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฀ 3.฀ live฀and฀unrehearsed Bill never walked out on stage with a script. His musical performances weren’t planned out ahead of time. Many entertainers (including me) write themselves a list of the songs they intend to play during their show, along with the key in which each song is to be played. Performing came naturally for Bill, however, it was as much a part of his life as eating or sleeping. He never told us what key the songs would be in before he announced them to the audience. He just introduced the title and away we would go. I’m indeed grateful that he had the consummate sideman, Kenny Baker. Kenny started, or “kicked off” almost every number, and he very seldom forgot what key the song was supposed to be in. I guess that’s one reason Bill called him the Greatest Fiddler in Bluegrass. Randy Davis’s bass playing was something the whole band could always count on too. Unfamiliar numbers never seemed to faze him. He had an inherent spontaneity that carried him over any rough spots the rest of us might encounter. He never lost his cool, and he possessed a great deal of rhythmic precision—important when playing Bill’s music. Wrong notes may sometimes go unnoticed as long as they’re played with the proper timing . Though Randy generally remained in the background, he played the crucial role of maintaining a smooth flow throughout every performance. During shows, he communicated verbally with Bill off-microphone, suggesting what songs to do next, letting him know how much time was left, and making private little jokes to ease the tension. One problem associated with live stage performances involves keeping the instruments in tune. To make it easier to play in different keys, most 54 | come hither to go yonder banjoists and guitarists use a gadget called a capo—an adjustable clamp that goes across the fingerboard. Since I wasn’t always certain in which key Bill would want to play the next song, I sometimes had to scramble to get my capo placed in time before Kenny started playing a number. Banjos are notoriously hard to keep in tune, and placing a capo across the strings often makes the instrument go sharp. To make matters worse, the banjo’s fifth string, which is shorter than the other four, has to have a separate capo. This can be either a special fifth-string capo, which is what I used, or a small set of hooks (model railroad spikes) placed in the fingerboard under which to slip the string in order to raise its pitch. In a perfect world, there would be plenty of time between songs to make fine adjustments in the tuning when a capo is used on the banjo. However, as a Blue Grass Boy I had to learn to be quick—sometimes at the expense of accuracy. Fortunately, I got better at it as I went along. Dealing with minor emergencies became commonplace for me. One afternoon at the Bean Blossom festival I knelt down beside a tree to uncase my banjo. I was on my way to the stage; our show was scheduled to start about five minutes later. When I opened my banjo case I discovered, to my horror, that the tailpiece—the metal bracket behind the bridge to which all the strings were attached—had come loose. The nut that held it in place had disengaged and fallen inside the banjo. That meant that the bridge, located on the front of the instrument and normally held in place by the taut strings that crossed over it, was free to shift around or fall off completely. The band we were following on the program had only a couple of songs left to do in their show. In frantic haste, I removed the thumbscrews attaching the resonator to the back of my banjo in order to retrieve the small tailpiece nut. I found the nut and reattached the tailpiece to the banjo, tightening it by hand. Then I retuned all the strings and ran up on stage just as Bill was being introduced. I had some tuning problems on the show due to my jury-rigging of the tailpiece, but at least I was able to get through the performance. Bill always warmed up his voice backstage right before the shows by singing notes softly to himself, in his upper range. The sound he made was like a plaintive wail. Once...

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