caretaker by Djim Reynolds

i let the banjo slip by the wayside for a number of years…i sold the last one i owned about 9 years ago, having been consumed by the electric bass. recently, i realized that i was missing playing one and mentioned that to my wife, letting her know that i planned on buying a used one in the new year…unbeknownst to me, she and her father plotted to buy one I’d been looking at online…when that one disappeared, i figured it was a sign that i should hold off a bit longer…of course, sometime after that, i found myself looking online again and found another one and put a down-payment on it…when I texted her to give her the good news, she had to spoil their surprise.

they didn’t give it to me right away…she kept it in her office for awhile, waiting for the right moment…well, that moment finally came at thanksgiving, while her dad was up visiting from philly. Since i found out, I’d had banjo on the brain and was really looking forward to playing again.

once i had it in my hands, i immediately started reacquainting myself with the instrument and found that some things came back pretty easily and others were going to take more effort. Within a few minutes, I’d already started creating my first “song”…that became “hanging candles”…it sounds exactly the way it came to me.

i was determined to write and record an album’s worth of songs before i turned 55 this year in may…by early april, i had over 70 recordings of improvised and more structured pieces. from there, i pared it down to this 13, which felt most representative of my current playing style.

this is my little attempt at reminding myself and hopefully others, that creativity is powerful, even in the darkest of times.

enormous thanks to alexis and rick for their love, generosity and slyness. thank you to my family, including my grandfather, james s. williams, jr, who was my musical inspiration from an early age and continues inspiring me at nearly 100. this album is dedicated to him and to jimmy carter, both of them honest, hard-working, caring, humorous, sweet southern gentlemen.
thanks also to eugene chadbourne, for inspiring me to buy a banjo in the first place.

“play yourself” thelonious monk

just a note: this is not the actual artwork for the record…just a placeholder until dave snider finishes what he’s working on. In the meantime, i thought I’d put this pic of me feeding my sister, probably taken by my mother, shirley. It seemed a bit apropos.

Djim reynolds is a New England based multi-instrumentalist, whose work is rooted in lo-fi melodic improvisation and non-traditional approaches.