Mark Johnson, a Dunnellon musician and banjo pioneer, has been selected for induction into the American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame in October. Johnson is credited with creating the third style of five-string banjo playing called clawgrass, which incorporates bluegrass and clawhammer banjo styles.
Johnson created the clawgrass style by using a downward stroke with the back of the fingernail. He received his first banjo as a boy in New York in 1970 and paid for it with money earned from his paperboy route. His mother saw an ad in the “Penny Saver” for banjo lessons and got him started. Johnson will be inducted into the hall of fame during the Museum’s big banjo fest weekend in Oklahoma City.
Johnson’s musical journey began when he told his teacher that he wanted to play like the little boy in the movie ‘Deliverance,’ and Jay Unger taught him to frail a banjo, which is a distinctive style of playing. The clawhammer is sometimes called down-picking or more commonly known as frailing. Taking his banjo everywhere with him, he also had a lot of time to teach himself bluegrass.
Originally reported by Citrus County Chronicle – Crystal River
