The Beast of the Long-Neck Banjo

June 28, 2009 1:07 PM

Billy Faier got tired of burning copies of his long-out-of-print albums, and is giving them away: The Art of the Five String Banjo (1957), Travelin' Man (1958), The Beast of Billy Faier (1964), Banjo (1973) and Banjoes, Birdsong and Mother Earth (1987).

Faier discovered banjo in Washington Square in the late 1940s, transcribed Pete Seeger's intricate Goofing-off Suite (which you might know better as this movie theme) and gave John Sebastian his first paid recording gig.

Banjo, recorded for John Fahey's Takoma Records, is on a different planet from the squeaky-clean folk recordings Faier made in the 1950s.

posted by scruss (13 comments total)

Yessssssssssssss.
posted by chronkite at 1:19 PM on June 28 [2 favorites has favorites]

This looks interesting! I shall enjoy investigating. Thanks
posted by MinPin at 1:22 PM on June 28

Yes, this is great. Thanks.
posted by Elmore at 1:28 PM on June 28

There's also a live recording from 1969: Live at the Café Lena.

The world needs more long-neck banjo players.
posted by scruss at 1:32 PM on June 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

At first glance, I took the "burning copies of his long-out-of-print albums" mention in the headline literally.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 2:18 PM on June 28

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
posted by The White Hat at 2:56 PM on June 28

It can't be cheap to host all these mp3s... I wonder if Faier would mind if there were a torrent put together?
posted by acro at 3:01 PM on June 28

What great stuff, many thanks.
posted by beowulf573 at 3:03 PM on June 28

Beautiful. Beautiful. Unexpected and exactly what I needed to lighten up. You got yourself into a pinball machine of karma here, scruss.
posted by ouke at 5:46 PM on June 28

How cool is it that he lists his cell phone no. on his site?
posted by puckupdate at 6:33 PM on June 28

Billy seems to have an orphaned bit of his website - the Memorabilia section. Who knew he hung out with Dylan, and had Big Bill Broonzy run after his wife?
posted by scruss at 6:38 PM on June 28

Mr. Faier wrote me back an email saying to "share away" ... so with that: here's a torrent link.
posted by acro at 6:04 AM on July 1 [2 favorites has favorites]

I just wanted to come back and say thanks. This is excellent, and not something I'd have come across without Metafilter.
posted by roll truck roll at 9:49 AM on July 1