I started taking banjo lessons with Bill Nesbitt in February 2014. He was letting me borrow his banjo during this time.

Because I love playing the banjo so much and we had started using it in recordings and writings songs on it, M and I decided we should get our own banjo. In June we started “The Great Banjo Expedition” – which was basically a search on the internet to see what we wanted for a specific budget. We have a separate “band account” that we deposit any money we get from our digital albums, shows, and the KUAR Arts and Letters radio program. Our “band account” had been earning more than spending for almost a year, so we decided it was time to actually GO on this “The Great Banjo Expedition” to Nashville, Tennessee – known for its love of music.

We would have weeks to plan the expedition, and there were four shops we had in mind to look at and play from their banjo selection: Gruhn Guitars, Carter Vintage Guitar, Corner Music, and Nashville Used Music. That was the extent of our plans. The night before we left we used Hotwire for our hotel, which is a site that gives you a cheaper price than the actual hotel, but you only know the location of the hotel and not the actual hotel until you pay (nonrefundable). As far as food, we just looked up places on Urbanspoon and had some advice from friends.

When we first arrived in Nashville we stopped for lunch at Fido.

After a delicious burger and key lime pie, we started the banjo shoppin’. We went to Gruhn Guitars first. We bought some finger picks and starting trying out some banjos. There were so many banjos, but around 5 in our price range to choose from. I immediately liked the feel and sound of the Recording King R35.

M played some guitars – there were so many beautiful instruments to look at!

Carter Vintage Guitar had a beautiful mural on the outside wall. There was a smaller banjo selection here and there was only one in our price range.

I wanted to take a little break from playing all of those banjo’s at this point, so we went to Crema for coffee.

Corner Music was rockin’ and they had an acoustic guitar room that I could play banjo’s in – away from the rockin’ overhead music. I didn’t like any of the banjos I played there.

Last stop was the Nashville Used Music, which was basically a music pawn shop. The music was so loud I couldn’t hear what any of the banjo’s sounded like. Also, I couldn’t be certain what condition the banjo’s were in, so we didn’t stay too long.

We went to the Millennium Maxwell Hotel to check in. We didn’t get any chocolate covered strawberries on our pillows, but they gave us a room with a view for M’s birthday. We talked banjos for a bit and did some research on the Recording King R35. We decided we would go back to Gruhn the next day and purchase the RK.

The plan, which we made up right then, was to go to dinner and a show at the Grand Ole Opry. After discovering that parking was $25, we skipped dinner and had a leisurely walk with free parking. Once there, we got some corn dogs and enjoyed live performances by The Whites, Daryle Singletary, Sarah Darling, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, Connie Smith, Jason Crabb, Chris Janson, and Mel Tillis.

The next morning we went to Hermitage Cafe – a local breakfast diner for a $4 greasy delicious breakfast.

We headed back to Gruhn Guitars to get our banjo!

We had decided on the Recording King R35 – which we bought from Calvin.

When we got home, we were so inspired by the music and entertainment in Nashville we wrote a song with a little twang called “Fishing at Midnight” for our new album – “The Umbrellas Here.”