"Want to get a Divorce?"

[EdHanrahan]

That's the start of an ad (NFI) on pg 46 of the 12/11 issue of "Snow East" ski magazine. The full add reads:

"Want to get a Divorce?
Learn to... Play the Banjo!
Lessons by a World Champion Performer with over 50 years of Experience!
Teaching ... Buy and Sell ... Play and Performance
Danbury CT Area
Call Roger Sprung 203-426-5243"

50 years? That must be lot of divorces!!

(Admins: Not trying to advertise here; just full disclosure in re-telling. Still NFI!)

[KennyE]

Didn't work at my house .... thank goodness.

[Paul Busman]

Not a divorce, but how about an open marriage...

[Steve Lavelle]

This explains why I'm still single.

[JeffD]

The problem is everywhere.

[MikeEdgerton]

Roger Sprung is a great player and that pretty much fits right in with his sense of humor. The first time I met him I was jamming with him after playing a show at the Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Association show in Little Silver, NJ. He was dressed in a bowler hat and vest (I always wondered if that was where John Hartford got the outfit, Roger is older than John) and playing one of thse carved Gibson mandolins with the eagles head on the headstock and the patriotic scenes inlayed on the fretboard. We were breaking up after playing a few hours and I introduced myself and asked what his name was. He was a bit taken aback but laughing and I noticed the shock on everyone elses face. I was the only one that didn't know who he was. He's a nice guy.

[JeffD]

I was the only one that didn't know who he was. He's a nice guy.

I had a somewhat similar experience with John Paul Jones at an OT Jam. Yikes!

[MikeEdgerton]

Was able to piece together a picture. Roger and the bass were on one side, I was on the other in the light blue shirt playing my Taylor guitar.

[Dave LaBoone]

I met and played with Roger at Galax two years ago - really nice guy who made me and my only-budding mando abilities feel welcome.

[Charlieshafer]

Roger's the real deal.

[barney 59]

I met Roger Sprung back about 1970 and he had already been around a long time before that. He is a funny guy and showman!.

[allenhopkins]

Gibson All-American banjo; wonder if it's a 5-string conversion, as I'm not sure G made an All-American 5-string. When the NOMAD folk festival was held in New Haven CT (since defunct, sorry to say), Roger would host a lengthy jam for all and sundry. We sat around in a circle and took turns with tunes and songs. Roger has "Scruggs peg" D-tuners on every string of his banjo, I believe, including the 5th string; he has a repertoire of non-bluegrass-standard ragtime and "vintage pop" tunes that make him lots of fun to jam with. His early Progressive Bluegrass Folkways album with Doc Watson sitting in on guitar, is pretty avant-garde for its time.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Roger Sprung is indeed a great banjo player,one of the first 'progressive' pickers to explore the 'Jazzier' side of 5-string picking.
Re.the Gibson 'All American' Banjos - according to the Michael Shames Banjo Collection site,ALL the 'All American' Banjos were Tenors. Not even an All American 'Plectrum Banjo' was ever made.So,the 'All American' 5-string that Roger is playing,'must be' a custom built neck.
Years back,i opened a thread on the Banjo Hangout,regarding an LP i bought over 40 years ago - "Bluegrass Banjos On Fire" (no adverse comments PLEASE !!),by 'Homer & The Barnstormers'. As it has on the front of the LP sleeve,a picture of 3 banjos,one of which (middle one) belonged to Roger Sprung ( it's the one he's holding on his 'Progressive banjo' LP),I'd wondered if it was RS who played Banjo on the recording.RS aknowledged that it was his Banjo on the sleeve,but denied that it was him playing on the recording - i never did find out who the Banjo player actually was,
Ivan
http://youtu.be/7xr13MtQF_8

[MikeEdgerton]

You're making an assumption that it wasn't one of the later Gibson reissues of that puppy. If I'm not mistaken Gibson did a reissue for the bicentennial with a 5-string neck. I think I had this conversation with him but it's not at the forefront of my memory. I do recall him telling me that the banjo he was playing that day had a cracked neck and he had it up for sale.

[allenhopkins]

...I do recall [Roger] telling me that the banjo he was playing that day had a cracked neck and he had it up for sale.

Sprung was well-known at a lot of 1970-80's festivals (Fox Hollow, e.g.) for having a bunch of banjo-related merchandise for sale; he'd have a little vendor space with instruments, etc.

Re: Homer and the Barnstormers: been a lot of discussion as to who's playing on this LP, since the band remained determinedly anonymous. I had always heard the banjo player was Sonny Osborne, but banjo mavens tend to doubt this, since it's unlike Sonny's style. Latest candidate, apparently, is Buck Trent, for years Porter Wagoner's banjoist. Apparently he neither confirmed nor denied this, but said it "sure sounds like him" on the record.

Quote from a Banjo Hangout post on Sprung's involvement with the Bluegrass Banjos On Fire album cover:

I spoke with Roger Sprung recently about that album. He said that those are, indeed, his banjos (all three) on the cover photo. He said that the photo was taken by George Pickow, Jean Ritchie's husband. The story Roger related is that they dug a hole in a field and set the banjos down in the hole, then lit some lighter fluid about four feet in front of the banjos and took a long shot (with a telephoto lens) to get the fire to look like it's under the banjos. He also says that neither he nor George knows who is playing on the album. There is an interesting discussion in this month's [March 2010] Bluegrass Unlimited's "Notes & Queries" column about about bluegrass albums from the early sixties that have artists and bands recording under pseudonyms (pg. 18). It seems it was the thing to do back then.

Roger has since sold all but the center banjo, which he still plays.

[Paul Kotapish]

Roger was a fixture--in white shirt, vest, and bowler hat--at the first bluegrass festivals I attended in the early '70s in Virginia. Quite a character and a very unusual player--at the time, anyway--with his "progressive ragtime bluegrass."

John Hartford--playing in a duo with Norman Blake--was at many of those same festivals, but I can't remember if he had the same outfit on in those days or not.

Jody Stecher played mandolin with Roger Sprung in the '60s for a while and was on some of those early Folkways albums:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=217
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=370

[Denny Gies]

The divorce line is just what my wife asked me when I was trying to learn to play the fiddle. We're both glad I went to the mandolin.

[yankees1]

Drums would work at my house! Or-------------buying another mandolin!