Don Reno

But depending on whether or not I've been practicing some particular thing, I may actually be a horrible resource for this thing.

you know, I remember I spent a lot of time studying Don Reno's playing at one point, which was super fun.

And actually, maybe I should check out some Don Reno guitar stuff now.

But I remember teaching at a camp and there was a Don Reno class that was being taught and the teacher had to leave for one reason or another.

So I had to step in on that class.

I had my classes, but then I said, hey, do you know any Don Reno stuff? Can you step in and teach this? I was like, Oh, yeah, totally.

I got all these tunes set up, whatever.

Step into the class.

I was trying to learn everything they did.

And I also loved Sonny Osbourne, Ralph Stanley, Don Reno.

All the old stuff is what I started gravitating toward.

And at 16, I started working for Dad's Store and began to hear Eric Clapton, Pat Metheny, Larry Carlton, Leslie West, Free, Bad Company, Foreigner, all the stuff that they were playing at the store, I started hearing all that rock stuff.

Uh, he's an exceptional fiddle player, mandolin player, guitarist and banjo, and he'd only been playing banjo a couple of years when he recorded these tunes.

Um, he also helped write the tune Banjo Signal, which, uh, became a big tune for Don Reno & Red Smiley.

He performed with lots of bands, very capable musician, and, uh, we've got him playing a classic, uh, Pig In A Pen, uh, which is, many will have heard Ricky Skaggs playing that, uh, just in recent years as part of his program.

Uh, he's got working with him Tom Morgan playing guitar and doing some vocals occasionally.

Then I fell in love with Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, all that stuff.

Doc Watson, Clarence White, Don Reno.

Hmm.

No actual square dancing, just changing your whole life through watching a band.

They're a bunch of friends there playing, doing a gospel song, one called Brighter Mansion.

This was written by Don Reno Red Smiley.

and comes out of that genre of music.

Always loved Reno and Smiley stuff, and I think Dudley Connell did as well.

So these were all new songs for us.

And Jimmy was an amazing Don Reno-style banjo player at that time, and also for the rest of his life.

They were the real thing.

And of course, they introduced, Jimmy was from Kentucky, although he lived in Maine since the time he was in the Air Force.