Girl Friday: Women with Banjos

Earlier this week another blog boasted a video of a woman with a hand-held keyboard; the accompanying comment was that this is the way to take an attractive woman and make her immediately unattractive. It was kind of funny, but I couldn't disagree more.

Take an already attractive man or woman, give them an instrument, and to me they become much more than they appear, and all the more attractive. My friends laugh about me and my soft spot for men with banjos, but to be sure, anyone with a banjo is likely no hack in other areas.

And so it is with women and banjos! Lynne Morris, Laurie Lewis, and the extraordinary Alison Brown are just a few.

If you are not already familiar with Brown, she's pretty extraordinary, and like Bela Fleck stretches banjo into areas of jazz and other acoustic/new age styles. But her roots are in bluegrass. At the age of 12 she met fiddler Stuart Duncan and the two began playing together -- recording a duet album when she was still in high school. She played with Alison Krauss when Krauss was somewhere around the ripe old age of 22. Oh, and she's a Harvard grad with an MBA from UCLA. Yah. Do you suppose she cares what you think about how she looks holding a banjo? I doubt it.

During my first trip to IBMA, I was astonished by the number of young kids trolling the event, teenagers hanging out and jamming. These aren't hacks like me, but young people who have mastered their instruments. There is something spectacularly refreshing, inspiring, and yes, even a little vindicating about watching a 15 year old girl wield a banjo like most girls her age wield a tube of lip gloss.

So here's to all you girls and women with banjos, and guitars, and double basses (like the amazing Bryn Bright), mandolins, and fiddles, oboes, and accordions, and tubas, and who bang the drums. Keep on jammin' and don't worry about what the boys think.

Sample Alison's playing.