Feature Article - Fall 1995
Bill Emerson: Distinctive Stylist
by John Lawless
Over the course of his extensive career, Bill Emerson's recordings and live performances have helped define the role of the banjo in bluegrass. He played in the U.S. Navy's Country Current band for 20 years, retiring with a pension. Today, he continues as a performing artist and composer, coming up with new tunes and fresh approaches to bluegrass banjo:
"I’ve never quit applying ideas and inspirations that I get from other forms of music to the banjo. As time goes by, I’m even able to take a new approach to the old stuff that I’ve been playing since day one. It’s always fresh and new to me."
That may be due to Bill's well-known ability to synthesize influences from outside bluegrass into his banjo playing. From his marvelous instrumental treatment of Paul McCartney’s "Yesterday" with The Country Gentlemen, to his current fascination with Tex-Mex music, the Emerson sound has always been marked by sounds that might have seemed foreign to the idiom - that is, until you hear him.
"I take ideas and inspiration wherever they’re available. Whether it’s being somewhere, being around somebody, hearing something, seeing something -- I might see something on TV that would inspire me to write an instrumental. It might be something that had Cajun music in the background, and all of a sudden I’m big on Cajun influences in my playing."
Despite the varied influences, Bill has always kept his focus on how these sounds can be incorporated into bluegrass banjo music, as opposed to forcing them in just because they are new or different. Of course, not every idea is workable and not every inspiration pans out, but a case could be made that Bill’s music is in large part successful due to his insistence that the music he plays be well suited to the banjo.
"I always approach new ideas specifically as a banjo player. Right from the moment it enters my senses, a new idea goes directly to the banjo. If it doesn’t fit the banjo, I drop it."
Like many musicians, Bill reports having gone through periods of frustration with his playing. Over the course of so long a career, he could remember times when he seemed like he was in a rut, and everything started to sound the same,
"...especially when you’re stuck with one band. It seems like you get hooked into whatever they are doing, and it just becomes difficult to explore other things.
"I know that my playing has changed over the years, but what has stayed the same is the basic philosophy about the music that I have carried with me. I still cling to the basic things that I learned way back when, and I still try to emphasize those things. You’ve got to learn the basics, even though I’ve seen a lot of people who want to skip over that, looking for the instant gratification. You know, you really can’t do that. You have to learn the timing, the tone, the touch ... how to stay in tune, how to set up your banjo and get the things out of it that you want to get. Just learning a whole bunch of other people’s licks won’t give you everything you need as time goes on."
"Maybe that is just a reflection of the times - everybody wants everything now. It doesn’t really happen that way. No matter what you’re doing - if you’re in sports, the arts, whatever. If you want to be a master painter, you have to spend a lot of years being an apprentice, and learning. The same thing holds true with music. You can’t just pick up the banjo and learn a whole bunch of tunes, skip the basics, and expect to be successful at it."
Noticing the various instructional methods available to today’s students, and the widespread availability of quality instructors, Bill is confident that bluegrass banjo will continue to thrive. He points out how much easier it is to learn in today’s environment, as compared to when he first took up the banjo.
"Nowadays, there are so many places to go hear bluegrass music, and you can go right up to the performers. That’s one of the great things about bluegrass - the artists aren’t protected by guards. If you want to go talk to Elton John, forget it, but you can go stand right next to Sammy Shelor, watch him while he’s warming up, talk to him in person, and ask him questions. What could be better?"
Another pet peeve would seem to be the ongoing argument about whether tablature is an acceptable way to learn the banjo - or even beneficial as opposed to harmful.
"Being a banjo teacher myself for a couple of years, I’ll have to say that I could not have taught without tablature. I would have been stealing people’s money! You have to give people a big boost at the beginning, and tablature is definitely the way to do that. Beyond that, if you want to advance beyond the most basic bluegrass banjo style, if you want to approach the playing of guys like Scott Vestal, Tony Trischka, and Bela Fleck, you’re are going to have to learn to read tab."
"Even if you are only interested in basic bluegrass - the 'Cripple Creek,' 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' type thing - and you don’t have professional aspirations, I think that in order to play with other people, you are going to have to learn a certain amount of tablature. I don’t see how anybody today could think of not being able to read it. I learned by ear, and I scorned tab for awhile - ‘Aw, I don’t need that’ - but I did. I used to wear records out, trying to learn what Earl was doing. Listening, putting the needle back ... listening, putting the needle back. I would do it for hours and, if I had only had tab back then, I could have learned it in fifteen minutes."
Emerson and Stelling
Along with Alan Munde (see Vol. 1, #2), Bill Emerson is surely the most vocal, visible, and enthusiastic supporter of Stelling banjos in bluegrass today. Bill pulls no punches in singing the praises of Geoff Stelling and his banjos. Their association has resulted in several Emerson signature models, notably the Bill Emerson Red Fox, currently the most popular model in the Stelling line.
"Enthusiastic Stelling supporter? Yes I am! I’m very enthusiastic about Stelling. Geoff’s instruments are very high quality. There are a lot of quality materials and quality workmanship that goes into them, and they are different from all other mainstream banjos. I’m speaking of Gibson in particular and Rich & Taylor - which is almost identical to Gibson. Stelling is a different thing." "As a matter of fact, many people can’t handle a Stelling. I’ve seen innumerable people try them for a while and give up, because they were trying to approach it as they would approach another instrument. It’s like a Martin guitar player trying to play rhythm on a Telecaster. The Stelling is a loud, bright, powerful banjo. If you learn the instrument and learn what they’ll do, and learn how to make them do what you want them to do, then you won’t have any problems. It’s like riding a wild horse. You have to learn to break them and control them."
"I was a Gibson guy for twenty-something odd years, so it took me a while to figure out how to manage a Stelling. Once you learn it though, the Stelling has a lot of advantages. They have a compensated nut, they note very true, and you never have to worry about enough volume. A lot of other good pickers have played Stelling too, and have been very successful. Alison Brown, Tony Trischka, Sonny Osborne, Little Roy Lewis, and of course Alan Munde all got a great sound from Stellings. Plus, Don Reno, for the last ten years of his life played a Stelling."
Bill has made a study of banjo construction, and the way various materials and construction methods can have an impact on tone and volume. In fact, he made many suggestions along these lines during the development phase of the Stelling Bill Emerson signature models. He has also visited the manufacturing facilities of most major banjo builders. "When you think of a factory, you think of this thing with smokestacks, hammers banging, and wheels turning. The Stelling factory is not really a factory, per se. It’s more like a shop. I think he has three employees outside of himself. I’ve visited Flatiron, up in Bozeman, Montana where they make the Gibson mandolins and guitars. That would be a factory. Even more so than Gibson Nashville - where they paint the guitars pink and purple. When I went to Gibson Nashville, they had this one little corner for working on banjos, and there was Greg Rich working away. You could see that the banjo did not play a very important role in their current plans."
Bluegrass Banjo Playing in the '90s,
Bill describes banjo playing as he sees it today:
"It all sounds alike to me; I don’t know what else to say. Everyone seems like they sound the same -- the same tone, the same approach, and the same licks. I can’t really identify for sure even the best players when I hear them. When I was learning, you had Earl, Don Reno, and Ralph Stanley and you could sure tell those guys apart. They were all great, but they all had their own way of playing - their own tone, their own style, and their own approach to playing the banjo."
"Earl, of course, was the major influence on today’s influential pickers -- J.D., Sonny, and me -- I guess. We were fortunate enough to see Earl and really hear and study him. J.D., who seems to have had the biggest influence on today’s pickers, just managed to take what he learned from Earl and carry it a little bit further by doing it his own way. Now we’ve got all these other guys trying to sound like J.D., and somehow they don’t quite get it."
"Jimmy Martin used to say ‘You could put ‘em all in a sack and shake ‘em up; and when you dumped ‘em out they’d all be the same.’ That’s what I get from so many current banjo players. You can’t say they don’t play well; it’s just the same formula, and almost nobody stands out. I feel like it sort of homogenizes the whole thing and waters down the effect of the banjo."
"Bela Fleck has a unique sound and a world of talent, with abilities far beyond the average professional banjo player. There is almost no limit to what he can do, but he has taken that to another idiom. Same way with Alison Brown. Those people are currently ‘out of the picture,’ and aren’t really doing a lot for bluegrass music. I think that their art simply demanded that they take their music in another direction."
Despite the popularity of Bela’s music in non-bluegrass circles, Bill still insists that the primary place for the banjo to grow and thrive is in bluegrass bands playing bluegrass music.
"That’s the way I see five-string banjo. I don’t care if they have banjo with the Philharmonic Orchestra. If 'Highway 40 Blues' by Ricky Skaggs has got banjo in there, that’s surely OK with me, but that is not really going to turn me on. What grabs me in the gut is The Lonesome River Band’s latest record, or J.D. Crowe’s latest record - or something by Jim and Jesse or an old Flatt & Scruggs cut. That’s what grabs me. One of the main elements of that sound is the five-string banjo, and the way it fits in there with the rest of the instruments and voices."
Bill is especially dismissive of those in bluegrass who seem to be trying to merge the music with mainstream country music, with hopes of eventually receiving more radio play and popular acceptance. He feels the limited acceptance already achieved in the larger, national market is about as far as anyone can expect it to go.
"If you think that you are going to start hearing The Lonesome River Band and Del and The Nashville Bluegrass Band on Top 40 country radio, you’re dead wrong, because that will never happen. It’s a grass roots type music, and it’s always going to be that way. They have got to get this idea out of their head that all of a sudden, bluegrass is going to jump to the forefront like folk music did, and it’s going to be the biggest rage, and everybody is going to be worshiping Jim & Jesse. That’s just not going to occur."
One player that Bill especially sees as having the right combination of ‘where it’s going’ and ‘where it’s been,’ is Tony Trischka.
"He is a guy with the same kind of ability as Bela Fleck or Alison Brown. As a matter of fact, I think he could take a lot of credit for helping those people along - being a big influence on them. But, by the same token, Tony is a dynamite straight ahead banjo player, and a lot of people don’t know that. He can lay it down just as clean and smooth as anybody - and even more so than Bela. Tony could go out with Del McCoury or the Lonesome River Band and tear it up." "I think that it is a responsibility for us banjo players - especially players with exceptional abilities - to continue to contribute to bluegrass music as it is, and bring it along as it has been brought along. They have done that up to now - guys like Sammy Shelor, Rob McCoury, Scott Vestal and others. They are doing what needs to be done, and we need more guys to pick up the banner and carry it forward."
Bill Emerson Today
Bill has freelanced since retiring from the Navy, recording and performing the music he chooses, with the people he chooses.
"Having achieved the goal of going in the Navy and retiring with a pension, I now have the freedom to lay back, and not have to go work as a cab driver. I can do my art at my leisure, pick and choose the jobs I do, and who I want to play with. Needless to say, this really enhances my ability to make quality music."
Through associations with Tony Rice, Pete Goble, and Wayne Taylor, he has made a mark on contemporary bluegrass that is nearly as strong as the one he made years earlier with Jimmy Martin and The Country Gentlemen.
In the spring of 1996, his next instrumental album, Banjo Man, will be released on Pinecastle/Webco Records. This project will contain a combination of old and new, with several remastered cuts from older Emerson & Goble records, a couple of additional, unreleased cuts from the Gold Plated Banjo sessions, and six new songs to be recorded this fall.
Bill has also returned to the band format, and will record in the future with Bill Emerson & The New Group. This band is made up of Mark Newton on guitar, Emory Lester on mandolin, and Bobby Goff on bass.
"The material we do with The New Group won’t be traditional, necessarily, but the approach will be. It will be as commercially pleasing as we can get it, as far as bluegrass goes. We’re not trying to strike out in any new directions. We just want to fit into what people want to hear today."
Keep an eye out for The New Group, as they plan to tour throughout the U.S. in 1996.
Looking back on his many years in bluegrass, Bill was unable to think of any goals that had not been met.
"No, I guess I’ve done what I set out to do. When I started, I just wanted to be able to play a banjo. It was something that really captured my imagination and, at the time, it would have been beyond my wildest dream to gain any kind of recognition. When I would go see the professional banjo pickers I would think, ‘If I could just be one of those guys...’ That would have been my dream." "Now, I have guys come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate my work, and how much I influenced their learning. Shucks - that really makes me feel good. But I just do what I do and, if you like it, good, and if you don’t, that’s OK too." "I realize that I’m certainly not the best banjo player in the world, probably not even in the state of Virginia, and maybe not even in Fairfax County. But I do consider myself to be a professional, and I try to present my music, or the music of whoever I’m with, to the people who are listening to it or buying it, in the best way I know how. If there’s a young guy out there who doesn’t think I’m any good, that’s OK with me. Let’s hear what he’s got to say. Let’s see how he looks after 35 years in the business."
Bill Emerson on Banjo Set-Up
"Head tension is important, though not as absolutely critical as some people make it. I would want to stress that not only can you tighten the head, but you can loosen it as well. With the heads that are made today, you can tighten them pretty tight, and not worry about them breaking so, it’s an easy thing to keep on tightening it until you know it’s too tight - when the tone starts to thin out. Then you can loosen it back up until you find the optimum tension and tone. Don’t be locked into tightening it only." "You don’t want to put too much stress on the coordinator rods, trying to get more string height, or get the strings real close to the neck. It’s much better to deal with it with a different height bridge. That’s how the 11/16’’ bridge came about. So many banjos were coming from the factory with the strings laying right on the fingerboard that you had to overstress the rim to get the proper action without buzzing. Between Snuffy Smith and Geoff Stelling - who designed the Smith bridge - they came up with the taller bridge." "There are a lot of very good after-market bridges that can dramatically improve the sound of your banjo. Wadsworth, Smith, Stelling and many others are better made, with better wood. If you are not satisfied with the tone you’re getting, check out the bridges the pros are using, and give them a try." "Set the banjo up the way it’s supposed to be set up. Don’t try anything radical. Don’t put pie pans in the resonator, or put it in the oven - I did that once. Don’t do that! If you can’t get the tone you want, go get another banjo