Wayne Henderson at The Fretboard Journal 5th Anniversary Party
Back in November I went to Seattle to attend The Fretboard Journal‘s 5th Anniversary Celebration. Â If you have not read this magazine, it is one of the most beautiful music related publications out there. Amazing photos and fantastic stories. Â The early issues have become collectible, as they are now out of print!
The celebration happened over 3 days and included concerts by Bill Frisell, Danny Barnes and my friends Canote Brothers – Greg and Jere.  The final evening’s concert was famed guitar maker and player Wayne Henderson together with Orville Johnson.
The afternoon of the show, there was a lunchtime party at The Fretboard Journal publisher Jason Verlinde’s house, where everyone brought their favourite old instruments, and passed them around like a wine tasting. It was guitar geek heaven.
I had brought with me my main banjo, a 1942 Gibson Style 12 Top Tension original 5 string flathead, which I’ve had for 9 years. Â I bought it from Sammy Shelor, but was amazed to find out from Wayne that he had owned it briefly in the early 1970’s. Here’s a video of Wayne talking about it backstage in Seattle
And some other time I’ll have to tell you the story of how I rear-ended the Hummer Wayne was travelling in on the way to his concert. Â Really!