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http://www.omniture.com --> Sections Home Page Local News AP News AP Entertainment Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Readers Photo Gallery Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Distinctly Northwest Readers' Choice Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Holiday Guide Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend December 3, 2006 Banjo Bill plays a fretless banjo at his Dead Indian Plateau cabin. (Mail Tribune / Paul Fattig) 'Banjo Bill' keeps music alive By Paul Fattig Mail Tribune ASHLAND — The toe-tapping tunes danced out of the little green cottage, filling the nearby snowy woods on the Dead Indian Plateau with a lively rendition of "Camptown Races." Inside was Banjo Bill, harmonica humming in his mouth as his thimble-tipped fingers ran down an antique washboard. "It's a wonder I'm not locked up in a rubber room somewhere — I have so much fun playing these instruments," he said with an infectious, hearty laugh after wrapping up the historic song with a flourish. Born William Powell in Roseville, Calif., half a century ago, the man who answers only to Banjo Bill is back, fit as a fiddle. The former heavy equipment operator has recovered after being thrown through his pickup windshield last August after the truck struck a large boulder. He had swerved to miss an oncoming car in the wrong lane near his off-the-grid home nearly two dozen miles east of Ashland, he explained. Although he is now minus his signature full beard, removed to allow surgeons to do reconstructive facial surgery, he hasn't lost his musical touch. Advertisement He will be among the musicians performing Dec. 16 at the annual historic holiday festival at Southern Oregon Historical Society's Hanley Farm, 1053 Hanley Road in Central Point. The event will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and children age 3 to 12. There is no charge to SOHS members. "Banjo Bill illuminates a time period through his music that is very unique and rare nowadays," said Stephanie Butler, SOHS's education and programs coordinator. "Unless you are fortunate enough to grow up in a musical family, most people don't have that intimate education with musical instruments and that culture," she added. "And his personality is so warm and open. It's magic to watch families respond to him." Wearing red suspenders, a green-and-black checkered shirt buttoned to the top, blue jeans, leather boots to his knees and an old slouch hat, Banjo Bill looks like he is off to the Camptown races. Now that he is back in circulation, he'll be playing for historical events, family reunions, weddings, barbecues and grower's markets, albeit the latter will have to wait until late spring. "What got me interested in music was when I was about 6 years old and we were down in Arizona," he recalled after sitting down at the kitchen table not far from a crackling wood stove. "There was this old guy playing the banjo and singing songs. Everybody was tapping their toes and singing along. It was like you had walked into this happy zone. "When you walked out of it, that feeling didn't exist anymore," he said. "As long as you were within hearing of that banjo, you naturally started smiling." The memory of that old man bringing a smile to the faces of strangers never left him. Over the years he had periodically plucked at a guitar but it wasn't until his three sons fledged that he began pursuing music in earnest. He had raised them — he and their mother had split up in the early 1980s — since middle school in the mountain cabin but rented an apartment for them in Ashland when they went to high school. A dozen years ago he picked up an inexpensive beginner's banjo at a music store in Ashland. "I took it home and gave it a good strum — that was it," he said, noting he has a replica of an 1845 banjo being made for him now. "It's a fretless banjo — all banjos were fretless until about the 1870s," he explained, referring to the frets — lateral ridges across the fingerboard of a banjo used as markers for notes and chords. "I use the claw hammer method," he said as he plunked the strings. "I used the one nail (on forefinger) and my thumb. "The reason they call it claw hammer is because your hand looks like a claw when you are playing it," he continued. "And you hammer the strings rather than pick them." With that, he played an old tune called "Hop High Ladies." "That was a women's beer drinking song from the 1860s," he said, adding, "I'm not sure if they would have actually been called ladies back in them days." "Most of the stuff I play is from the 1800s," he said. "Everybody played banjos back then. You could make a banjo pretty easily. The original banjo that came over with the Africans was a three-string gourd. Fifth strings showed up about the 1820s or so." But the musician doesn't restrict himself to banjo or harmonica. In addition to teaching banjo playing, he also plays spoons, jaw harp, washboard, harmonica and even paper bags. Paper bags? "A paper bag was something people grabbed to make noise with when you are in the kitchen playing," he said. "It's a rhythm instrument." He rustled through a cabinet until he found a paper bag, then blew it up. "Now, all you do is put your arm behind it, give it a flat kind of thing and just hit the bag," he said as he began whipping the bulging front of the bag with his free hand. "If you emphasize the two and the four, it doesn't sound too bad." In fact, it sounds a bit like a train clacking down the tracks. Having beaten the paper sack nearly flat, he picked up the jaw harp. Shaped like a lyre, the instrument is held by your teeth and played by plucking a projecting metal piece. A buzzing twang filled the cabin. "My mouth's still a little numb from the wreck," he said, adding, "The jaw harp has been around a long time. They've found them in tombs in Cambodia, 1,500 years old made out of bamboo. The Celts had them in Northern Scotland a bazillion years ago." Then there are the musical spoons. "These are just regular old soup spoons — I 'stole' these from my mother," he said as he fit one inside the other and began slapping them against his thigh, creating a rhythm. "I said, 'Ma, these sound good,' " he said, then fell into a falsetto voice when he mimicked her, " 'You leave them in that drawer, sonny.' " That's when he picked up the washboard, the very one his mother used when he was a youngster, and placed four thimbles on his fingers. "You can't get any sound out of a washboard without thimbles," he said before placing the harmonica in his mouth. As for the musical case near the door, that contains a fiddle, one of the few instruments of yesteryear he has yet to master. "I'm still working on that one," he said, adding, "It's really good I don't have neighbors." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or at [email protected] Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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