Artist description STU JAMIESON had his first exposure to the banjo and its music in China, in what is now the Gansu Nan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, during his early childhood, where he was born in 1922. His missionary grandfather had carried his banjo there in 1894, from White County, in the Tennessee Cumberland Mountains, and had set several banjo tunes to Chinese words as he composed hymns. Stus mother was born there, raised there, married there, and bore two sons there before coming to the U.S. to live. She sang down home songs to Stu, and taught him her style of playing autoharp. Gansu was lawless and wild, Stus father took his family to the U.S. to escape the bandits and warlords, then spent a term raising money for the mission, traveling from state to state. Stus contribution was to sing Jesus Loves Me in Gansu Earth Talk dialect, to congregations with frightening pale faces and scary eyes. At 15, in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, Stu had learned to Square dance and to call dances. In 1938 Stu found Margot Mayos American Square Dance Group; early pioneers in the folk revival movement. Learning of his family background, Margot Mayo and Pete Seeger urged him to take up banjo; Pete helped him get started. While in the Army stationed in the southern states during World War II Stu found banjo pickers who could show him banjo techniques and tunings. In 1946 Stu and Margot pooled their discharge bonuses and with Freyda Simon, embarked on a field recording trip throughout Appalachia, specializing in folk instrumental tunings and techniques -- a first. During this trip they recorded Rufus Crisp, the banjo giant, and the unique Gribble , Lusk, and York black string band. Stu was able to master their techniques on the banjo. In later years Stu picked up techniques and tunings from such masters as Uncle Dave Macon, Clarence Ashley, and Cousin Emmy. Stu has done countless performances on stage, radio, and TV. He has appeared in many workshops at folk festivals, and has taught hundreds of banjoists in classes and in individual lessons. With his wife Gloria, Stu has toured China and Tibet twice, performing in both formal and ad hoc concerts, collecting and filming his grandfathers hymns which are still in oral tradition in Gansu Nan. TOM LUKE was a musical and graphic-design prodigy. In his early teens, he was introduced to the world of old-time guitar and banjo music by Lucy Hjerpe, a teacher in his high school. Her husband, Allan Hjerpe, a well-known banjo teacher and folk scholar was one of the Los Angeles-based aficionados who assembled around Ed Pearl and the legendary Ash Grove on Melrose Avenue, which brought America’s traditional folk and bluegrass royalty to L.A. in the late fifties and through the sixties. Tom was a prodigious learner who had only to be shown complex patterns a time or two. Soon Allan turned him over to Stu for further instruction, and Tom became expert on guitar, mandolin and fiddle, mostly by his own efforts with a bit of coaching. Tom and his family were host to Doc Watson and Doc’s family on Doc’s visits to the Topanga Canyon Contests and other southern California festivals, and Luke homes during the sixties and seventies were venues for rousing all-night music sessions, which included the performers on this album as well as the great Oklahoma-born fiddler Bill Jackson. Tom graduated from Art Center College of Design in 1963 and built a lucrative graphic design practice in northern California before emigrating to Denmark with his wife Maria and sons Jason and Peter in 1970. There he became a member of the Irish/bluegrass band Paddy Doyles, which recorded three albums in the 1970s. Tom became famous throughout Scandinavia for his American Traditional Music programs on Radio Denmark. His death in 1992 was a huge loss to the world of traditional folk music and bluegrass. BILL CUNNINGHAM was born in 1931 in Asheville NC, where he became a semipro fiddler during his early teens. One of his fans was famed fiddler, Fiddlin Bill Hensley, who watched young Bill by the hour. After a stint in the Navy, Bill attended the University of North Carolina, graduating in 1959. Later, Bill moved to Los Angeles where he attended art school, graduating in 1962. (Bill drew our home page sketch.) After appearing with Stu and Tom, Bill started his own bluegrass band, The Peaceful Valley Boys. He also worked as a studio musician, played tenor banjo in a Dixieland band, and played in several local Bluegrass bands, including The Beach City Ramblers, Aunt Dinah’s Quilting Party, The Fly-by-Night Flea Bags, Hot Off the Press, The Joplin Forte, and The Bottom Dollar String Band, and others. In addition, he taught banjo, fiddle, guitar etc. Bill has authored many publications devoted to folk instrument instruction. He traveled with Mason Williams for six years, in 1975 went to Ireland and joined Pumpkinhead, and jammed with Irish musicians. Returning to Los Angeles in 1976 he played with Bobby and Clyde, and The Seaweed Cowboys, rejoined Mason Williams, then joined The Santa Fe Recital. In 1979 he returned to Asheville, then to Marshall, NC where he farmed, In 1985 he returned to Asheville and joined The White Water Bluegrass Company. He remains in Asheville, raising bonsai trees and states, I still have all my hair and most of my teeth. He still has his superb musical talents.

Music Style Old time traditional, bluegrass, folk

Musical Influences Doc Watson, Rufus Crisp, Gribble-Lusk-York, Jean Ritchie, Uncle Dave Macon, Cousin Emmy.

Artist History History of the Stu, Tom,& Bill String Band and its 'Lost' recording: In the early '60s, Ed Pearl, proprietor of the widely known and influential Los Angeles club, the "Ash Grove", asked Stu Jamieson to be his contact man with the old-time folk and country musicians he brought in from back East. Ed was familiar with the Southern California Hippie/surfing culture, but felt uncomfortable with the more reserved and taciturn old time musicians. Knowing that Stu came from Appalachian stock and had collected field recordings all over Appalachia, Ed asked Stu to appear as the opening act for these musicians, which Stu was happy to do. Stu also took on the role of Presentor, doing his best to make those performers comfortable in the face of a blinding and intimidating bank of lights beyond which no performer could see. An Ash Grove tradition sprang up in which Stu would join the featured performers at the end of the night for an informal jam session. Tom Luke, an extremely gifted young student of Stu's and of one of of Stu's pupils, Allan Hjerpe, entered the third Topanga banjo and fiddle contest and won the grand prize -- which was for two weeks appearance at the Ash Grove. Tom, still attending high school, was understandably nervous about his first stage appearance, as was Ed Pearl. Both wound up asking Stu to appear with Tom. This duo often took on the duties that Stu had previously carried out alone. Next to Stu's workplace was a bar featuring Dixieland jazz and tossing peanut shells on the floor. Stu got acquainted with the tenor banjo player, Bill Cunningham, and soon found Bill's talents and musical roots far more widespread than clanking out Dixieland chords. Soon Bill joined Stu and Tom; hence the chronological name of "Stu, Tom, and Bill". Unlike most bands they chose not to produce an integrated band sound; instead they aimed to reproduce the sounds of three old-time musicians using an assortment of various combinations,usually from a stock of 21 instruments. They gained notoriety by using three rolling swiveled office chairs with which they could perform microphone choreography while sitting and picking. They chose not to have one of the standard string band names, which usually employed Something-or-Other Boys, preferring their own nicknames. They became a fixture on the Southern California old time music scene, appearing in folk festivals, concerts, and at other clubs; but retained a strong association with the Ash Grove. In 1963 World Pacific Records launched an ambitious recording project tentatively called "Saturday Night at the Ash Grove". Stu, Tom, & Bill were chosen as the first to record. However the project ran into difficulties with other recording companies who had exclusive licenses with many of the headline performers and the project died. A short time later World Pacific went out of business. The producer was kind enough to turn the recording tape over to Stu. Facing several years of family wanderings through Mexico, Canada, the United States, and British Honduras in a converted Greyhound bus, Stu entrusted the tape to an old friend and former student. The friend faithfully kept the tape all these years, in common with an immense assortment of tapes, records, cassettes, and electronic equipment. Although not exactly 'lost' the tape was not readily available until the aftermath of the most recent Los Angeles earthquake made a complete exploration of the storage room feasible. The earthquake repairs took years, thanks to crooked and incompetent contractors; whereupon the tape reappeared almost magically. Before moving out of earthquake country into "acres and acres of clams", its faithful curator lost no time in reproducing it on several compact discs which he kindly distributed to the band survivors and other good friends for safekeeping and easier availability. Immense thanks are extended to faithful Bill Jackson, curator.

Group Members Stu Jamieson, Bill Cunningham, Tom Luke

Instruments Acoustic guitars, mandolins,fretless and fretted banjos, and uncounted harmonicas, these three gentlemen would carry 21 instruments on stage with them for a typical performance.

Albums "Banjos, Lamas, & Bagpipes" Stu and Gloria Jamieson, self published

Location Orlando, Florida - USA

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