Banjos Quotes - Page 3

• Some people can't physically hear things. A kid that listens to Metallica or something can't hear that, because he's filled himself up with this stuff, he physically can't hear a banjo or a harp or something.

  Elvis Costello

  Kids, People, Stuff

  "Summit Talk". Option magazine Interview with Tom Waits, tomwaitsfan.com. July 1989.

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• Woodrell's storytelling is as melodic, jangly and energetic as a good banjo riff.... Sammy Barlach's story is a tragedy, but the telling of it is a pleasure.

  Valerie Sayers

  Tragedy, Stories, Storytelling

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• It seems like everyone's listening to fiddles and banjos.

  Ketch Secor

  Listening, Fiddle, Seems

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• In my banjo show with the Steep Canyon Rangers, I do do comedy during that show. It'd be absurd just to stand there mute and play 25 banjo songs.

  Steve Martin

  Song, Play, Comedy

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• I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines.

  Steve Martin

  Magic, Littles, Comedy

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• I've heard of people stopping their cars, having car wrecks, all kinds of things. But most of the banjo players I know had that moment when they heard Earl Scruggs. So, for me, it transcends the technique. It's the musician in him and his personality, his musical personality, such great taste, such great technique, very, very creative.

  Earl Scruggs

  Player, People, Car

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• I'm working on a script right about Civil War re-enactors who go back in time to the actual Civil War. It's kind of a big, crazy Back to the Future comedy. So, of course, it's the Civil War - I play the banjo. I was just having a conversation with one of the producers about some of the material and he was like, 'You know, we have to work in a scene where you play the banjo. And I was like I'll get behind that.

  Ed Helms

  Crazy, War, Play

  Source: movies.about.com

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• I happened to take a photo, and there was my wife, my dog and my banjo, all in the same shot - and I thought, "Oh, that's like a family portrait right there."

  Steve Martin

  Dog, Wife, Portraits

  Source: www.cnn.com

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• It's horrible for someone to listen to someone learning any instrument - when I was first learning the banjo, I used to have to go out and sit in the car, and even in the summertime I'd have to roll up the windows. Because you just couldn't practice a banjo or a fiddle with other people around. Unless they're being paid.

  Steve Martin

  Practice, People, Car

  "Q&A: Steve Martin and Edie Brickell". Interview with Kyle Anderson, ew.com. April 26, 2013.

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• . . . I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No.

  Laurie Anderson

  Book, Yes You Can, Ideas

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• I was 16 when I came to New York. I had graduated to a tenor banjo in the school jazz band, and it was kind of boring - just chords, chords, chords. Then my father took me to a mountain music and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and there I saw relatively uneducated people playing great music by ear.

  Pete Seeger

  New York, Father, School

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Country music isn't a guitar, it isn't a banjo, it isn't a melody, it isn't a lyric. It's a feeling.

  Waylon Jennings

  Country, Guitar, Feelings

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• I reside in a new colony for the Chinese-singing banjo player, with a population of one. At least I have something I have to do with my life.

  Abigail Washburn

  Player, Chinese, Singing

  "Obsessed: China" by Abigail Washburn, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 17, 2012.

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• He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo.

  Pete Seeger

  Country, Song, School

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

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• As I try to get around with a guitar, a banjo and a suitcase of high heels and dresses, I treasure that little ukulele.

  Valerie June

  High Heels, Guitar, Ukulele

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• I did a lot of things when I first started out. In order to be in show business, I juggled, I did magic tricks, cards tricks and I played the banjo.

  Steve Martin

  Order, Magic, Cards

  Source: www.cnn.com

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• This all came of a conversation I had with [John] Steinbeck once when we were standing in a men's room somewhere. Steinbeck asked me why I didn't play the banjo any more and I told him that went out with the high-button shoes.

  Eddie Condon

  Men, Play, Shoes

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• Being from New York, I wonder why am I inspired by bluegrass and Earl Scruggs? But when I look at the whole history of the banjo, I feel really good about it, including the Earl Scruggs part.

  Bela Fleck

  New York, Looks, Inspired

  Source: therumpus.net

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• And then Earl Scruggs comes along and transforms the banjo into a virtuosic modern instrument. For the first time, the Southern banjo style becomes the identity of the banjo, and everything from before is wiped off of people's consciousness by the power of that explosion.

  Bela Fleck

  People, Southern, Style

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I just naturally started to play music. My whole family played-my daddy played, my mother played. My daddy played bass, my cousin played banjo, guitar and mandolin. We played at root beer stands, like the .Drive-ins they have now, making $2.50 a night, and we had a cigar box for the kitty that we passed around, sometimes making fifty or sixty dollars a night. Of course we didn't get none of it, we kids.

  T-Bone Walker

  Mother, Cousin, Kids

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• My mother played a little bit of the old time clawhammer. She tuned the banjo up and picked one tune for me, and it just become natural to me. When she picked it, I just started and picked it, too.

  Ralph Stanley

  Mother, Tunes, Littles

  "Ralph Stanley, Bluegrass Legend, Dies At 89". "All Things Considered" with Ari Shapiro, www.npr.org. June 24, 2016.

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• There are a lot of chapters to the banjo's history. Part of it are the roots in Africa, where it's a more primitive instrument. Then it comes to the United States where it morphs into the slave music that they created here, which was very African in origin.

  Bela Fleck

  Roots, United States, Slave

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I first heard the banjo on the Beverly Hillbillies, and from then on I was banjo-conscious. But I didn't actually get one until my grandfather gave me one, almost by mistake. He knew I was playing a little bit of guitar. He saw a banjo at a flea market and bought it. I took it home with me and just never put it down. I was fifteen.

  Bela Fleck

  Mistake, Home, Guitar

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I think I'm getting better at being verbal. I used to have a lot of problems with it. I had my own little demons that I was fighting, and I used the banjo as an escape.

  Bela Fleck

  Fighting, Thinking, Get Better

  Source: therumpus.net

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• In a strange way, I don't have a job, so I have a lot of time on my hands. When I do work, it might be very concentrated, and it might be months where you're not really doing anything except maybe playing the banjo or writing something. You know, there's a lot of time in the day if you're not working 9 to 5.

  Steve Martin

  Jobs, Writing, Hands

  Source: www.cnn.com

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