mike gregory - Posted - 08/12/2011:  14:18:27

This is just a great example of not being too mentally constricted by what the "proper" way of doing things is.

youtube.com/watch?v=H5hU2mswP7...re=relmfu

Looks like the builder just made a big enough cavity in the neck, and mounted a regular guitar peg with the gear INSIDE the depression, to make a 5th peg.

Sounds good, all else considered.

derwood400 - Posted - 08/12/2011:  14:39:30

Cool!  I like it.  

scooter46 - Posted - 08/12/2011:  14:51:26

Makes a good case for getting by with what you've got, after you hit your hand on it a few time you'll remember it's there. Does sound pretty good.

uncle.fogey - Posted - 08/12/2011:  15:07:09

Everything that goes around comes around.

Here's an album from c. 1960.  The 5th string is definitely a guitar peg.

Check it out!!! a longneck Mastertone with a guitar peg as the 5th peg.

A good album, by the way, if you can find one.  Features not only the longneck Mastertone, but a Jackson Pollman banjo-lute.

Jason Wilkerson - Posted - 08/12/2011:  18:05:32

The guitar peg on the Mastertone is turned forward, though.  As the guy admitted in the clip, the peg in the back is like a roadblock when trying to move from low on the neck to high.  What I can't figure out is why Walter Forbes is lying on the ground holding the banjo in this manner.  He looks like he's trying to give Lone Ranger-style light reflection signals from the banjo's nickel finish to some friends on the other side of the field.  That's way more weird than the guitar fifth string tuner.

Jim Yates - Posted - 08/12/2011:  18:26:33

I wonder if Walter Forbes knew Eric and Marshall of the New Dimensions album.  They also had inlays on every fret.

rcmoore - Posted - 08/12/2011:  20:30:35

I have been listening to Walter Forbes for years. He comes from the same part of the country (East Tennessee) that I was raised up in. Walter is still active and has a web site where you can order the above albumn and another one. Check him out here walterforbes.com/ballads.html
Bob Moore

uncle.fogey - Posted - 08/13/2011:  05:20:15

If you have that album, there's a section on the album notes on the back "instruments used on this album" and the banjo they claim was used is a "Florentine".  The pot on the longneck on the cover is not a Florentine, so that banjo must just be a prop for the photo.

Jason Wilkerson - Posted - 08/13/2011:  05:24:07

It has a strap attached.  A little unusual for a prop, you'd think.

mike gregory - Posted - 08/13/2011:  18:00:00

It could have been his other banjo, or a banjo belonging to a friend.

Since he ain't dead, maybe somebody could contact him and ask him if there's any Special Story involved.

uncle.fogey - Posted - 08/13/2011:  18:08:59

quote:

---

Originally posted by mike gregory

It could have been his other banjo, or a banjo belonging to a friend.

Since he ain't dead, maybe somebody could contact him and ask him if there's any Special Story involved.

---

Good point Mike!

Thanks.

Jonnycake White - Posted - 08/15/2011:  08:47:41

Yeah, I'll bet the story involves a smooth talking photographer..."Lay there on the ground...tilt the banjo up a little more...a little more... that's it."  Don't be too hard on Walter, that was 1960 when old-time was the newest thing and rock'n'roll had died young.  He had to have an Avant-Garde album cover.  Was the album issued on Vanguard?

Edited by - Jonnycake White on 08/15/2011 08:51:20

mikehalloran - Posted - 08/15/2011:  09:02:36

walterforbes.com/index.html

Very interesting!

uncle.fogey - Posted - 08/15/2011:  09:27:51

I've been both an art director and a commercial photographer.  No doubt, in 1962, that shot was taken with a view camera - 4x5 or 8x10, and the art director had a piece of acetate with the album cover layout drawn on it which the photographer taped to the ground glass on the back of the camera so they could see where the title was going to be - then they would compose the picture and it looks as if they tried to get young Walter in there as large as possible with the banjo running along the bottom.  The art director probably decided that the long neck banjo with all the inlays and the 5th peg sticking up was more interesting than the other banjo they had, and since it's foreshortened by perspective, the long neck worked better in the layout - a full peghead would have loomed too large in the foreground and "Gibson" would have dominated that section of the picture.   They probably took 4 or 5 shots.  It's definitely a posed, directed shot, not a "candid one of him just lying in the grass.

Having said all that, I bought that album in 1962, and at the time, I was struggling to learn to play like Dave Guard and Pete Seeger.  That album, for all its faults changed my banjo playing life.  There are some great tunes on it, like the Ballad of Lost Jimmie Whalen, Take this Hammer, played with a Jackson - Pollman banjo-lute, a great rendition of Pretty Polly, a lot of other ones, very traditional and standard, but I had not heard them, and I tried like heck to learn to play the banjo like that, which I eventually did.  The biggest problem with the album is that it has some dippy choral stuff like the Anita Kerr Singers in it sometimes.  I think it was the first time bluegrass music was presented in a folk music format (at least that I remember).