![]() ![]() I had so many banjos anyway that I didn’t really need another, especially if I wasn’t totally sure it was mine. ![]() We went back and forth, and he offered to sell it to me for what he had in it, which was quite a bit of money. I wasn’t absolutely positive from the pictures and descriptions that it was mine, but it sure looked like it. I filed a police report back then, but the New York City Police Department had more important stuff to do. I told him my story, but put yourself in his place: it’s a hard story to accept, and I didn’t have any proof. He had just bought it from somebody a year ago. I got in touch with the guy who was selling it, and of course he had no idea what the history of it was. Then, about four, five months ago, it showed up on online. I looked in vain for it in pawnshops and all the old instrument shops. Then, in 1966, it was stolen out of my Lower East Side apartment. It was a great banjo, a Gibson RB-1 Mastertone, and I played it for a few years. His name was Winnie Winston, and he was a mentor of mine. I bought my first really good bluegrass banjo in 1963 from a banjo player who lived in New York. Recently we spoke with Levinger about vintage banjos and the evolution of the instrument, from its African roots to its role as a bluegrass staple. He also performs bluegrass and folk music for families under the name Grandpa Banana. Today, Levinger is the proprietor of Players Vintage Instruments, where he buys and sells vintage guitars, mandolins, banjos, and other musical instruments. Vintage banjo collector Lowell Levinger is perhaps best known to 1960s music fans as “Banana,” the bushy-haired guitarist and keyboards player for The Youngbloods. ![]()
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