Hidden Talent Earns Beans

Last week, I blazed through my first professional gig as a banjo picker.

Well, not exactly “blazed.” Two or three songs petered out half-way through when I forgot how they went.

And not exactly “professional” either, which implies that I actually accepted money. It was an outdoor wedding reception, and I accepted payment strictly in barbecue and side dishes, which means I was paid exactly what my performance was worth (beans).

Still, it was a gig. And let me tell you, I have paid some righteous dues to get to this point in my career.

I first picked up the banjo at age 18 for the reason that most young men take up music - to attract girls. What I didn’t realize at the time was electric guitarists attract girls and rock drummers attract girls, but banjo players attract girls who say, “The banjo? I hate that instrument.”

Undaunted, I pursued the banjo for strictly aesthetic reasons. I was a student of American history and American folk music, and I was fascinated by the banjo’s development from African gourd instrument to Southern slave instrument to Appalachian bluegrass instrument. Plus, I admired the genius of Grandpa Jones on “Hee Haw.”

No, actually, I admired the genius of Earl Scruggs playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” from the “Bonnie and Clyde” soundtrack, not to mention that other masterpiece of the Flatt and Scruggs repertoire, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”

So I bought a banjo in a pawnshop and began to take lessons. I fell in love with the instrument’s hard-driving, ringing sound and its almost harpsichord-like arpeggios. My roommates, however, soon grew disenchanted with my harpsichord-like arpeggios. They told me that the only banjo sound they could truly enjoy would be the sound of mine, fed into a gasoline-powered chipper-shredder.

So I took to tramping out into the forest far from anyone and practicing under a tree. This proved to be the perfect place to practice such a rural-sounding instrument, although occasionally I got the sense that the trees would have preferred some John Denver.

I soon joined some other bluegrass-loving enthusiasts in a band called “The Rising Gorge String Band.” We actually played a few parties, but I don’t really count those as professional gigs because we weren’t actually hired to play. We weren’t actually even invited to play. We had acquired a spotty reputation because our upright bass player kept spitting Copenhagen on people’s rugs.

The Rising Gorge String Band broke up soon after. However, as I advanced through adulthood, I continued to play the banjo, often serenading my young children with soothing bedtime lullabies such as “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”

“Daddy’s playing the banjo!” the children would squeal. “Mommy! Make him stop!”

I later took up the guitar, a much more versatile instrument than a banjo. The banjo is OK for bluegrass and old-timey music, but it is ill-suited for certain other musical genres: blues, bebop, disco, death metal, show tunes, the Polonaises of Chopin.

Yet I continued to strap on the old banjo for certain special occasions, including one recent March when a fellow musical artist and I climbed into the back of a pickup truck and played a banjo-and-accordion version of “Louie Louie” in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. (This parade does not require auditions.)

Still, it was quite a surprise when I learned that my wife Carol had volunteered me to play the banjo as background music at a friend’s wedding reception. I love my wife more than anything on Earth, but I was forced to question her quite thoroughly on the following point: What, exactly, possessed her to think I had suddenly become Grandpa Jimmy the Banjo Man, available for weddings, hoedowns and bar mitzvahs?

Still, I was a little bit flattered, so I played the gig. Despite a few rough spots, I think it went over well, especially a rousing version of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”

The funny thing is, many of my closest friends were unaware of my talents as a banjo artiste. One of my colleagues was especially impressed.

“You play the banjo?” she said. “I hate that instrument.”

, DataTimes MEMO: To leave a message on Jim Kershner’s voice-mail, call 459-5493. Or send e-mail to jimk@spokesman.com, or regular mail to Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review