BANJO NEWSLETTER April, 2003 Issue Kelly Emerson
By Ray Hesson
I first saw Kelly Emerson's name in a Bluegrass Unlimited review of his
debut CD, Big Daddy's Barn Burner Blues. The reviewer was quick to note
that Kelly Emerson is the son of Bill Emerson, the legendary banjo picker
and former Country Gentleman who also had a 20-year career with the U.S.
Navy's Country Current country and bluegrass band. And I later met Kelly at
the annual Music in the Mountains Bluegrass Festival in West Virginia. He
was sitting around playing his banjo and I overheard someone say that that just sounded just like his father playing.
While Kelly admires his fatheršs playing style, I don't think he sounds like
his father at all. While Bill's style comes right out of Earl Scruggs,
Kelly's style incorporates a lot of guitar techniques and licks. And while
I've heard others do this, I've never heard it done as extensively and
creatively as Kelly does. He has developed a banjo style all his own.
When Kelly introduced himself, the first thing he said was that he was Bill
Emerson's son, as if that fact was necessary to give him some sort of
credibility. Over the next few hours of listening to him play and talking
with him, I discovered that he is an intelligent and sensitive man.
Kelly was born in Washington D.C on October 11, 1961. His earliest memories
of hearing music were at age four. I really liked rock and roll. I think
the first time I heard bluegrass was when I was working at my step-father's
drug store in Ohio as a stock boy at the age of eight. He was selling
bargain variety bluegrass cassettes and eight-tracks and I used to take
tapes down to the basement and listen to them while I worked. I can remember
liking the music but not enjoying some of the singing. Their high-pitched
range sounded strange to me at the time. The recordings sounded as though
they were sped up.
As I got a bit older (10), my mother started telling me about my father. He
was around for the first year of my life and then he and my mother divorced.
She told me that he was a great banjo player and that I had received his
musical genes. She saw how quickly I took to the drums and the guitar. From
that point, any time that a bluegrass song was on the radio or the
television, I'd really listen because I thought that it was possibly my
father playing. He became my hero and I didnšt even know him.
Like most good musicians, Kelly had his sources of inspiration for both the
guitar and banjo. I haven't been in the bluegrass scene very long, but I'd
have to say my banjo heroes are pickers like my father, Scruggs, Adcock,
Sonny, Reno, Fleck, Baucom, Shelor, Mills, McCoury and Vestal. That just
about covers the entire spectrum of bluegrass banjo styles!
I asked Kelly what, if anything, he learned about the banjo from his father,
Bill Emerson. As far as the banjo goes, he taught me absolutely nothing. He
wasn't in my life. I would enjoy recording something with him; that would be
the icing on the cake where my music career is concerned. My father's
playing really amazes me.
Like most banjo pickers, Kelly had problems getting started. When I showed
up one evening at a Thursday night bluegrass jam at the Bluegrass Parlor in
Tampa, I took my seat confidently in the circle of players and away we went.
It was about the worst experience of my life. I didnšt know one single
bluegrass song. So when it came time for me to take a break, I tried to come
up with something and literally Ofell on my faceš as they say. The next day,
Tom Henderson and I had a talk and he urged me to start taking some
Scruggs-style banjo lessons. I agreed and took them for several months just
to get some foundation in my picking style. It really helped me to
understand some of the roll techniques and to further develop my own style.
Kelly is a great admirer of Eddie Adcock. Eddie has a lot of guitar
technique in his banjo picking. Of course hes decades ahead of me, but I
feel that we have that in common. The only difference is that his banjo
playing has traces of the Travis-style guitar technique and mine leans more
towards a rockin blues guitar style.
Kelly believes his style of playing is totally different from Bill Emerson's
style. Some people have compared my playing to my fatheršs, and I'm not
sure what they're hearing to form their opinion. It might be that we're both
power pickers. My father took the Scruggs style and put some flash in it.
Our styles are quite different in my opinion but the thing that makes them
somewhat similar is that we don't sound like other pickers. We have our own
individual styles.
Kelly is also becoming well-known in the banjo community as a manufacturer
of banjo bridges. I make the Emerson Power Bridge for banjos. Išve been
making and selling them for 32 months now and have recently surpassed 1800
sales. This product really took off! It all happened by chance. One day, I
had disassembled my Stelling Staghorn to clean it, install a new Remo head
and put new strings on as well. After tuning it back up and performing a
thorough set up, I found myself having a hard time getting the banjo to
crack. It sounded fair but somewhat muted. So I decided to try some
different bridges to see if that was the problem. After installing several
different bridges, I came upon a maple and ebony type that produced a much
better sound than the rest. It really raised my curiosity. I removed it to
examine its features.
I noticed that it was nice and hard and had a bright clicking sound to it
when I dropped it on a hard surface. I thought to myself that I would like
to try making a bridge out of a slab of some Florida Cherry wood that I had
sitting around for the past four months prior. It's a wonderfully dense wood
and has a prominent sustaining ring to it. Originally, I was planning to
make a banjo neck with the wood but never got around to it. The thought
behind this bridge was to make it of an extremely hard wood so that it would
produce volume and a great tone. So, off to my wood shop I went to complete
my first bridge. The first banjo I tried it on was my Stelling Staghorn. I
was stunned by the volume increase! That was the loudest that banjo had ever
sounded. Besides the volume increase, it had this wonderful full bodied,
punchy clear tone and the sustain was great as well. It was the kind of
sustain that actually makes what your playing seem easier to play. I
thought, this bridge really works! I decided to make another to see if the
results would equal that of my first bridge. Sure enough, it gave me the
same results.
He decided to list one on E-bay for $9.99. It sold within the first six
hours of a five-day auction. That's how it started, and now hešs sold about
1800 bridges in just two and a half years. He sells them from his website
at www.banjofever.com for $17. He also sells them on e-bay. Janet Davis
Music, Elderly Instruments and Thin Man String Company also carry them.
Kelly also makes inserts for dobros, and he just completed a prototype
bridge for upright basses. He's sold over 200 in a year. There's been some
good discussion over them especially on the Jerry Douglas website. The
upright bass bridge was really a surprise. Not only did it provide a volume
boost and more clarity, it boosted the mid-range which of course resulted in
an overall boost of all the frequencies.
Currently, I play a gold-plated Wildwood Soloist with one of my Power
Bridges installed. The banjo has that special something about it. Every time
I try switching to my Stelling Red Fox or Gibson Earl Scruggs Golden Deluxe,
I always go back to the Wildwood. The Wildwoods have been underrated as
bluegrass banjos but they're starting to gain popularity. I've tried lots of
heads and my favorite is a Remo lightly top frosted. However, my Gold Star
sounds excellent with a 5-Star head. I used D'Addario strings for a long
time but started trying different string brands a while back. I really like
the Gibson strings but they're a bit pricey. The jury is still out on that
one. I'm currently using .009, .010, .013, .020, and .009. I like this set
for the slinky feel but my right hand is too strong with this gauge. I
sometimes use .010, .012, .014, .022, .010 for more sound power but this
gauge gives me strength problems with some of my left hand pull offs. If I
do the math, I believe my most favorable set would be .0095, .011, .014,
.021, and .0095. I'm not sure if there is such a set.
There has been a very positive feedback on his current CD. I think they
really like it mostly because they've never heard any other style quite like
it. I've been told that itšs a fresh and new approach to the banjo.
Kelly was especially proud of comments made in the Bluegrass Unlimited
review of his CD: There is no doubt that Kelly Emerson is a chip off the
old block. He has a style as strong and distinctive as his father. His
choice of musical settings ranges from mainstream bluegrass to country rock.
His playing is forceful and clean. His banjo cracks with authority and is as
clean as the day is long...Emerson wrote eight of the 13 cuts, and they hold
up well to repeated listening. If you like your banjo in a variety of
settings, you're bound to find something you will like.
Kelly adds, Eddie and Martha Adcock e-mailed me the following message after
they listened to it: You're not afraid to look around the world of music at
all your different influences and include them in your playing and
arrangements. This takes guts, because in a banjo world still dominated by
purists of various kinds, there could be consequences. But when it's the
natural thing to do, you just by-gum ought to do it! There are too many
copy-cats as it is, so you go, friend! That was very encouraging!
Kelly rarely sees his father Bill. During my youth I can remember calling
him once a year or so. When I was in my late 20s I talked with him regarding
his retirement from the Navy. Later, Kelly heard that Bill was playing in
Oak Grove, Virginia with Mark Newton so he planned a vacation around that
date and paid him a surprise visit. It was very good for both of us to see
each other. We talked a lot and it was good to see him play in person.
Kelly was present at the Country Gentlemen's 45th Year Reunion Festival in
Virginia recently. Charlie Waller even invited Kelly to perform during the
highlight segment of the show when all of the Country Gents where on stage.
I had attended the festival in hopes of seeing my father perform, but Bill
ended up not attending. So Charlie asked that I come up and play for him.
Without hesitation, I did just that! I had planned to play just one song,
but I ended up playing six or seven before I left the stage. It was nice to
pick on the same stage with Charlie, Eddie Adcock, Doyle Lawson and Tom
Morgan as well as all the rest. Larry Stephenson and Pete Kuykendall where
up there as well. I must admit, I was somewhat nervous at first. The
audience was very receptive while I was up there and once leaving the stage,
I received a lot of nice compliments. This experience was very good for me.
It basically brought me full circle.
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