I love my gourd banjo, even though I don’t play it as much as I’d like.
My instrument was made by Flatfoot Johnny who works in South London. He uses lots of reclaimed materials for his instruments and I have several. You can check him out here – https://www.flatfootjohnny.com
The tunes are very common in the minstrel tradition and date from the middle of the nineteenth century.
I performed these pieces as part of my presentation The Banjo’s Journey at The Traditions Festival in 2017.
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Leslie Sarony sings this one but he didn’t write it.
I love the song though and I’m in the process of working it up on the banjo – I’ll post a video when I have one.
It was recorded in October 1932.
Here’s the sheet music if it helps anyone – I copied it on a phone so it’s a bit wobbly.
Dandelions is a powerful protest song about the treatment and resistance of ordinary soldiers during the first world war.
It was written by my friend Steve O’Donoghue. I’ve heard him sing it at the folk club many times.
I approached the No Glory group who campaign against the glorification of war and they agreed it would make a powerful statement as part of their Somme centenary campaign.
Steve sings the song unaccompanied but No Glory gave me a modest budget and I arranged and recorded the song with a group. No Glory then put together this powerful video to go with it.
I blogged about the process of the recording in this post on the Steve White & the Protest Family blog – https://protestfamily.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/dandelions/