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Lee Banjo Company - A New Generation of Old-Time Banjos

by D. Lee Thomas

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Chuck and Tammy Lee in their banjo shop at Ovilla, Texas. Lee Banjo Company began building open-backed banjos in 2002 and through December of 2004,had built and shipped over 100 banjos to its dealers. The company goal is to bring production up to around 150 banjos a year. The Company, a family business came about when Chuck and Tammy decided it was time to hang up the wrenches from a successful, commercial plumbing business and it's physical rigors. Chuck's banjos have the feel and sound of the very best of the small shop open back builders and the distinction of artistic and decorative inlays that Chuck calls whimsical. Several professional old-time players have taken a liking to the Lee banjo. Dan and Jennifer Levenson each have a different model. By the way, the models are all named after towns in Texas. Dick Kimmel and Cathy Fink also have banjos on the drawing board and Bob Carlin just took delivery of his first Lee banjo. After a gracious tour of the shop, I had an opportunity to visit with Chuck over a cup of coffee and learn the secrets to his successful venture into the world of open-back banjos.

DLT: How did you decide to start building banjos?

CL: My back and knees are worn out. I did a lot of heavy work as a plumber doing major commercial projects. I played banjo Scruggs' style then clawhammer and started buying and selling old banjos. I had one of just about everybody's banjos. I had a custom banjo on order for several years that I never got built. So, I went to my wife one day and told her I had an idea and I wanted to build banjos as a retirement business. I thought, well, I'll start now and over the next ten years, I'd learn how to build banjos. She said she thought that was a good idea.

I said, "You're not understanding what I'm saying. I want to rebuild the building out back, put in heating and air conditioning, buy thousands and thousands of dollars worth of tools and take our retirement savings and put it in this building and build banjos and that would be our retirement income." She said she thought that was a good idea. I said, "O.K., we're not understanding each other." She finally convinced me she thought it was a good idea and it's really worked.

I've never done anything like this before. I did some woodworking over the years but nothing with this much detail. I had done intricate plumbing work where everything had to be just perfect for hospitals, but nothing like this. I had never done any inlay work. So, that was kind of the adventure of getting started.

DLT: How did you learn to build a banjo?

CL: Well, I knew what they were supposed to look like. So, when I started building necks and they didn't look like that, I knew they were firewood. I knew what I liked to play. I liked the old Vega necks, and I owned banjos from the various makers like Mike Ramsey and those guys. So, I just started building and I had a couple of mentors early in the process. One was a professional musician who I did build some banjos for. But, I never could, early on, get exactly what he wanted so he didn't end up playing one. Then, Donald Zepp at Zepp Country Music was a big advocate and he bought my first two banjos.

We just kind of tweaked them as we went along. Stan Werbin at Elderly Instruments has been a great help. Every banjo I've done, I feel like I can make the next one better. Even though I feel like we've hit upon a good system and we've got a good product now, we're still looking to make them better and make our production system better. That was something that I did bring with me from my commercial background. I learned how to conceive of strategies to make things work better and faster and still get a good product without becoming a factory. We have no interest in becoming the next mass producer of banjos. I'm trying not to copy anybody. I probably owned twenty-five to thirty banjos when I started to build banjos, so I've played and owned banjos from just about all of the small shop builders. I did not want to become a reproduction builder because there are already people doing a marvelous job at reproduction work. When Wyatt Fawley does reproduction work, there is none better. I think his work is just superb, and I've owned lots of his banjos. But, I didn't want to compete with people who were already doing something well. That's kind of how I got into my style of inlay work by trying to think how I could do something different. I took the fantasy, whimsical approach, which is kinda my outlook on life anyway. I don't totally live in the world of reality, but that's OK because that's where I see the inlays in my mind. I really enjoy the inlay work and I think it has given me a market niche. I take a lot of time to make them stand out and look the way I want them to look.

DLT: Do you cut all of your inlays by hand?

CL: Yes, and I do all my own artwork. I might start with an idea from somewhere else. I was not trained as an artist so sometimes I take clip art or sketches and combine things together to get what I want. Once I get the feel for what I want, then I redraw the inlay. Then I take the drawings or patterns and saw the panels from a variety of inlay materials and glue them together before they go in the neck. This inlay path has allowed me to market my banjos with some success. I try to build quality banjos with old-time tone and craftsmanship, but the woods and inlays I use make them different from other banjos on the market.

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You can visit Lee Banjos' great web site at www.leebanjos.com for some great photos and sound fi les. Also visit Zepp's Country Music site at www.zeppmusic.com to hear Donald Zepp playing several Lee banjos under the sound file heading.

Please send comments about this article or suggestions for future articles to dlthom31@yahoo.com

About the Author

Lee Thomas began playing the five-string banjo in 1971 while attending college. There he met and performed with Ernie Taft, fi ddler with the ‘Irish Rogues' and ‘Glass and Taft', in the band Salt Lick which performed old time, bluegrass and original acoustic music in Dallas and Fort Worth through the 90's.Currently he performs with Glass and Taft and the Salt Rock Rounders a string band playing traditional American music. He plays three fi nger, bluegrass style as well as the older stroke or clawhammer style banjo heard in early recordings of rural American traditional music. He's a lawyer also but don't hold that against him...