joke between me and a friend that we have to learn all those tunes on that record and I think we came pretty close to learning all of them.  

Blues - I've always liked Martin, Bogan and Armstrong (Carl Martin, Ted Bogan, Howard Armstrong), the black stringband from Tennessee.  Those guys came to St. Louis one time and I was just blown away by them.  They were amazing.

Fiddlers Chirps Smith (Volo Bogtrotters), Gary Harrison (Indian Creek Delta Boys) and Geoff Seitz (Ill-Mo Boys) are the source for a lot of my tunes.  And Marc Rennard.

Playing Style and Technique

(CB) I play without a lot of flashiness and just let the instrument try to shine through standard old styles of playing.  The style that I play falls into the category of old time mandolin - I don't know what else you could call it.

Kenny Hall played a lot of open chords and I tend to do that sometimes, but I'll also go up the neck and maybe do some crosspicking things to back up a tune or song.  You've got the option of tremolo.  I do a lot of double stops.  I try to be as creative with it as I can.  I try not to play the same tune the same way every time.

It's not that I'm doing it just to stretch me.  I just do it to keep my interest in the tune and to make it fresh every time.  I might embellish something more one time than I did the last time I played it.  I'm constantly finding things out about music each time I play it. There's always so much to learn.  I like to do a lot of the fun things with the rhythms - getting the syncopation, playing on the off beat.

I don't use my pinky that often - I mostly play with three fingers.  I do use the pinky once in a while, but it's not employed as much as most people use it.  I'm thinking about cutting it off - I don't really need it!

Process of Learning A Tune

(CB) I feel like if a tune strikes me as memorable then it has some quality of staying power, if not at least with me then maybe others.  So, when I hear a tune I become fond of I'll stew it over in my mind a few days or weeks and then try to figure it out.  And lo and behold it seems that the groundwork done in my head is sufficient for me to work it out.  I'll get on the mandolin and 9 times out of 10 the fingering just comes right to mind.  That's how I learn tunes usually. 

If a tune really sticks with me it'll be going around in my head and I'll be whistling it to myself.  I have a friend who plays fife and drum music.  His mother plays fiddle and he plays fife. They have a tune Hell on the Wabash.  It's like a march.  A hypnotic modal tune. I just had to work it out.  It fell right into place and has become one of my favorites here lately.

If you've been playing long enough it'll come to you easier.  The more you play the more similarities there are in a lot of tunes....in the positions and nuances.

Playing with his Brother, guitarist Dennis Buckhannon

(CB) When Dennis and I are working on tunes I'll come to him with a tune I've learned and he'll figure out the chords from me just playing it.  He ends up coming up with some brilliant stuff and 6 out of 10 times he hasn't heard the recording or who I learned it from and he'll just get right onto it.

Dennis accents me.  Without him I wouldn't be half as good as some people like to say.  I can play somewhere without him and it doesn't sound near as good.  He knows where to put everything - note wise, chord wise and rhythm.

He's a year older.  Growing up we played together all the time, and then we just discovered old time thanks to County records.  They were putting out a lot of good stuff.  My dad had a collection of old bluegrass records.  We've always had some rural roots in our family and it just felt like the kind of music we should be playing anyway.  It just seemed natural.  It seemed to fit.  

Playing with a Fiddler

(CB) A lot of times I just do what the fiddle is doing.  Sometimes I accent what the fiddle is doing, maybe do a harmony or just back off and play some chords.  In some ways playing with a fiddler gives you more freedom because you're not the lead instrument - you can do little things here or there and the fiddle is still carrying the melody.  But for the most part I just play the melody.

Playing By Ear

(CB) There's something to be said about playing by ear.  There's also something to be said about those that can read music - their repertoire is bigger.  I've always played by ear so I am limited to what I can learn when others that can read are not.  

When I first met the Etcetera Stringband they were playing downtown at the old Lafayette Park Bandstand where Sousa played one time.   I played some of their tunes for them.  They read music and were mystified by how we did it by ear.  It's just how we did it.  We didn't have a choice!

Being Self Taught

(CB) I'm self taught.  My brother started playing guitar when he was younger than I and then I started playing guitar.  In the early 70's during summer vacation from high school me and my brother and a friend went on a trip to the Smoky Mountains.  We went to this little amphitheater concert and there was a guy there playing mandolin - doing fiddle tunes on it and it just enthralled me.  I asked for a mandolin for my birthday that fall and ended up getting one.  Been playing it ever since.  That would have been 1973.

I still like to play guitar. I like the old finger picking stuff - just noodling around on it. I listen to more guitar music than mandolin music.  I stumbled upon Mike Dowling - he plays Delta style guitar and has a record called Bottomlands. I could listen to that 24 hours a day.  I never get tired of listening to it.  I love the old blues players like Lightning Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell.  I love classical guitar, Django Reinhardt.  I could listen to him forever too.

It seems like I'm always finding out something different about music every time I sit down to play.  With that in mind it could be encouraging or discouraging.  I'll never know everything I want to know about music, but I like to think that it's encouraging.

Curtis Buckhannon is available for lessons to those in the St. Louis area. To learn more about the Buckhannon Brothers, visit thebuckhannonbrothers.com or write to P.O. Box 6165, St. Charles, MO  63302-6165.  Their CDs are also available from County Sales.  

Building a Ragtime Repertoire

If you get Steve Parker’s book Ragtime for Fiddle and Mandolin and Mel Bay's Favorite American Rags and Blues for Fiddle by Stacy Phillips, then you'll have your bases covered when it comes to sheet music for many of the common stringband rags such as Pig Ankle's Rag, Stone's Rag, Mineola Rag, Plowboy Hop, Whistling Rufus, Stone Mountain Wobble and many more.  However, I've also found some great raggy tunes from other books and sources.  For example...

April Verch’s book/CD The American Fiddle Method - Canadian Fiddle Styles contains the ragtime foxtrot Walking Up Town in the key of C.  I really started to love this tune after transcribing it to the key of G, which is the way it is played by Tom Cussen’s Irish traditional band Shaskeen on their album titled Walking Up Town.  It's a little easier to play in G so you can start with April Verch's sheet music and tweak it based on Shaskeen's version.

The Dix Bruce and Bruce Bollerud tune collection called Mandolin Uff Da! Let's Dance:: Scandinavian Fiddle Tunes and House Party Music is one of my favorite tunebooks, containing many great waltzes, schottiches and polkas.  It also contains two very fun rags – Mabel Rag Two-Step (which I prefer to play in D than the arrangement in F in the book) and Red Rooster Two Step (which is noteworthy because it’s a 3-part tune that changes keys…the first part sounds like a march, the second part sounds ethnic, and the third part is very raggy).  In addition Mandolin Uff Da! also has some tunes called Almondo's Polka and Sally's Hoppwaltz which also have ragtime elements.  You won't find these tunes anywhere else, and they really deserve to be played by more people.

Celestial Mountain Music’s All-In-One Jambook contains a country rag I like a lot called Saturday Night Breakdown.  Click here to listen to me playing this tune.  Janet Davis’ The Ultimate Mandolin Songbook has a transcription of Scott Joplin’s classic rag The Entertainer that almost makes this tune doable!

Paul Rosen of the Charlottesville, VA area contra dance band Floorplay has written many tunes that I’ve started to play, including Clouds Thicken, Critter’s Gone to Texas and Locust Tree.  Just last week I started to learn one he wrote called Elgin’s Rag, which has become my favorite rag.  Paul has posted the sheet music for all of the tunes on Floorplay’s Block Party album, including Elgin's Rag, here.

On a site called Old Time Mandolin there's the mandolin tab for B-flat Rag by the Madisonville String Band.  Paul Tyler transcribed Les Raber's version of Dill Pickle Rag for Oldtown School of Folk Music's Tune of the Week series.

There’s also a site called Dr. Fiddle with many transcriptions of rags, including Cumberland Blues by Doc Roberts and Duck Shoes Rag and Ruth’s Rag by the Grinnell Giggers.  Rags may be somewhat scarce, but with a little poking around you'll have more tunes in that syncopated style at your disposal.

Bonne Humeur by The Etcetera String Band - A Rare Musical Discovery

I love discovering a new band, album or style of music that I know is going to become one of my favorites for a long time to come.  Nowadays, I especially also love it if that discovery is something that is going to influence how and what I play on tenor banjo.  A few weeks ago I came across a previously unheard of recording that is one of the best discoveries I've made in years. That recording is Bonne Humeur by The Etcetera String Band.

The Etcetera String Band (Kevin Sanders and Dennis Pash, with Bob Ault and Pat Ireland) was a string ragtime ensemble from Kansas City active in the 1970's, 80's and 90's. At some point their banjo-mandolin player Dennis Pash began researching early Caribbean music to see if there would be any similarities between ragtime and the music of other places where there were African slaves.  Meanwhile, guitarist Kevin Sanders had taken an interest in the similarities between ragtime and some types of Cuban and Brazilian music.

This pursuit led them to the string band music of Creole Louisiana, Haiti, Trinidad, Martinique and the Virgin Islands.  Early Caribbean dance music blended European structure and melody with African rhythm and syncopation.  Bonne Humeur is their attempt to provide a sampling of instrumental string band music from various "New World Afro-French traditions": the meringue, beguine, paseo, coonjaille and more.  It is the only recording they made like this and I don't know of any others by anyone else quite like it.

On about half the tracks they had only written sources to work from - such as a basic melody-line from old books and folios like Slave Songs of the United States and Bayou Ballads, adding accompaniment and rhythm based on what they could surmise from recordings of related music. In other cases they worked from compositions by composers in the style such as Arthur Duroseau, Lionel Belasco and Ludovic Lamonthe.  Look those guys up.  Many books and recordings are referenced in Bonne Humeur's extensive liner notes and bibliography, so I have a lot more to learn about this subject.

The album features just Kevin Sanders and Dennis Pash, but they each play a wide variety of instruments to reconstruct the sound they envisioned these early string bands as having: Sanders on guitar, banjo-uke, trumpet and percussion, and Pash on mandolins, 4 and 5 string banjos, banjo-uke, accordion, pennywhistles, mbira, drums and percussion.  What I love about Bonne Humeur is it takes the "island" sound I became fond of through Jamaican Mento and puts it in the format of instrumental AA/BB tunes, which is the kind of music I like to play.

I'm currently working with a music transcriber named Nick DiSebastian to document the Etcetera String Band's arrangements in notation and mandolin tab, so as to more accurately begin playing them on tenor banjo (unfortunately I don't quite have the ear to do this on my own, but thankfully there are folks like Nick who can do this for a reasonable rate).  So far, Nick has transcribed 6 of the tunes and I'm impressed at the accuracy of his transcriptions and at how well these tunes sit on GDAE tuned tenor banjo.  That's probably a result of Dennis Pash being a banjo-mandolinist.  The melodies are no more complex than the Irish and Appalachian music I'm used to, and require less embellishment.

Finding more music of this sort would be great, but I haven't had much luck so far.  Kevin Sanders' new band The Rhythmia does a few of these kinds of tunes on each of their two albums, and I highly recommend those.  To hear more of Dennis Pash, check out his new band The Ragtime Skedaddlers, in which he presents ragtime banjo-mandolin about as good as it can possibly be done.  The videos I've included in this post are tunes from the Bonne Humeur album featuring Etcetera String Band alumni.  I think Bonne Humeur originally came out in 1990, although, sadly, it is now out print. However, you may be able to get a copy of it by contacting Kevin Sanders directly, as I did.

Ragtime Tenor Banjo

There’s a lot of discussion and misinformation on the web regarding what constitutes Irish tenor banjo.  Is it 17 frets or 19 frets?  Is it open back or resonator?  Is it GDAE tuning, CGDA tuning, or something else?  Is it all single-note melody or can there be some chordal playing?  Frankly, I don’t care.  I tune my tenor banjos in 5ths and like to play both Irish Celtic jigs and reels and Appalachian Old-Time fiddle tunes on them.  One thing for certain is that this is different than the chordal jazz banjo style.

I don’t know if it should be considered a subgenre of Old-Time or if it’s a category unto itself, but there’s a subset of mandolin-friendly tunes that

I would call “string ragtime” numbers.  These are tunes like L and N Rag, Stone’s Rag, Hawkins Rag, Pig Ankle Rag, Chinese Breakdown, At a Georgia Camp Meeting, Walking Uptown Foxtrot, Plowboy Hop, Eli Green’s Cakewalk, Alabama Jubilee, Ragtime Annie, and so on.  Even though there’s a jazzy tinge to this music, it would probably still fall more under the “Irish” way of playing:  single notes within a group situation.

This early 1900’s string band ragtime music is represented on the recordings of Adam Tanner, the Ragtime Skedaddlers, The Old 78’s, Leroy Larson, Kenny Hall, The Hot Seats and The Skirtlifters, to name a few somewhat recent examples.  In written form, many of these rags, cake walks, stomps and marches are featured in Steve Parker's Ragtime for Fiddle and Mandolin book.  In Irish music, the type of tune called a barn dance can also have some ragtime elements.

I do feel like these string ragtime numbers are distinct from the kind of music played by Eddy Davis, Cynthia Sayer, Elmer Snowden, Don Vappie, Tim Allan, Narvin Kimball, Buddy Wachter, Tyler Jackson, Carl LeBlanc and other jazz tenor banjo players.  Nonetheless, some knowledge of the chordal Dixieland jazz banjo style of playing cannot hurt when learning these ragtime tunes.  It is the quest and use of other ideas that round you out as a musician, and I’m not too strict with regard to one style or another.  Adding some of these ragtime tunes to my repertoire would be a nice challenge and complement to the Irish and Old-Time tunes I already play and they would be great for tenor banjo.