Joe Bethancourt

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He's been playing the banjo since he was old enough to know better, and is a compulsive picker, collector and learner of weird instruments. He plays (at last count) 65 different instruments, and sings in several languages. What makes this even more remarkable is that he has never had any formal music training, doesn't read music, and is on leave from the Phoenix Home for the Musically Bewildered.

Joe's clawhammer banjo technique is unique. He's been called one of the nation's best clawhammer banjo players by people who should know, and Dave Van Ronk said that Joe could hold his own with any guitar fingerpicker in the USA. His flat- picking sounds like a battery of Gatling guns at full roar.

Joe was born (or found under a rock, depending on who tells the story) in El Paso, Texas in 1946.

He began learning banjo at age 9, after he heard his maternal grandfather, C. H. Burnett, playing fiddle. His first banjo was given him by his grandfather, and was "an old S.S. Stewart." This banjo is now in the able hands of his nephew, Tom Purtill.

When his family moved to Phoenix for the final time, in 1961, Joe began learning guitar, hanging around cofeehouses, mariachi bands, bluegrass groups, and a place called "J.D.'s," where he would sneak in to listen to a local guy called Waylon Jennings. With the "folk boom" of the '60's just hitting it's stride, he found that all that music he had learned as a child stood in good stead.

His first "real pro" gig came at age 18. The Phoenix acoustic scene was active and thriving and Joe hung out with people (then unknowns) like John Denver, the Irish Rovers, and Jim Connor ("Grandma's Feather Bed") and with some of the best in Dixieland, Ragtime, and traditional Mexican musicians.

He spent a stint with a local bluegrass band, "Ma Tucker's String Band," playing with Jeff Gylkinson ("The Dillards") and Doug Haywood (keyboard player/songwriter for Jackson Browne).

He also worked with noted entertainer Dan "Igor" Glenn in several bands. Joe credits "Igor" with teaching him much about the entertainer's art.

In 1968-1969, Joe worked in L.A. as a studio musician, where he made his first record, "The Joe Bethancourt String Concert Album." It was very favourably reviewed by BILLBOARD magazine ( 28 Feb. 1970 ), and given a four star rating. He has some fascinating stories about the "name" musicians he met while he was there.

Joe came back to Phoenix, where he became influential in the original KDKB underground radio "scene," hosting his own radio show on KDKB, "Folk Music Occasional," with (the late and much lamented) Bill Compton.

He was also a regular on the Emmy award-winning "Wallace and Ladmo Show" on KPHO-TV (Ch.5) in the 1980's, and worked with children in the Arizona Commission for the Arts' "Artists in Education" program for about 6 years. He still does occasional Artist Residencies at local elementary schools.

For almost 17 years, he was the "house band" at a little restaurant at 19th Ave. and Bethany Home Rd, in Phoenix, called "Funny Fellows," playing instruments from his enormous collection of traditional ( and not so traditional ) instruments.

Some call him a seminal influence on the acoustic music scene in Phoenix, crediting him for much of their style and technique.

He was nominated for the (Arizona) Governor's Arts Award, and his recordings are now on file at the University of East Tennessee's Appalachian Archives Folklore collection. He's also on the advisory board of the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall Of Fame.

Currently, he's operating his own production company, White Tree Productions, and has recorded both solo, with another noted songwriter, Leslie Fish, and with the neo-Celtic band The Bringers, all for Random Factors of Los Angeles.

He is active in the Single Action Shooting Society, and in Old West living history with the 9th Memorial Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers), and is a walking library of traditional music history.

He and his wife also are a foster home for retired racing greyhounds. They have four of their own, and usually have between three and five more as temporary foster dogs.

Joe, his red-haired wife, several looney greyhounds, a constantly changing number of cats, and a houseful of musical instruments live in an otherwise normal neighborhood in the outback never-never of north-western Phoenix, Arizona.

Learn more at his main site

Yes, there's CDs available. Go here to find them.

Joe offers instruction in 5-string banjo, guitar, mandolin, uke, Celtic harp and many other instruments at Boogie Music in Phoenix, AZ.

And for T-Shirts and Folk Thongs, go to: T-SHIRTS AND STUFF ..

And for a whole mess of videos, go here!

Photo by Karl Wolz
Wall top row: Weissenborn Hawaiian guitar, mouthbow, gourd banjo, Appalachian dulcimer, fretless mountain banjo, Minstrel Boy minstrel banjo
Wall bottom row: Giannini Craviola 12-string guitar, Michael Kelley Dragonfly mandolin, Ome long-neck 5-string banjo, S.S. Stewart Special Thorobred 5-string banjo, Cort Parlor guitar, Washburn Model 1897 Parlor Guitar
Floor, left to right: Larivee LS-10 guitar, Deering Custom guitar-banjo, Taylor 714CE guitar, Ome XXX 5-string banjo, Goya G-30 classical guitar