Banjo Pickin’ Girl

Yes, this is truly the name of the song, and yes, I’m actually the one playing the banjo. The only boy in a bluegrass group with three girls. Yep. That’s just how we rolled back then in the ‘Possum Ridge Pickers. You can actually hear us trying to keep our composure at around 0:22 as the humor of it all struck us while we were singing. But again, that’s how we rolled in the PRP.

This song was one of the first hits recorded by the original ‘Coon Creek Girls back in the early days of radio. They were the first all-girl bluegrass band to become well-known, largely from their regular appearances on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance radio show that was broadcast just a few miles away from Berea, KY where the PRP members grew up. Our mutual music teacher on fiddle and guitar, Wanda Barnett, was, at the time, a member of the New ‘Coon Creek Girls, a stellar, all-girl bluegrass group of the late 1980s and early 1990s. She and fellow ‘Cook Creeker and my banjo teacher, Annie Kaiser taught us this song and we performed it in some of our longer live sets and on this recording, made in “Fritz’s Room Studio’ (a.k.a. my bedroom) in the summer of 1991 with a four-track recorder on cassette tape.

Our band began in the spring of 1990 as a school talent show act consisting of Deborah and me playing the rip-roaring instrumental song, “Theme Time.” I was in sixth grade and Deborah in fourth. We later grew into the foursome including the Compton girls.

‘Possum Ridge was a nickname our parents gave to the neighborhood we all lived in, honoring the plethora of ‘possums who gave their lives while unsuccessfully trying to cross the road. (Believe it or not, this was only the first band I’ve been in that had ‘Possum in the name!)

The PRP played for such illustrious events as the grand opening of the Berea Public Library, several editions of the Family Medicine Musical Review, and numerous talent shows. Deborah and I also later played together in the high school folk dance super group of central Kentucky, The Last of the Fashion-Conscious Lumberjacks, but I’ll save that story for another post. (See how I keep building suspense and anticipation?)

The funniest part for me about this song isn’t actually the irony of being the banjo-playing dude in a song about a banjo-playing chick. What I love is that we recorded this song a few years before my voice changed so I’m also the one singing the highest harmony part! To round out the humorous parts of our group and this song (and I was kinda round back in those days before I hit my growth spurt), as the oldest and only boy member of the group, I was actually noticeably shorter than Elizabeth, who was a few months younger than me. Geesh. How embarrassing. [Insert chuckle or sympathetic “awww” here.]

Funny stuff and all, here it is, Banjo Pickin’ Girl by the ‘Possum Ridge Pickers in 1991. I hope you dig it! Thanks for stopping by to share in the nostalgic, musical fun!

The ‘Possum Ridge Pickers were:
Elizabeth Compton - guitar, lead vocals
Catherine Compton - fiddle, vocals
Deborah Payne - fiddle, vocals
Fritz Schindler - banjo, guitar, mandolin, harmony vocals