Bill Keith (1939 to 2015) changed bluegrass banjo in nine months. In 1963 he played with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, and his note-for-note fiddle tunes, like Sailor’s Hornpipe, showed a new way to play the five-string. Players call it melodic style, or Keith style. He also invented the Keith tuner, which lets a banjo player retune a string mid-song, and he transcribed the tunes for Earl Scruggs’s method book.
Why Keith matters
Scruggs style plays the melody inside a roll. Keith style plays every note of the melody, in order, by spreading the notes across strings so each one rings into the next. That opened the whole fiddle repertoire to the banjo. Hornpipes and reels could be played on banjo the way a fiddler plays them. Every melodic player since, from Béla Fleck to Alan Munde, works from what Keith showed Monroe’s audiences in 1963.
Life and career
Keith was born on December 20, 1939, in Boston and grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts. He learned banjo from a Pete Seeger instruction book on a $15 banjo. At Amherst College, where he graduated in 1961, he and Jim Rooney helped found the Connecticut Valley Folklore Society, which fed the New England folk revival.
He worked with Red Allen and the Kentuckians, then joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1963. Monroe introduced him as “Brad” Keith, since there was only one Bill in his band. His Grand Ole Opry debut on February 16, 1963, featured Sailor’s Hornpipe. His recordings with Monroe that year spread his style fast.
After Monroe he played plectrum banjo in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, then took up the pedal steel guitar and worked with Ian and Sylvia and Jonathan Edwards. In the 1970s he recorded for Rounder, including Something Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass in 1976 and Banjoistics in 1984. He played in Muleskinner with Clarence White and David Grisman, in the Woodstock Mountains Revue, and with Tony Trischka, Jim Rooney, and Jim Collier. He founded the Beacon Banjo Company to make his tuners. He received the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2014 and entered the IBMA hall of fame on October 1, 2015. He died of cancer at home in Woodstock, New York, three weeks later, on October 23, 2015.
Playing style
Keith style is built on the scale. Instead of rolling around a melody note, Keith found each melody note on a different string, often with open strings mixed in, so the notes overlap and ring like a harp. That lets the banjo play a fiddle tune note for note at full speed without the choppy sound of single-string picking. The style still uses three picks and roll-like right-hand patterns, which is why it blends with Scruggs playing.
His tuner changed the hardware. Scruggs had used added cams to detune strings mid-tune. Keith’s design replaced two of the regular tuning pegs with pegs that stop at preset pitches, with no extra holes in the peghead. His Beacon Banjo Company sold them as Scruggs-Keith tuners, and his son Martin runs it today.
Influences and legacy
Keith learned from Pete Seeger’s book and admired Don Stover, whom he inducted into the IBMA hall of fame with the Lilly Brothers in 2002. He transcribed Earl Scruggs’s tunes into tablature for Earl Scruggs and the Five String Banjo. He played beside Bill Monroe, Red Allen, Clarence White, and David Grisman. Producer Joe Boyd offered him Dueling Banjos for Deliverance. He turned it down to travel in Europe and suggested Eric Weissberg. Keith style is still thought of as the modern or progressive side of bluegrass banjo.
Signature tunes and songs
Sailor’s Hornpipe Blackberry Blossom Cherokee Shuffle.
Essential recordings
Sailor’s Hornpipe, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys Something Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass (Rounder, 1976) Banjoistics (Rounder, 1984) Beating Around the Bush (Green Linnet, 1992)
Awards and honors
IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award (2014) International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame (2015)
Watch and listen
This is Keith’s Grand Ole Opry debut with Bill Monroe on February 16, 1963, playing Sailor’s Hornpipe.
Keith and Tony Trischka talk through melodic style banjo.
What to learn from Keith
Learn Blackberry Blossom in melodic style. Work out the scale first. Play a G major scale using a different string for each note, with open strings where you can. Then play the tune the same way. The technique to steal is letting notes ring into each other. When the melody flows like a fiddle and not like a roll, you are playing Keith style.
Sources
Bill Keith (musician), Wikipedia Keith, Bill, BluegrassBios.com
Related players
See the banjo players hub and the bluegrass banjo guide for more pickers. Keith played with Clarence White in Muleskinner and with Tony Trischka. Bobby Thompson developed melodic banjo in the same years.