I don’t know how I missed this banjo savant. Before you click on the vid below, here’s a snippet of Mean Mary’s bio from her own blog:
‘Mean’ Mary James, youngest of 6 children, was born in Geneva, AL though her family lived in FL, a couple miles below the Alabama line. Her mom (author Jean James) and dad (WWII veteran William James) lived a very nomadic lifestyle. On one occasion they packed up the family (Mary was 4 at the time) and moved from Florida to North Minnesota, near the Canadian border, to rough it in the wilds.
[…]
For 3 months they lived in a tent built from a roll of Visqueen they’d brought with them. During this time they built a log cabin using only an axe, hand saws, and the trees around them. They cooked their food on a campfire, got their water from a deep hole they’d dug, and read at night by the northern lights shining through the clear walls of their plastic tent. On one occasion their tent was mauled by a large, 7’1” black bear that Mary’s mom, Jean, was forced to shoot.The tent soon became unbearably cold and when they finally moved into their almost completed log cabin winter was upon them. Without electricity or running water, and cold enough to freeze water 5 feet from the only source of heat (an old wood stove), the family spent many hours reading books by kerosene lamp and enjoying the great outdoors (cutting firewood!).
She’s got a vid on the utoobage playing the fastest version of Cripple Creek I’ve ever heard. Then I found this song that she wrote and performed with her husband Frank James: Joy.
It includes snips from Ode To Joy with a transition that may have been borrowed from John Hartford‘s classic Steam Powered Aeroplane. I like it.
And before anyone corrects me on the chorus lyrics for SPA pasted in the teaser, “oil-finish” was the way I heard it and I like it better than the original. Just a-pickin’ and a-flickin’ on The Overnight Open Thread.
[Update: This is the best banjo-flavored chase scene ever.]
Tags: banjo, bluegrass, Mean Mary, Music, Overnight Open Thread, picking
