Banjo Dreaming

By Juli

Before I die I want to learn to play the banjo.

It now tops my list, plucking “finish writing that godforsaken book and be the writer you’re supposed to be” and dropping it to the number two spot. A musical goal at the pinnacle of my bucket list is admittedly odd. I’ve never played an instrument beyond grade school lessons for the violin. Never been in a band, don’t have a natural ability to play or sing really anything. But I have an ear. When life has been more rock climbing than joyriding, music has been that well-placed handhold for me, the will to hang on and keep going. I love music.

But not all of it.

I’m not a huge jazz fan (sorry), don’t love me that punk metal shit from the 80s. And I’m all for a good dose of pop (and that’s probably what my car radio is set to right now), but it’s manufactured, packaged. Don’t you dare play Madonna at my funeral or your ass is haunted forever.

Not that the soundtrack of my life would have direction or focus to a casual observer (hmm, telling?). Paul Simon, Lynyrd Skynyrd (not kidding), Tracy Chapman, Ella Fitzgerald, M People, The Bridge, John Denver, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Sinead O’Connor, Sonia Dada, Lauryn Hill, Alison Krauss (her album with Robert Plant is FANTASTIC), The Bridge, Ray LaMontagne, Pink. I mean, really, who is this person?

Give me a musical Rorschach, and this is what you’d learn: I’m a hillbilly.

I did not grow up in the south, nor the hills, nor the country. I did grow up poor white folk. Which, if you know your banjo history, throws another curve into the mix, since the banjo was originally developed by African slaves in the U.S. But I digress.

My mother told some pretty vivid stories of growing up in the hills of California and can probably really claim to be a hillbilly at heart. Maybe I’m a hillbilly at heart too because of the invisible umbilicus that transcends all dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships. Or maybe, it’s because my grandmother’s funeral when I was five, my first big loss, was punctuated by folksy, bluegrass music. And sometimes I think that’s what we always go back to. Wherever we go, there we are. Trying to fill in that first hole.

This may seal my fate forever as tragically unhip and uncool, but my three favorite voices of all time are Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Johnny Cash. Diamond in My Crown and Sweet Chariot can make me cry instantly. Emmylou Harris has the most distinctive, beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. Go listen to Where Will I Be right now. And then there’s Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You, Coat of Many Colors, and Jolene. They are all lovely, simple, human, real, genius. And Johnny Cash’s quirky baritone. Flawed, perfect. Ring of Fire, Walk the Line, A Boy Named Sue, When the Man Comes Around. I love them.

Tapping this all out now, in little clicks instead of picks, I just realized something. I gravitate to music that’s rough around the edges, that tells a story. And maybe that’s why there’s the banjo, waiting for me someday. Because there are stories I won’t ever be able to tell on paper.