The 12th Annual Showcase of Traditional Banjo Styles featuring 4 of Canada’s Top Pickers

Chris Quinn - Scruggs Style Maestro

Chris Coole & Arnie Naiman - Clawhammer and Old Time Style Gurus

Brian Taheny - Irish Tenor Phenom

with a spectacular array of special guests

 

Chris Quinn is the multi-award winning banjo player for The Foggy Hogtown Boys.  He has performed on more than 125 recordings as a side-man or featured artist–including 5 projects with The Foggy Hogtown Boys. Chris has performed at festivals and concerts all over the U.S. and Canada as well as having toured internationally.

With more than 25 years experience, he is also a highly acclaimed instructor who is equally comfortable working one on one or with larger groups; Chris even conducted a banjo workshop in a bomb shelter in the middle east once. Banjo Newsletter has published featured articles on Chris as well as tablature for a few of Chris’ original tunes.

During his career, Chris has performed with One Horse Town, Heartbreak Hill, Luther Wright and the Wrongs, Vassar Clements, Kenny Baker, and Bill Monroe. Although Chris is best known for his work on banjo, he also plays guitar, mandolin, and acoustic bass.

“…Quinn shows that he has chops to spare!” Bluegrass Unlimited, July 2003.

“Drive is an essential characteristic of traditional bluegrass banjo playing and Chris Quinn has it in spades. Chris is a rock solid Scruggs style banjo player who throws in melodic constructs as needed and doesn’t miss a note along the way. Anyone needing a clinic in rhythm and timing; pay heed” William H. Montague – Banjo Newsletter July 2003.

 

 

Chris Coole was first attracted to the sounds of old-time and bluegrass music as a teenager growing up in Toronto, Ontario. At seventeen years old, he got his first banjo, and soon discovered the clawhammer style. Before long his love of playing traditional country music left little time for anything else and as a result led him to pursue a career as a full time musician, a road that he has happily travelled ever since.

Over the years Chris has split his time between playing bluegrass and old-time music and has allowed each to inspire the other to the point where it is now difficult to say where one ends and the other begins. This may be attributed to a. strong belief that country music is country music, be it Tommy Jarrell, Bill Monroe or George Jones. “I’ve always believed that the essence of music is in the individual, not in the category or style of music they play”.

His unique style of clawhammer banjo playing began to reach a wider audience with the release of his first C.D.- “Five Strings Attached With No Backing” in 1997 and later, “Five Strings Attached, Vol. 2″ in 2000. Both albums were collaborations with long time musical partner, and fellow Torontonian, Arnie Naiman. The combination of sparse, well played arrangements of traditional tunes, as well as creative originals struck a chord with old-time music fans worldwide. In the words of one reviewer, “…Arnie Naiman and Chris Coole are arguably two of the best clawhammer banjo players in the country, or anywhere for that matter” (From Bluegrass Now Magazine). Chris has been a finalist in the banjo contests at The Appalachian Stringband Festival in Clifftop West Virginia (2004,2006) and the West Virginia State Folk Festival (2002,2005).

Since 2001, Chris has played guitar, sang and written songs for critically acclaimed bluegrass band The Foggy Hogtown Boys. His love for the golden era of bluegrass music is apparent to anyone who hears his singing and songwriting. In 2006 he was awarded “Guitarist of the Year” at the Central Canadian Bluegrass Awards.

From 2000-2007 Chris collaborated with old-time fiddler Erynn Marshall. In 2005 He co-produced her critically acclaimed CD “Calico”. In 2006 the duo recorded “Meet Me in the Music” which was nominated for best traditional album at the 2007 Canadian Folk music awards.

In 2009, Chris released his first solo album entitled “Old Dog” – a mixture of original and traditional folk songs and tunes. He followed that with a duo recording featuring dobroist Ivan Rosenberg in 2010.

Chris is acknowledged as a skilled teacher of both banjo and guitar. He has taught at many workshops across Canada and the U.S. including The Augusta Heritage Centre, The Woods Music and Dance Camp, The Midwest Banjo Camp, The B.C. Bluegrass Workshops, Saltspring Island Fiddleworks, The Sunshine Coast School of Celtic Music as well as others. In 2007, Woodhall Music released “The Elements of Clawhammer Banjo” an instructional DVD featuring Chris’ approach to teaching the banjo.

Apart from his own albums, Chris can be heard as a sideman on over 75 albums from artists such as Jenny Whiteley, Jim Cuddy, Sylvia Tyson, Justin Rutledge. In 2008, Chris was featured on the Rounder Records release “Old-Time Banjo Festival” a collection of some of today’s top clawhammer banjo players from around the world.

 

 

Arnie Naiman

My interest in banjo playing began after attending The Mariposa Folk Festival and Fiddler’s Green Folk Club in Toronto in the mid 1970′s. I was so impressed with hearing Michael Cooney and Ola Belle Reed that I was determined to get a banjo and become a singer of folk songs. I acquired a Stewart MacDonald Eagle banjo put together from a kit, and Pete Seeger’s instructional book and was quickly able to handle the frailing style of playing.

Shortly after, I met Kurt Metzler who let me listen to his collection of recordings which opened up a new world of traditional music to my ears. I listened to music from the 1920′s and 30′s from the golden age of recorded stringband and early country music. Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole and The North Carolina Ramblers, The Carter Family, The Delmore Brothers were among those included, as well as revivalists The New Lost City Ramblers- who were a major influence on my playing, and who were current exponents of this music they called “Old Time Music”.

The following year banjo in hand, while waiting in line for tickets to The Mariposa Festival, some strangers with fiddles asked me if I’d play a tune with them. I sheepishly said that I was just a beginner and only knew two fiddle tunes, but I got out the banjo and my very first jam session was in the making. The realization that an instant connection could be made with total strangers through music had a profound effect on me. I started compiling a repertoire of fiddle tunes on the banjo in a more complex downpicking clawhammer style.

I attended other festivals that specialized in “Old Time Music” and thus became a part of a vast community of great players and wonderful people. I hung out with Pete and Ellen Vigour from Virginia who were, and still are inspirational to my musical development. The live presence of the music I was hearing was exciting and intoxicating, and gradually became absorbed into my very soul. I started performing with Kurt Metzler at various venues as “The Potatoe Pancakes” and we landed a job singing songs and playing instrumental music for a consecutive seven year stint in a pub.

I met my wife Kathy Reid within the music community and we began performing and playing music for country and square dances, clubs and festivals and music camps. We organized a weekly folk music performance with the goal of including good local performer’s participation, and we named our duo Ragged But Right. Ragged But Right has released a new cd of mostly old time singing duets. The cd is called “Down Harmony Road”.

I met Chris Coole who quickly accumulated a repertoire of fiddle tunes on the banjo and together with Kathy on guitar and myself on fiddle, and later on Erynn Marshall on fiddle as well, performed as “The Extraordinary Stringband” and played southern style music for dances.

It was during our late night practices that Chris and I discovered that we had each composed some interesting banjo tunes of our own. We decided to record some of these along with some traditional music and the CD “5 Strings Attached With No Backing” was born. After encouraging feedback from the recording, we decided to do occasional club performances together. Volume 2 was recorded 3 years later.

THE BANJO SPECIAL featuring various styles of banjo music together with Chris Coole, Chris Quinn, and Brian Taheny  was the next recording project along with banjo extravaganza concerts.

Rounder records has released  “The Old Time Banjo Festival” produced by Grammy Award winner Cathy Fink  featuring todays finest banjo players including Arnie Naiman and Chris Coole.

Arnie performs with Chris Coole, The Banjo Special, Ragged But Right, and also currently plays banjo in the Virginia based old-time String Band,  Albemarle Ramblers. The band has released a new cd for 2010 called “Gentleman from Virginia” on Merriweather Records

 

 

Brian Taheny 

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