Support the name of the game as Dusty Banjos launch debut CD

Date Published: {J}

A project which began in the Crane Bar in 2002 when three adult learner banjo players came together to offer each other some moral and musical support, has now evolved to become one of the biggest success stories in traditional music locally.

The Dusty Banjos, as the three banjo beginners called themselves, have grown over the years to become a forceful community group playing a wide variety of instruments including fiddle, flute, mandolin, whistle, concertina, guitar, harmonica, accordion, drums. . . and of course, banjo.

The members meet once a week in the city for a student session in the Western Hotel, Prospect Hill, while there are also open sessions on Thursdays in Rabbitts of Forster Street and in Áras na nGael on the first Saturday of the month. Several of the group also play regular sessions in Oliver’s Bar, Cleggan.

Next Monday, November 23, the Dusty Banjos enter a new phase when their debut CD, entitled Dusty Banjos Live at the Crane, will be launched by well-known Inisbofin musician and regular Crane performer Johnny O’Halloran. The recording, featuring 48 of the group’s members, was funded by a grant from the Arts Council under the Deis scheme for traditional arts, and was recorded at the well-known music venue in January, explains Mary Lovett, of the music organisation, Community Music Crew, who was a key figure in establishing the Dusty Banjos when she was beginning the banjo in 2002.

The original target audience was adult pupils who were coming back to music, she says.

“If you are learning an instrument as an adult there aren’t that many support structures, so the uptake has been great and it means that people don’t feel as though they are isolated.”

The membership is fairly diverse, she adds. “There are a lot of Irish adults and we’d also have people who have come to Galway for a few months and want to get involved.”

Membership of the Dusty Banjos is about being in a team and helping each other, says Mary. While it’s not for complete beginners, “we do try to make room for people at all levels”. As part of that, sheet music and recordings are available for members.

The nature of the project means that membership of the Dusty Banjos changes regularly. Some people who join, get good very quickly, and move on from there. And, says Mary, the group gets a lot of people who are good on one instrument, but who want to learn another, and that makes for greater diversity.

The musicians on the CD are mostly the current members, although also some people from abroad, who were previously involved, returned for the recording in January.

That came about when the group applied a year ago to the Deis scheme in the Arts Council,” says Mary, explaining that the CD proposal was put together by group member, Heather Greer, a driving force behind the recording. “We wanted to do a CD because the group is good.”

She’s right about that. The album, which includes a selection of jigs, reels, hornpipes, and polkas, is high-energy stuff, and if you close your eyes, you could actually be in the middle of a lively session.“We picked a good selection of tunes and practised a lot of them and then selected the ones for the album that came out best on the night,” says Mary.

There are 14 tracks on the recording – all tunes. Despite the lack of songs on the CD – which was mostly for practical reasons – the Dusty Banjos welcome singers to their sessions and they don’t have to be strictly trad performers.

Stressing that the group is open to many influences Mary says, “there are lots of foreign instruments coming and going”, including everything from continental accordions to Japanese banjos and, occasionally jazz instruments.

“It’s non-competitive, about making people welcome and helping each other,” she emphasises. The album fulfilled a long-held dream for Mary, but making it was a more complex process than she or Heather Greer originally realised, she says. “It was an incredible amount of work. After the recording, there was the mixing and the mastering in studio. We had to find a company to produce it. Then we had to decide on the art work [for the sleeve], and there’s the whole promotion aspect.”

The musicians involved hope that, as well as being enjoyable to listen to, “it’ll also be a valuable learning tool for student musicians everywhere”.

Given the work involved in the production of the CD and the likelihood of cutbacks in Arts Council schemes, it looks like it could be a while before there’s another one in the pipeline. The Dusty Banjos invited melodeon and accordion player Johnny O’Halloran to perform the launch because so many of the learners like to play with him.

“He is very supportive – he understands about people learning and gives them a chance,” says Mary.

The group hope to target the Christmas market with this lively CD which costs €15. Admission to the launch is free to all, and an invite is extended to those learner musicians, who might like to participate in the session. Like the group and the album, this promises to be a real community event and is well worth checking out. Doors for the launch are at 8pm.