The following articles are from a couple of 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

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

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 Woodmancer, 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