What Else Does the Banjo Sound Like? American Songster Radio Episode 16

Young banjo players Jerron Paxton and Kaia Kater hail from places that are pretty far removed from the American South. But as they learned their instruments and connected with banjo mentors, they found old-time music well beyond its reputed home region. Paxton and Kater both started out playing bluegrass music. “I was a little fat boy in Compton with a straw hat and overalls trying to be like Earl Scruggs,” Paxton recalls. The popularity of bluegrass made it easy to find, even in California. The same held true in Kater’s hometown, Toronto, Canada. But for each of them learning Scruggs-style picking was just a gateway drug. Soon, Paxton and Kater were asking themselves the same question that motivates many old-time music revivalists: what else does the banjo sound like? To take up this question, Kater traveled from her native Canada to the heart of the North Carolina mountains. “I went to the Swannanoa Gathering, which is a fantastic, fantastic camp. And I was really influenced by