The cover of the October issue of Banjo NewsLetter features an elder statesman of the five string, and a brash young newcomer.
Marc Pruett, currently working with Balsam Range, is the subject of a lengthy interview in this month’s edition. It’s a timely inclusion, as the band saw the title track of their current CD, Trains I Missed, selected as the 2011 Song of the Year at Thursday’s IBMA Awards show.
From the article…
“When I was a boy, I would come home from school and my mother would let me listen to country music on the radio. It was a little program called the Cornbread Matinée. One day they featured Flatt and Scruggs, and it just went all through me. They played Earl’s Breakdown and Flint Hill Special and I asked my mother, ‘What is that instrument that man’s playing?’ She said, ‘Son, that’s a banjo,’ and I said, ‘Well, I want one for Christmas.’
There was a perfection in Scruggs’s banjo playing that just jumped right into my heart and said, ‘That’s part of what you are too, pal.’ ”
The cover also includes a photo of young Johnny Mizzone of Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, whose new album, America’s Music, has just been released.
You can find more details about Banjo Newsletter online.
