BB Bowness Archives - Bluegrass Today

The 12 Days of Licksmas with Eli Gilbert & Friends

Attention banjo players and students! If you haven’t already discovered Eli Gilbert’s 12 Days of Licksmas videos, see that you do so post haste.

Eli is a young banjo player from Maine, just making it into the under 30 crowd, who has accomplished that most difficult of feats. He supports himself playing and teaching three finger banjo online. He’s a fine player himself, but with performance opportunities taken away this year, he has knuckled down and created a space for himself in the virtual world, providing lessons for others using Patreon.

As we have described before, Patreon is a site that allows artists and creators of every sort to easily monetize content online. Gilbert makes his banjo lesson videos, tablature, and demonstrations available to anyone willing to make recurring donations for as little as $1 per month. Of course, at that contribution level, you don’t get access to everything he posts, like those who contribute $25 each month. Those folks can utilize all the lessons and videos, and also participate in Eli’s lesson exchange program, where you can send him brief examples of your playing, and he will respond with a video offering critique, corrections, and answers to any questions you might pose.

All this for less than the cost of one private lesson each month.

But what about the 12 Days of Licksmas? As the name suggests, Eli has been offering a series of 12 videos this month, each with a new lick that is demonstrated on camera.

We’ll let him describe it.

“I started Licksmas last year with Marcel Ardans, who teaches bluegrass guitar on Youtube, as a way to cross promote to each others’ audiences. At the time I was just beginning to teach online, and I saw it as a unique way to put my name out there as an online educator. Now, one year later, I’m making my living primarily from teaching online via my Patreon page. I’m extraordinarily lucky that my living, and one of the things I’m most passionate about, hasn’t been affected substantially by the pandemic.

But that hasn’t been the case for most musicians, especially in our corner of the industry. Beyond that, the world of music education and performance continues to move into a digital space, requiring artists to master not only their craft, but also videography, audio recording, video editing, and perhaps the most difficult, building an online audience.

So this year, when I was thinking about the possibility of another iteration of Licksmas, I realized I could use it to introduce my audience to some young, extremely-talented, award-winning, banjo players that up until recently were often spending more time on stages than on YouTube. These are people that I went to school with, jam with at festivals, learn from, people that are a really important part of my banjo community.”

Gilbert has chosen his collaborators well. Helping out this year are BB Bowness, banjo player with Mile Twelve; Tabitha Benedict, from Cup O’Joe, Midnight Skyracer, and The Foreign Landers; Tray Wellington, ETSU student, formerly with Cane Mill Road; Tyler Steagall with The High Water Line; and banjo wunderkind Max Allard.

To help get the word out, all of them created a Facebook and YouTube video for each of the 12 days, demonstrating the licks and phrases, even though each banjoist only contributed two licks for Licksmas 2020. So when it was Eli’s lick, Max, Tabitha, BB, Tyler, and Tray also made a video, meaning six Facebook and YouTube videos for every lick.

It’s a great way to showcase these outstanding players, and learn a handful of new licks during the Christmas season. Given their age and the music education these pickers have received, the licks tend toward the modern sound, but most are demonstrated within a bluegrass context.

Here are a few as examples…

Plus one from our host…

Be sure to check out all of these fine young players online, and don’t miss the chance to pick up all the new phrases in The 12 Days of Licksmas.

California Banjo Extravaganza goes virtual for 2020

Normally at this time of year, west coast banjo player, educator, and promoter, Bill Evans, is finishing preparations for his annual California Banjo Extravaganza. This would involve a series of live shows in the Golden State, featuring a number of top banjo pickers with a crack band, and a workshop featuring all and sundry at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley.

Evans, a native Virginian, had long recognized that there was a wealth of banjo talent back east that rarely has the chance to perform along the Pacific coast. So he organized these yearly pilgrimages, both to give audiences out west a chance to hear some stellar artists, and to give the players exposure in a different market.

But this year, with COVID-19 restrictions still in effect, the 9th annual California Banjo Extravaganza will go online for an all-virtual presentation. A terrific lineup is in the offing, featuring the remarkable BB Bowness, banjo player with Mile Twelve, classical banjoist John Bullard, old time banjo stylist Allison de Groot, and Evans himself.

The four banjo artists have each prepared a pre-recorded concert, and all will be streamed online on Saturday, November 14, at 5:00 p.m. (PST). Admission is set up as a “pay-what-you-wish” basis, with a recommended donation of $20. Those in the position to offer greater support are welcome to do so, and those with limited means can offer what they can.

Tickets are available in advance through the Freight & Salvage online, where the concert will be streamed.

Just ahead of the show, there will be a banjo mini camp from 12:00 – 4:00 p.m. (PST), offered via Zoom. Registered attendees can not only participate in the workshop live, they will also have access to the camp videos after they are completed. A fee of $25 gets you access to all three sessions, one each with Bill, BB, and Allison.

Registration for the mini camp can also be obtained at the Freight & Salvage web site.

Bill put together this explainer video with snippets from each of the four performances as a sample of what will be in store on Saturday night.

Full details about these events on November 14 can be found online.

This is a rare opportunity for banjo lovers worldwide to witness an event generally only available to live audiences in California. It will be a good’n.

Welcome new US citizen, BB Bowness

One more banjo player for the good ol’ US of A!

Last week Catherine “BB” Bowness, banjo player with Mile Twelve, took the oath of allegiance and was sworn in as a newly minted US citizen. The New Zealand native has been living in the States since 2012. She came here after receiving a Bachelors degree in jazz performance at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, the first banjo player ever to complete the program.

It wasn’t her first trip over, as she had come earlier as a recipient of the Frank Winter memorial award, which covered expenses for her to travel to the US and study with banjo icons Alan Munde, Tony Trischka, and Bill Evans.

She tells us the 2012 visit was because of a special arrangement between New Zealand and the US.

“Within one year of your college graduation, you can apply for a 1 year work visa in the States. I don’t think many people know about this program, but I think it’s still available. Once I was here, I was able to get a 3 year O-1 work visa.”

Bowness set herself up in Boston, and quickly found a home among the contemporary bluegrass scene in town. She was soon accepting private students and playing with a number of groups in the area.

In 2013 she was chosen to attend the Acoustic Music Seminar in Savannah, Georgia, a highly-selective honor that allowed her to study closely with a number of other top string musicians. Then in 2015, she won the FreshGrass banjo competition in northwestern Massachusetts.

Real prominence came when she emerged as a co-founder of Mile Twelve, who have since gone on to establish themselves as a major international touring band on the strength of their two self-produced albums.

BB says that once her citizenship application was in, the whole thing went pretty easily.

“It was a surprisingly quick process for me. I stayed on top of it all. But I got called in for my meeting while I was teaching at Kaufman Kamp, so I had to get a sub and head back to Boston. The meeting times are chosen randomly, so if I refused it, I could have been another year waiting. And with all the traveling we do, it could have come while we were out of the country.”

After this meeting, which is in the form of an interview with some straightforward questions, you wait a couple of weeks for the next induction ceremony. Hers came on June 20, and the rest is history.

I was leaning towards suggesting that New Zealand’s loss was America’s gain, but she will be able to retain her native citizenship and use her NZ passport when visiting home.

Now that she’s a full member of the United States, Bowness says it doesn’t really feel much different.

“I had already been paying taxes and had a social security number. Now I can vote, and be called up for jury duty.

But reflecting on how long I’ve been here living in Boston, it feels pretty nice to be accepted.

Oh… and no more lawyers fees!”

Congratulations and welcome to new citizen, BB Bowness!

Banjo Summit launches in Colorado

Colorado banjoist Jake Schepps will be no stranger to Bluegrass Today readers, as both a noted player and a correspondent/reviewer.

Though he came up in the bluegrass world, Jake’s interests have since expanded to include modern classical music on the five string, a milieu in which he has recorded and performed this past few years. He’s even commissioned works from contemporary composers, getting them to write for an acoustic string band.

With many more banjo players and students opening themselves to non-bluegrass performance, Schepps has decided to launch a new instructional camp designed specifically for progressive playing styles.

Billed as The Banjo Summit, the workshop weekend will be held for the first time May 11-13 in Fort Collins, CO. In addition to Jake, the faculty will include several other prominent pickers who focus or specialize in new approaches to the instrument.

The teaching lineup for 2018 is Jayme Stone, Wesley Corbett, Jake Schepps, Ben Krakauer, and BB Bowness with Ross Martin assisting on guitar. Classes will run from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. that Friday and Saturday, and 10:00-3:00 on Sunday. A faculty concert will be held on Saturday a 8:00 p.m.

All the seminars will be on 3 finger playing, and there is no track for beginners. The organizers are requesting that all enrollees submit a video of themselves playing to ensure that each student is at a level where they are ready to benefit from the instruction to be offered.

Schepps believes that the banjo world is ready for a workshop like this.

“I’ve taught at a number of camps where the reaction to anything other than a traditional bluegrass approach is often, ‘How did you do that?’ The focus of the Banjo Summit is treating the banjo as a musical instrument unto itself, instead of solely one voice within a bluegrass band. It can be used to play so much more music — jazz, world, swing, or classical. Learning techniques that are helpful in playing other genres can elevate your approach to playing traditional music.

The demand for a more comprehensive banjo education has never been greater and the instructors selected for the Banjo Summit represent the brain trust of today’s progressive banjo community.”

Tuition for the Summit is $450, not including accommodations or food. Lodging suggestions are listed on their web site, along with more information about the faculty.