Sunshine Lady

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

This summer, as usual, I went to Camp Olson, this time as a staff member finally. I brought along my banjo, of course, and it got a lot of use. The final week of camp, I had the privilege to have a cabin with my brother and Byrnes, one of my counselors when I was a camper and the man who inspired me to pick up banjo. My cabin that week was super easy to take care of because they were awesome kids and never fought, so we had a lot of free time for banjo. I learned a few songs, including my now-favorite, John Hartford’s Steam Powered Aeroplane. I listened to a lot of Hartford’s banjo stuff, and then eventually Byrnes sent me this video of a young John Hartford playing Sunshine Lady. It was pretty singlehandedly the inspiration for this piece.