ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702100089
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-20 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RINER
SOURCE: JUDY SCHWAB SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
But it was when Olen's brother made a banjo that Olen's cat disappeared. "It took a long time before I figured out what happened to that cat," Gardner said, referring to the taut banjo heads once made of animal skin. Then added, "plastic came out (for banjo heads) in 1950 and that was a great relief," as he glanced at his current calico cat bedded down in a warm corner of his shop.
"Couldn't buy anything," Gardner said of those Depression days. "Sears and Roebuck just about closed down." That's why he learned to carve wood, so he could make toys like the ones his city cousins had. Now he makes banjos, some guitars, and few fiddles that his city cousins wish they had.
At 61, Gardner has had a musical life that has been constantly interrupted by the need for a steady paycheck. He began performing in 1956 when he went on the road playing banjo with Charlie Monroe, Bill Monroe's older brother.
The kind of music they played then was still regional. It didn't go national, Gardner explained until the television program "The Beverly Hillbillies" used pickin' music for their theme, and the background music for the film, "Bonnie and Clyde" used banjo music. The film "Deliverance" also added to the interest in bluegrass banjo and guitar music of the style Gardner grew up on. The '60s' search for identity among the nation's young people fueled interest in learning about tradition. Old timey music was "discovered."
Gardner performed off and on during the last 30 years, going out as a musician and then returning to steady work to support his family. All this led to a varied career as a tool and die maker, computer programmer, and currently, high school drafting teacher. Like his daddy he is also a minister.
At the core of his life is the music he plays and the instruments he builds and restores. Gardner still performs with his wife, Frances, who sings. They are active with the Fiddle and Banjo Club of Roanoke.
After that cigar-box banjo, Gardner gradually honed his craft until he built his first real banjo. He also builds guitars and an occasional violin.
"I fretted my first Martin [guitar] in 1961," Gardner said, referring to the narrow ridges on the guitar neck used for fingering. He is an authorized Martin repairman. He sold his first banjo in 1967. He had been making it for himself and someone wanted to buy it, so he sold it and bought parts to make two more. Working part time at his craft he produces an average of one banjo a year and three or four guitars.
He also restores old instruments. With cabinets full of "concoctions," Gardner takes care to match the finish on old instruments he works on. He pulls an old Martin in two pieces from a cabinet and shows where Johnny Cash signed the wood. Wouldn't want to erase that.
Gardner's shop is a neat, comfortable room in the bottom of his log home. There's plenty of work and storage space, a wood stove, and a small collection of chairs - "people get their instruments and we pick," Gardner explained nodding toward the little semicircle. "You can almost blow weatherboarding off the side of the house," Gardner said as he lit into a tune on one of his banjos for some visitors. This instrument has Gardner's first name at the top of the neck and his last at the bottom, spelled in pearl inlay. The instruments he makes and works on have plenty of fine detail such as maple and ebony marquetry, abalone, and tortoise shell. Between the gleaming wood, shiny metal parts, and the inlaid details, these instruments come in somewhere between jewelry and French pastry on the visually delicious scale. Even their cases are an eyeful, one lined in dandelion plush looks good enough to be buried in.
Gardner has been accused by a friend of mutilating old tenor banjos. These are four-string instruments that were used in city Dixieland bands. Gardner makes new necks for these instruments replicating the design of the original and allowing for a fifth string. Walnut used in these necks comes from his own property. "Nothing's destroyed," Gardner says in defense of his alterations.
In addition to building, playing, repairing and restoring instruments, Gardner sometimes lectures at schools and colleges on the history of the banjo and Appalachian life. He says he has traced the banjo all the way across Africa. "The banjo is a cultural evolvement," Gardner maintains and is amused when people try to pick out a single person to credit with its creation.
In 1994, Gardner was one of 31 instrument makers selected to have his work in a show titled "Dixie Frets, Luthiers of the Southeast," sponsored by the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and Allied Arts of Chattanooga. A luthier was once a maker of lutes, but the term is now applied to any maker of fretted instruments, according to the show catalog.
Today, Gardner has all the work he can handle with his full-time teaching job, his performing, and his craft of building and repairing guitars.
He may not be a household name in the New River Valley, but those who need his skillful touch on their instruments know the way to his door.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Gene Dalton. 1. Gardner (left) is a certified repairmanby CNBfor the Martin Guitar company. 2. Tools hang on the wall of the well
organized shop (below) where Daniel Foster makes cellos and violins.
color.