Tim Sprinkle

String Magic: Banjo Maker Picked Afton

Virginia Living
August 2004

Virginia roots music – that conglomeration of bluegrass, country, folk, and gospel – dates back well into the 18^th century. Farm workers, church elders, family bands, traveling musicians; they were all here, making beautiful music together and forging a unique regional sound that continues to this day. But, for many modern musicians, the mid-1980s were just about as significant as the early days.

That’s because it was in 1984 that luthier Geoff Stelling moved his banjo operation cross country from California, setting up shop on the side of Heard’s Mountain near Afton. Since then, some 5,700 banjos have passed through his hands; supplying the pickers of the world with hand-made instruments, and cementing Stelling’s reputation as a high-end specialty manufacturer.

Today, just 35 miles from the Appomattox Court House site where Joel Sweeney is said to have invented the 5-string banjo, Stelling and his team create some of the most sought-after instruments on the planet. They work in a small 19^th century schoolhouse that’s nearly as old as the banjo itself, transforming raw materials (including walnut and cherry boards from trees on Stelling’s property, and old-growth wood recovered from the bottom of Lake Superior) into professional-quality instruments that have traveled the globe with top artists from bluegrass, to jazz, to rock and beyond.

“The thing about the banjo that’s kept it around so long is that it can go with so many different types of music,” Stelling says. “It’s evolved from little more than a strummed rhythm instrument – like the one Joel Sweeney used in his minstrel shows – to a lead instrument that’s been played with just about every kind of band you can imagine. It’s come a long way.”

Stelling took up the banjo while a young man, and by high school was already tweaking with the design to try and come up with improvements. He started Stelling Banjo Works in San Diego and eventually toured all over the country as a semi-pro player in his own right. This real-world experience is evident in the “playability” of his banjos (a feature that has kept working professionals coming back to his door) and the technology improvements he has developed over the years.

“The banjo really started out as a simple instrument,” he says, “just a hoop with a skin cover, some hooks to hold everything in place, and a neck. Today we’re working light years beyond that design, and the result are instruments that are far more versatile and easier to play.”

Even so, opening the door to the Stelling workshop is like stepping back in time. Along one wall, you’ve got carvers shaping wood blocks and setting necks; while on the other side skilled hands assemble tone rings and resonators. The famous bulletproof finish is applied, by hand, in a side room the size of a closet. The most advanced piece of technology in the shop: the stereo, which dishes out a steady stream of old-time and “new-grass” banjo classics ala Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, and The Hackensaw Boys.

Outside, Afton is still very much like it was in Sweeney’s time – quiet and rural. The only hint of the work going on inside is the carved “Stelling Shop” sign posted at the end of the driveway and the faint smell of wood finish that wafts through the neighborhood.

Stelling himself is modest about his success, but there’s no denying that business has been good. The shop currently ships an average of 250 banjos per year (each one going through the standard six week build process and final set-up test in the hands of Stelling himself), and is working on a year-and-a-half waiting list for new instruments.

“It’s just amazing that so many people out there want new banjos,” he says, “but I’m certainly not complaining. The popularity of the banjo has been on an upswing the last few years.”

Part of that popularity, Stelling admits, has to do with the shifting tides of popular culture. Movies like “O Brother Where art Thou” – and the resulting Down from the Mountain concert tour – is a recent examples of banjo catching the public’s ear, but it’s far from the first time old-time music has enjoyed a place in the spotlight.

“Every decade or so, a movie comes along that acts as a catalyst to get people into the music again,” he says. “’Bonnie and Clyde’ really started it in the late 60s, and ‘Raising Arizona’ and ‘Smoky and the Bandit’ did it in the 80s and 90s.”

This June, Stelling celebrated 30 years in the business with a Viking-inspired special edition banjo (complete with a vine inlay and intricate custom carvings) and a mahogany model very similar to the instruments he started out building in the 1960s.

“It’s funny the way demand works sometimes,” he says. “We haven’t made an all-mahogany model in years, but as long as people want to play ‘em, we’ll make ‘em.”