The tradition John will teach will be the regional banjo and fiddle tunes from Appalachia. The majority of the tunes come from West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. The tradition developed in this area in the 2nd half of the 19th Century and came out of a blending of musical traditions from two cultures i.e., Celtic, and African. This was in part due to the banjo’s roots in African American culture. Much of the repertoire was a shared one. It was also common for fiddlers to learn tunes from banjo players and banjo players from fiddlers in direct transmission as the tunes were not written down. The music was part of daily life and in part a reprieve from the difficulties of a hard rural life.

John’s father’s family comes from rural Kentucky and his mother’s family from both Kentucky and Virginia. He grew up listening to his grandmother telling him tall tales from Appalachia. In 1964, at age16, he became interested in learning the music of Appalachia and took up the banjo. John is self-taught which is also part of the tradition. He had some direct exposure to traditional musicians but most of his tunes come from listening to recordings made during the 60’s and 70’s of traditional artist like Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, Roscoe Holcomb, and Wade Ward.

The tunes John plays connect him to his family’s past and to much a larger music tradition in Africa. It also provides solace to the work he does as a clinical social worker, and he feels it has a healing element in it. John has a few banjo students who have sought him out and he enjoys teaching in a traditional way, by ear, with no written music.

John won the Advanced Traditional Banjo Contest at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle contest on May 15, 2005 on May 15, 2005. Previous winners have been Ry Cooder, Steve Martin, and Taj Majal.

The music is communal music so typically awards are not important and modesty about one’s accomplishments is expected. One of the distinctions it has with bluegrass is that there are no solo breaks, essentially no showing off. People lift the music together.