The following articles are from three of the local newspapers and I thought that you might enjoy reading them. It was a new experience for me, being interviewed, and alot of fun as well. Enjoy!!
Banjo, Mustache Go Hand In Hand
New Carlisle resident was recently inducted into the National Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame.
By Andrew McGinn of the Springfield New and Sun
Staff Writer
Monday, May 12, 2008
NEW CARLISLE, Ohio — As a government scientist during the Cold War, Don Stevison first worked on plans for an atomic-powered plane.
But with the right combination of lard, beeswax, glycerin and water, the New Carlisle resident seems more like a product of a different era — when riverboats chugged and Russia had a czar.
With his handlebar mustache, Stevison just looks like a ragtime banjo player, which makes his recent induction into the National Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame all the more fitting.
Like an actor getting into a role, he grew the mustache when he started playing banjo — and songs like "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" — in 1978.
"I've got to have a handlebar mustache," he recalled thinking, "to fit in with the era of music I'm playing.
"It was nice and dark then."
Retired since 1991 from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where all his work as a nuclear physicist was classified, Stevison got a banjo at the suggestion of a chemist.
Three decades later, he was inducted into the hall for his contribution to four-string education and instruction.
Stevison self-publishes instructional books that have been sold worldwide.
"I had a couple of books from Mel Bay and I didn't like the way they taught banjo," he said. "You need to make things as easy as possible."
Part of the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma, the hall of fame honors banjo players who opt to strum with four strings — a relic of ragtime and early jazz.
Bluegrass picking, for the record, is done with a five-string banjo.
But musical contributions aside, Stevison also can take credit for the very thing that makes him stand out: He helped formulate a better mustache wax.
In the early '80s, he and a few bandmates in the Kettering Banjo Society — all with handlebar mustaches — acted as guinea pigs so Nestle (yes, the chocolate company) could find the right combination of ingredients for a good wax.
"We went through 209 formulations," he said.
And here is another:
4/16/2008 8:47:00 AM Email this article • Print this article
Nuclear Physicist To Be Inducted In Banjo Hall of Fame
AARON KEITH HARRIS
Staff Writer at Xenia Gazette
NEW CARLISLE — Have you heard the one about the nuclear physicist who started playing the banjo? In Don Stevison’s case it’s not a joke, but a 30-year love affair with the banjo that will culminate in a prestigious honor later this month.
Stevison, 73, of New Carlisle, and Connie Stevison, his wife of 32 years, will travel to Oklahoma City where on April 24 Stevison will be inducted to the National Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame Museum.
As the 2008 inductee for education and instruction, Stevison is being honored in part for his authorship of more than 20 instructional publications that have sold worldwide. Along with more traditional tenor and plectrum banjo methods, Stevison also publishes works for guitar-tuned banjo that “have made a positive and significant impact upon that ever growing niche in the four-string banjo world,” according to the hall of fame’s board.
“They had to take a special vote and they ran me out of the room so they could do it,” said Stevison, also a member of the board. “It’s quite an honor as far as I’m concerned.”
In 1978, Stevison was working with high-powered lasers at the Materials Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
He began hearing a couple of others who worked in the building who were playing bluegrass guitar and mandolin on their lunch break, and he eventually joined in with a ukulele, which he had played in college. But Stevison soon decided he wanted an instrument with enough volume to be heard as well as the others, so he switched to plectrum four-string banjo.
Differing from the more popular five-string variety commonly heard in bluegrass and country music, four-string banjos lack the short fifth “drone” string and are played with one flat pick instead of curved picks on three fingers.
Stevison joined the Kettering Banjo Society and soon began growing his trademark handlebar moustache, which he says adds a touch of flair appropriate for the jazz, ragtime and riverboat music from the 1920s and 1930s that he likes to play.
His trademark instructional style was born when he bought an instructional banjo book by Mel Bay, the large music book publisher. But there were several things about it he didn’t like, so he decided to write his own, “How to Play Plectrum Banjo.” Years later, Mel Bay wanted to publish the book, but Stevison declined because he did not want to relinquish the copyright.
After retiring in 1991, Stevison continued his banjo passion and can be heard most days playing his favorite banjo Snowflake. Made out of curly maple by the late Bob Woodmansee, of Washington Court House, Snowflake is decked out with rhinestones, mother of pearl, abalone, ebony, gold plated brass and a kaleidoscopic snowflake design on the back.
Connie Stevison, for the most part, doesn’t mind the noise. “We have a fallout shelter in the basement; guess where his music room is?” she said.
So, how does a nuclear physicist make it to the banjo hall of fame?
“Practice, practice, practice. And any chance I get, I’ll play the banjo,” Stevison said.
On the Net:
Don Stevison’s Plectrum Banjo Site: www.banjodon.com
Kettering Banjo Society: www.ketteringbanjo.org
And here is yet another:
March 21, 2008 SKYWRIGHTER
Former AFRL Scientist to be Inducted into Banjo Hall of Fame
By Mike Wallace of SKYWRIGHTER Staff
Next month, Don Stevison will be inducted into the National Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame for his exhaustive efforts in four-string banjo instruction and education. A New Carlisle resident, Stevison began playing the banjo in 1978, and has dedicated thousands of hours to this instrument ever since.
A nuclear physicist, Stevison began his careet at the atomic plant near Chillicothe, for most of his 31-year government career, he worked with lasers in the Materials Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory.
While at the directorate, he recalls one lunch hour when he overheard a couple co-workders playing bluegrass music in a break room. "They saw me at the door, and they invited me to join them." he said. He had a ukulele he played in college, and he became probably "the only bluegrass ukulele player in the world," when he began jamming with the other two.
Finding that his ukulele, a small guitar-shaped instrument that had four nylon strings, just didn't have enough volume, he bought a used four-string banjo, and that changed his life.
Derived from African instruments, modern banjoes are known for their distinctive, plunk-plunk, almost non-resonating persistence compared to guitars, for example.
Banjoes today are primarily of two types. The better known is the five-string model, used for finger picking bluegrass and country songs. The lesser known is the four-string model, for mostly strumming minstrel shows or riverboat style songs (There also are six-string banjoes that are tuned like guitars.).
Although either five-string or four-string may be used for playing nearly any kind of music, the four-string is best-known for rapid staccato strumming and songs that encourage audience sing-a-longs.
To enhance the showmanship aspect of playing is the four-string banjo player cultivation of a riverboat entertainer image as well. Stevison, a member of the Kettering Banjo Society (KBS) since 1978, often wears a red vest, gartered shirt, and hat -- either a straw hat or a bowler, and sports a neatly waxed, handlebar mousthache. Others in the 50-member KBS do the same.
Stevison said that the KBS plays once a year at the Clifton Opera House, as well as the Tipp City Roller Mill, Champaign and Miami County fairs, Dayton Dragons games, and many weekend festivals.
He also plays in a smaller ensemble, the Ragtime Riverboat Rats, made up of a few KBS members. He said that in addition to riverboat standards such as "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" and "Roll Out the Barrel," the KBS plays more modern songs such as "Delilah" and "The Great Pretender." Nevertheless, Stevison explained that the KBS is "trying to perserve (the riverboat) era music."
Last weekend at the Banjorama in Springfield, OH, four-string banjo aficionados saw big groups like the KBS, with its banjoes, piano, tubas, and even a harmonica, and smaller duos and trios featuring accordions and acoustic bass. One person even played classical guitar.
Participants included those from Canada and Germany as well as from California, Texas, and Maine. And amid compact discs and a variety of string instruments, including a $12,000 banjo, were many of Stevison's 30 or more instructional books on banjoes, tenor guitars, ukuleles, chords for all, and songs there for sale.
He said he began writing instruction books because, when he began playing the banjo, he "wasn't getting out of them what I wanted." He also helped the KBS expand its repertoire from "about 20 songs to nearly 400."
Stevison plays a plectrum banjo custom-made for him by a luthier in Washington Court House. It features a curly maple body with ebony inlays on the back in a snowflake pattern derived from a design Stevison chose from a kaleidoscope. He said, "Back in the vaudeville days, banjoes were very gaudy. I designed mine like this because I wanted audiences to see it from the 40th row."
He carries his banjo in a case that's covered completely with stickers -- mostly mementos of his travels. He said, "I've been coast-to-coast, east to west and north to south. My wife, Connie, and I have gone places and done things we'd never gotten the chance to do except through playing the banjo."
The Hall of Fame is in Oklahoma, and Stevison recalled a trip there where he played in the Blue Bell Saloon.
"We heard that a tornado was coming there, and the lady running the bar said, 'keep playing.' They knew exactly, block by block, where the storm was, so nobody panicked."
Quipping that he gets up every day "at the crack of 10," Stevison teaches banjo to several students. He said that although he "practices less now," and he "wasn't expecting to be inducted (into the Hall Of Fame)," he declared, "I've had a barrel of fun playing the banjo!"
