Boy Named Banjo (Courtesy boynamedbanjo.com)
The Americana band, Boy Named Banjo, was forged four years ago from strings and Southern roots at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tenn. Today, with the release of its second full-length album, “Long Story Short,” a heartfelt and human work of art written well beyond the musicians’ ages, the band is climbing the totem pole from a regional attraction to a group with a national reputation.
“I know they are developing a great fan base, and I am watching them from the sidelines, cheering them on,” said Rob Jackson, longtime friend and musical mentor.
In the summer of 2010, harmless jam sessions amongst classmates sparked the ignition of Boy Named Banjo in a time period and city opportunely built for its dreams. Despite that its members are Nashville natives and alumni of Montgomery Bell Academy, each has his own distinct musical background with the common factor of Jackson. William Reames started lessons for harmonica at eight years old and guitar at 10 with Jackson, but honed in on this passion in 2010 when he and fellow bandmate Barton Davies began playing in their high school parking lot after classes were dismissed.
“The first time we played together in the sophomore lot, and I heard the blending of the guitar and banjo, it was like finding a fossil,” Reames said. “The sound was so fresh and new to me, but also so original. It kickstarted my desire to find my musical roots and to create more music that reminded me of those roots.”
Davies comes from a music enthused family, his mother, a piano and vocal teacher, and his father, one of five other banjo playing men in the Davies’ lineage. He picked up his instrument much later than Reames, not plucking his first tune until 2009 on his father’s Gibson Granada banjo. Teaching himself for two years then
taking lessons from Jackson, he quickly tapped into an innate gift. Davies got his own Deering Goodtime banjo for Christmas in 2010, and his fingers haven’t had a moment’s rest since.
In February of 2011, Davies felt nothing but good vibes when he received a text from an excited Reames that read, “Dude. Boy Named Banjo.” It was an innocent text, containing a veiled tribute to the band’s history, which caught like wild fire.
“A boy named Banjo can never forget his roots. Where he came from and what he grew up around are very important to him,” Reames said.
Reames and Davies sought to spruce up their music and make the jump from a duo to a trio in early 2011. Everything effortlessly fell into place. They invited their friend and classmate Willard Logan to play the mandolin on a demo for a song called “The Light,” which was officially recorded for Long Story Short two years
later. Afterwards, Logan did a cover of John Butler Trio’s “Ocean,” an awe inspiring answer to Davies’ and Reames’ search for a third man.
“It was right after that, they asked me to join the band. They’ve always been the singer-songwriter type, and needed someone who knew a little music theory. I loved the sound they were getting, going for so I was happy to be the guy to fill that gap,” Logan said.
Logan’s lessons, also taught by Jackson, began at the same age as Reames. The two played in the same middle school band, but their talents did not reunite until their junior year of high school. The formal training did not stop there for Logan, who played in the Jazz Band, Ellington Band and Rock Band during his high school tenure. Logan, whose focus switched from electric to acoustic, can play an array of instruments and has become a seasoned musician at only 20 years old.
“A big turning point for Willard was when his parents asked me to help find him a nice acoustic guitar for a Christmas present one year,” Jackson said. “I started teaching Willard some bluegrass-style flat picking, which he really took to and excelled at very quickly. He also picked up mandolin in 6 weeks. So Willard went straight from AC/DC to hillbilly music.”
In Davies’ and Reames’ English 101 class at Sewanee, The University of the South, there was a foreign exchange student. He spoke completely broken English, rambling to them for 10 minutes until choking on his own words to close by simply saying, “Long story short.” They liked the simplicity of the phrase and its ability to sum up a complex message into three words. Reames proceeded to write the opening verses to “Long Story Short” in the rest of that class period.
The track’s title ascended to the album’s name for good reason. From start to finish, 49 minutes and 28 seconds, a story is told about the self-maturation of a boy, his experiences with love and heartbreak, life on the road and his ultimate acceptance of death in the final track, “The Road Ahead.”
Since their last album, “The Tanglewood Sessions,” named for Jackson’s street where they fell in love with music, Boy Named Banjo did some fine-tuning and added two new band members, Sam McCullough and Abe Scott. With this new diversity, “Long Story Short” boasts drums and bass atop the already strong trio.
From their public debut, playing at Montgomery Bell Academy’s first annual Endada Arts Festival in April of 2011, to a crowd of 14,000 at a Nashville Predators game in December of 2013, Boy Named Banjo is making dazzling strides toward its ultimate goal of impervious devotion to music.
“We really want to take things to the next level after we graduate from college, because we will finally be able to focus all our time and energy on what we love the most, and that is writing, recording, performing and sharing our love for music with as many people as we possibly can,” Davies said.
