Carl Lunsford

Carl Lunsford, a traditional jazz banjo player whose rhythmic style anchored many West Coast trad bands, passed away on August 5th in Sausalito, California, at 90. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he moved around as a child due to his father’s job with B.F. Goodrich, settling eventually in Albany, New York. At 12, his aunt Elsie, a “flapper-era” ukulele player, gave him her instrument, which he played for hours on the family car trip home; he soon graduated to banjo, buying one for $25 and teaching himself to play jazz and popular music. By age 18, he sat in at clubs, forming a trio with banjo, bass, and clarinet.

Carl bounced from Colgate in upstate NY to a school in Cincinnati, and then settled in at Columbia University, switching from pre-med to music as career opportunities opened up. In the mid 1950s he was playing around the Village and sitting in with Black bands like Wilbur de Paris’s, preferring their “real thing” sound. He befriended Omer Simeon, driving him home to Harlem in his ’53 MG TD. In 1959, he toured Europe with Chicago’s Red Onion Jazz Band, playing in Dusseldorf, then finished out the summer with the Chicago Stompers before joining Turk Murphy’s Jazz Band in San Francisco, contributing to albums like The Many Faces of Ragtime (1971). He relocated to Boston for several years in the early 1960s to open Joel Schiavone’s Red Garter location and later Your Father’s Mustache in New York, building a reputation as lead banjo player and appearing on some records.

Lunsford moved to North Beach, a San Fransico neighborhood, to continue playing with Turk Murphy as well as other West Coast bands. He bought a houseboat in Sausalito’s Gate 6 1/2 in 1974, starting at a $30 monthly rent, where he would live until his death. Over the decades to follow he performed with groups like the St. Peter Street Strutters, Golden State Jazz Band, Natural Gas Jazz Band, Minstrels of Annie Street, and Down Home Five, playing into his later years wherever he could locally.

In 2022 Carl Lunsford was interviewed by Helen Vandeman for a YouTube video. Below is a transcript of that interview, the most informative source on his life story available online.

Corrected Carl Lunsford Interview Transcript

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1934, and I don’t remember much of it. We were moving from Kansas City to Albany, and my dad was a general manager for B.F. Goodrich, so they moved him around. The whole family went with him. We stopped in Akron, Ohio, where my aunt Elsie lived. She was a flapper during the flapper era and played ukulele all the time. I liked it, and she gave it to me when I was probably 12 or 13. I played a few chords on it because I could do it—I don’t know why, but I could. So, she gave it to me, and I played ukulele in the back seat of the car all the way from Akron, Ohio, to Albany, New York. I must have driven my parents nuts, but that’s how I started.

Then I decided to graduate to a banjo, which I did. I bought one for 25 bucks from a neighbor, and that was the beginning of it. I played all the time and taught myself how to do it. My neighbor played ukulele and some banjo, so I started playing when he was in the hospital. I was a little nervous because I’d never done it before, but I got over my nervousness and played for him. I played every day, in amongst football practices and things like that, but I didn’t play for anything specific—it was fun. I wrote a few songs, none of them very good, just all right.

It was really a trio, probably a couple years later—banjo, bass, clarinet, maybe. I don’t remember exactly, just whoever was available and wanted to play came on in. We played jazz and popular music. I had a favorite club I went to when I was old enough to go at night, probably 18. I’d hear them play, and after one o’clock, it was legal for me to play, so I’d sit in with her. She taught me a bunch of tunes that were current, and I glommed onto them. That’s how I started playing.

It wasn’t a formalized band, just a bunch of people who liked to get together. I went to Colgate in upstate New York for a year but couldn’t stand it. I transferred to Cincinnati, Ohio, because my dad went there and talked me into it. Then I went to Columbia for a year because I wanted to go to New York City. I started as a pre-med student and liked it, but music was more important to me. I went to Columbia’s music school, I think—it’s fuzzy now. It was open and friendly, and people liked what I did, so I stayed at Columbia quite a while.

In those days, there was a jazz band on every street corner. Every club had live music. That’s where I met Omer Simeon, a great clarinet player with Wilbur de Paris. They all became friends, and I became particularly good friends with Omer Simeon. I’d drive him home at night, three in the morning, in my ’53 MG TD—one of those with headlights like that, really nice. I’d drive him to Harlem, 115th Street and Broadway, drop him off, make a big U-turn, and go home. I noticed from the first time there was a Black guy on one corner and another on another, just making sure everything was okay. I played with a lot of bands around New York City, mainly in the Village, and sat in with different bands, mostly Black bands, because they played better—the real thing. I was good enough not to get in anybody’s way, and everybody liked it, so that kept me going.

The band in Ohio broke up at one point, so I went out there to play with them. Their banjo player was still in the band, so there were two banjos for a while. I got tired of that and went back to New York after a couple of weeks. In 1959, I joined a band from Chicago, the Red Onion Jazz Band, because their banjo player quit. The leader asked if I wanted to go to Europe, and I said sure. We went over on a German coal export ship—four of us, I think. The leader was a trumpet player, and we met a tuba player in Europe who had just gotten out of the Navy. We started playing in Dusseldorf, a traditional jazz band, which I liked. We did that all summer of ’59, then I came home and went back to work in New York with the Red Onion Band. Later, I played with the Chicago Stompers until the end of that summer.

Red Garter was a San Francisco outfit, and I played with them later on for a long time. The Red Garter started a place in Boston, so I went there and played for a few years. Harry Higgins was a friend of mine, a lead banjo player, and Maury Wills, a Black banjoist from L.A., called us the two best banjo players in the world. It was published, quite a compliment because he was well-known. Harry died suddenly, so I was left as the best banjo player in the world. I played lead banjo in Boston, building my reputation, playing what was written or how it was supposed to sound for a bunch of banjos. I did that for several years.

I joined Turk Murphy in ’59. I was married at the time and had a boy, but my wife took off to New York, so I went back to save the marriage and kid. That didn’t work out, so I returned to San Francisco in ’61. I lived in North Beach until the Chinese community moved in, invited by the mayor. North Beach was all Italian then—great food, wonderful people, a real community. I lived on Lombard Street in a typical San Francisco flat with a long hallway and rooms off it. I loved Sausalito, so I bought a houseboat in 1974 at Gate 6 ½, anchored out and tied up. Dorothy Steckler charged $30 a month rent, but it’s gone up to seven, eight, or nine hundred now.

The Red Garter was still going until a few years ago. They had one in Boston, where I played, and others in St. Louis, Cape Cod, Denver, and maybe St. Louis still.

The band I was with quit about a month ago when the leader decided to stop on a Sunday after we finished playing. The whole band quit, so I have no place to play now, just taking trio or duo jobs. It was fun, exciting, and I’d be playing someplace now if I had a place. I have to wait around till somebody offers me a job.