Adapted from the introduction to Thumb Lead Two-Finger Banjo

When starting in this style, I recommend playing simple arrangements, with the index finger playing only the first string while the thumb plucks the other four strings. Many of the iconic thumb lead, two-finger banjoists don’t hold to this exclusively, though, and part of what distinguishes their styles is how they break or even ignore this “rule.” It is merely a suggestion. I also want to acknowledge the outstanding index lead banjo players and those who play in hybrid styles, where pretty much anything goes.

I have loved the thumb lead style since I first heard Paul Brown (no relation) play banjo in the early 2000s. After we recorded the album Lone Prairie in 2005 with Beverly Smith, I returned to it repeatedly to learn Paul’s banjo parts as best I could. On September 8, 2011, I began teaching banjo at Chicago’s venerable Old Town School of Folk Music. In my seven years there, I had the good fortune to teach hundreds of students how to play thumb lead, two-finger banjo. Since leaving Chicago, I have continued to do so privately and at the Louisville Folk School. For years, students have asked me to write a book, and I’ve finally gotten to a point where I feel like I’ve amassed a large enough collection to warrant its publication: a book of arrangements that I enjoy teaching and that students seek to play. This volume is not a complete collection of two-finger banjo picking but a curriculum that can take a beginner student to an advanced level of learning from some of the masters mentioned below.

When I interviewed Stephen Wade for this site in July 2021, he shared “a tiny list” of two-finger banjo players who stirred him: Uncle John Patterson, Doc Watson, Byard Ray, Will Keys, Ola Belle Reed, Samantha Bumgarner, Clyde Davenport, Virgil Anderson, Etta Baker, Wade Mainer, Morgan Sexton, Lee Sexton, Raymond Perry, China Poplin, Ross Brown, Lawrence Eller, Land Norris, Chesley Chancey, Hobart Smith, Louvenia Smith, Howard Finster, Pete Steele, B. F. Shelton, Bascom Lunsford, Frank Proffitt, Doc Hopkins, J.P. Nestor, Dick Burnett, Roscoe Holcomb, Dee Hicks, Omer Forster, Kirk McGee, Gus Cannon, and Lewis Hairston.

To that remarkable list, I will add Granville Bowlin, Marvin Gaster, Ivory Howard, Lily May Ledford, George Pegram, Donna Gum, James Roberts, Dink Roberts, John Snipes, Marion Underwood, Fleming Brown, Clifford Glenn, Lee Monroe Presnell, Benton Flippen, Bertie Mae Dickens, Abe Horton, Fred Cockerham, Ed Teague, J. Roy Stalcup, Stephen Wade, Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, Paul Brown, Brad Leftwich, Kirk Sutphin, Lynn “Chirps” Smith, Fred Campeau, Nick Hornbuckle, Nora Brown, Cedric Watson, Chip Arnold, and now you, dear reader!

~Matt Brown