Award-winning banjo player to perform Feb. 15
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Jayme Stone Folklife will perform in Ronan on Friday.
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RONAN – The humble banjo will take on a new dimension when Jayme Stone Folklife brings his quartet to the Mission Valley on Friday, Feb. 15.
Stone is a composer, banjoist, producer and educator. He also likes to refer to himself as an instigator. He is performing at 7 p.m. at the Ronan Performing Arts Center in the fifth show this season in the Mission Valley Live Music Series. As always, youths 18 and under are admitted free and adult tickets are $13 in advance or $15 at the door.
In a recent telephone interview from his home near Boulder, Colo., Stone talked about being “smitten by the banjo” 25 years ago. He was a guitarist at the time and had to adapt his music from the guitar to the banjo.
“Music is very much a language, a dialect ready to be explored,” Stone said. “For me, the music I want to make always comes first.”
Jayme Stone Folklife will spend the day on Feb. 15 working with area students. Spending time with students and sharing his music with them has come to be one of Stone’s favorite aspects of touring.
“I’ve worked with kindergarteners all the way up to university students. I am endlessly fascinated with how interested they are in the process and the history of the songs we play, especially today when students are more used to streaming music than seeing it performed live. Watching music wash over a classroom is very powerful.”
Stone grew up in Toronto, Canada, and has been honored with two Juno Awards during his long career. The Juno is comparable to the American Grammy Music Award.
Jayme Stone Folklife includes two women and one other male performer. They all sing around one microphone in the tradition of folk music. Stone said every generation seems to have a folk revival, prodded on by performers like the Avett Brothers or films like “Deliverance” or “O Brother Where Art Thou.”
“Folk songs are sturdy feats,” he said. “They can be replanted and we think of them as heirloom seeds. They can come across generations and all you have to do is continue to plant them.”
Stone has been inspired by premier banjoist player Bela Fleck. Like Fleck, he has studied the history of the banjo. Stone spent part of his career in Africa, where the banjo was first made and played. In his current tour, Stone is drawing on the banjo’s influence in music from the Caribbean and the British Isles. He is also working on a new record and playing guitar again after a 25-year hiatus.
