Three brilliant players, Diane Jones, Sam Guthridge and Bill Quern celebrate the banjo at the Mainstay in Rock Hall, MD on Sunday October 12 at 2:00 p.m. This is the final concert of Rock Hall’s annual FallFest. Admission is $15.
This will be a lively afternoon featuring a variety of musical styles in which the banjo plays a prominent role: old-time Appalachian from Diane Jones with back-up from her Driven Women bandmates, bluegrass with Chester River Runoff’s Sam Guthridge and a mix of traditional music and originals from folk dance musician Bill Quern on tenor banjo with backing by Sarah Gowan.
Diane Jones, who with her husband and three generation family, dairy farms in Kent County, Maryland, comes from a musical family and has been singing since she was two years old. She started playing traditional old time music on the Appalachian Mountain dulcimer in 1980, having first played guitar. After much visiting in the Southern Appalachians, she focused on the banjo and the old time music of West Virginia and Kentucky attracted and influenced by ancient ballads, high energy dance tunes, soothing waltzes, country blues, and the melancholy of dark mountain hollows.
She studied banjo and fiddle with several West Virginia masters including Dwight Diller, Dave Bing, John Morris, Lester and Linda McCumbers, Gerry Milnes and the late Melvin Wine, Glen Smith, Sarah Singleton and JP Fraley.
She has participated in some of the southern old time festivals, performing solo and with fiddler Sue Shumaker and guitar player Annie Williams in the band, Driven Women, who will join her for part of this concert. Since 1996, she has taught banjo at several of the premier old time music camps in the US and UK and has several continuing private students. One of her main goals is to celebrate the traditional music and life ways of the southern Appalachian Mountains and pass them on to other people, keeping these traditions alive and strong.
Diane has recorded with Dave Bing on his CD, Dave Bing, “There Are No Rules!”, with Hubie King, and “Goin’ Back” and “Hand Me Downs” by the Reed Islanders. She has also produced an instructional DVD for intermediate clawhammer banjo players, “Thirty of Diane’s Favorites.”
According to a noted DC area fiddler, Sam Guthridge “play[s] the banjo the way MC Escher draws pictures.” As a songwriter and tune composer, Guthridge has contributed many original songs and instrumentals to Chester River Runoff’s repertoire, and as an instrumentalist and singer he has an expressive and distinct personal style. He performs many different styles of music ranging from old-time to ska, but filters these influences through his lifelong love of traditional bluegrass banjo (though it may not always come out sounding traditional).
When not playing with the Runoff, he can be found wandering the country and the world playing music everywhere he can. In 2012 he did 2 two-week tours of Ecuador with the Quito-based country band Texas Express. He has also performed with Nate Clendenen, Caleb Stine, Jordan Tice, Tom Bailey and the Aristocrats, the Hot Seats, Abbie Gardner, Aspen Run, Avi & Celia, Cory Seznec and Belle Star. He also does recording sessions, and has composed and recorded music for television and podcasts. An old-time instrumental trio album he recorded with Aaron Jonah Lewis and Erica Weiss was named to the “Top 10 Indie/Roots albums of 2013”.
Bill Quern is a dance musician, tune-smith and dancer. His father filled the house with instruments for his 10 siblings to explore, so Quern developed into a multi-instrumentalist playing fiddle, melodeon, mandolin and harmonica in addition to various banjos. He has a degree in Fine Arts from MA College of Art where he studied performance, sculpture and instrument making.
Quern plays for contra and square dances, English Country dances, teaches Morris dancing and Scandinavian dancing, and plays for Philadelphia’s clogging group Fiddlekicks. He dances with the Kingsessing Morris Men (8 time winners in the Philadelphia Mummer’s Parade) and plays for English Rapper and Longsword dance teams. His performance history includes: Sidmouth Folk Festival in England, Enscaded Festival in Holland, on Chinese television, the New England Folk Festival, the Butterball Dance Festival, FireAnt Festival in Austin, TX, Footfall Dance Festival in WV, and the Heritage Dance Festival in Philadelphia.
The Mainstay (Home of Musical Magic) is the friendly informal storefront performing arts center on Rock Hall’s old time Main Street. More information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.
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