reviews

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Carroll Best - Pioneer of the melodic banjo style

“That was really what I liked: playing those hornpipes. ...
So I just started playing what the fiddle played.”
~ Carroll Best

In 1945, lacking a fiddle player for a square dance, North Carolinian Carroll
Best became the first three-finger, bluegrass-oriented [banjo] player to
conjure a fiddle tune in the melodic style.
--Tony Trischka, Introduction to Master Collection of Fiddle Tunes for Banjo,
2011

“Carroll definitely played a role in the evolution of the melodic banjo style.
There are minor examples of melodic banjo playing dating back to the minstrel
banjo era (mid-1800s) and to the classic banjo style (c. 1900). But no one ever
developed a full-blown melodic style until Carroll came along. Bobby
Thompson also independently created a melodic style for himself in the 1950s.
Then, of course, Bill Keith put melodics on the map during his tenure with Bill
Monroe. He was not influenced to do so by Carroll or Bobby. As they did, he just
came up with it.”   -- Tony Trischka (from a 2014 interview)