CU engineering grad is world-class banjo maker
By Carol Taylor, Boulder Daily Camera, August 2010
Charles "Chuck" Ogsbury at his banjo shop in 1971
It was an unusual career path for an engineering student, but this year Chuck Ogsbury is celebrating 50 years of banjo making success.
Ogsbury began studying at the University of Colorado in the late 1950s. Taking a coffee break between classes one day, he wandered through the Timberline Lounge at the University Memorial Center. A young woman was singing and playing guitar, accompanied by a banjo player. The woman's voice and the music blew him away. It was Judy Collins.
The chance encounter inspired Ogsbury to begin playing guitar. Shortly afterward, he picked up the banjo.
Soon he had designed his own banjo and built the prototype instrument in the CU physics machine shop. By the time he graduated, Ogsbury was already in business.
Some of his engineering professors were disappointed that Ogsbury didn't continue in engineering. "I was in the top 10 percent of my class," Ogsbury explains. His post-graduation banjo making plans didn't go over well with his parents' friends and relatives either.
Nevertheless, he produced his first 100 long neck banjos in a shop at Left Hand Canyon in 1960. The handmade instruments sold for $72. Comparable banjos at the time cost some $350.
"It was kind of a Henry Ford type of thing. Making not only a good product, but an affordable one," Ogsbury remembers. Sales took off quickly.
In 1961 he hired a friend to help. They set up shop in North Boulder and Ode Banjos was official. A year later Ogsbury bought an acre of land and hired a local contractor to build a 2,400-square-foot building for the growing company.
Business Week magazine featured the banjo maker in 1962 and suddenly there was a waiting period of 8 weeks for an Ode.
A 110-mph Chinook wind completely destroyed his operation in 1963. Ogsbury picked up the debris and moved to a rented warehouse. He was back in production within a month.
With lawsuit settlement money and the help of friends, he rebuilt a slightly larger space and continued producing beautifully crafted instruments.
A few years later, Ogsbury sensed the beginning of the end of the folk movement and he sold his small company to Baldwin in 1966. For about a year he traveled around the country, but came back to Boulder, settling up in Gold Hill. Before long, he was thinking of new banjo designs.
Baldwin still owned the Ode name. So Ogsbury changed the name to Ome and registered the trademark. Ome Banjos has been expanding its line of instruments ever since.
For the past 22 years, the enterprise has occupied an unassuming structure at 5680 Valmont.
A sharp and lively 71-year-old, Ogsbury takes pride in the exceptional quality of his banjos.
We're making works of art here," he said. "Our instruments are made to last for generations. How many products can you say that about?"
With over 90 percent of its business out-of-state, Ome Banjos is still not well known in Boulder.
"We're kind of a national treasure that nobody knows about," Ogsbury quipped.
Universal Sound - Chuck Ogsbury and OME Banjos
By Aaron Keim, Fretboard Journal, Summer 2006
(click image above to view article PDF, 1.2MB)
Kort McCumber - Lickskillet Road
CD Release Party January 4th at the Boulder Theater, Boulder CO
Fresh, vital and energetically charged with deep and genuine feeling, Kort McCumber's new CD – Lickskillet Road – is guaranteed to satisfy. Whether you're looking for something to lift you up on your feet, or something to drive you thoughtfully into and sometimes to the edge of your seat, you'll find it on Lickskillet Road. Twelve great, new songs meet with great, timeless musicianship to make Lickskillet Road a must-hear, gotta-have-it CD.
A first listen leads to a quick conclusion …Kort is an accomplished player, and a versatile one. On this release, he plays no less than eight instruments (he plays many of them at the live show as well, along with a few more); Navigate your way up and down Lickskillet Road and you'll find Kort on guitar (acoustic and electric), bass (electric and upright), mandolin, bouzouki, dobro, harmonica and banjo. (Kort plays both an Ome Five String Jubilee Open Back and an Ome Four String Irish Tenor).
In the end, however, it isn't his instrumental versatility, but his vocal virtuosity that takes the record to the next level. His singing is not just good, it is great! Some singers can hit all the notes while others are skilled at capturing the feeling. Kort does both, breathing life into the songs and reaching into the lives of those who hear them.
As if that's not enough, McCumber and recording engineer/co-producer Jim Gilmour solicited a little help from the best of the best. Guest appearances from Vince Gill (mandolin and harmony vocals on Middle Child and lead guitar on Got Me a Woman), Sally Van Meter (dobro) and Don Conoscenti (acoustic guitar, electric guitar and lap steel), along with the soulful playing of numerous other musicians, raise the bar another notch or two. In the end, Lickskillet Road is well-conceived and skillfully delivered.
While Kort is clearly seasoned and comfortable in the studio, his greatest joy and dynamic verve is on-stage. The proof is in the performance. In 2007, Kort was the unanimous choice winner of the Suzanne Millsaps Performing Songwriters Showcase. His winning performance earns him a spot on the main stage at next summer's Founders Title Folk and Bluegrass Festival in Snowbird, Utah.
The next BIG show, the Colorado CD Release, is slated for January 4th at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, CO, presented by KGNU, Banker's Happiness Productions and Lucky Nugget Records. Mollie O'Brien and Rich Moore will open the show and you can expect guest appearances from Don Conoscenti, Michael Lille, Greg Schochet, Brett Billings, Tom Larson, Jim Gilmour, Beth Wilberger, Joy Myers, Dan Rose and others. If you're in the area, this is a show you won't want to miss. And if you're not, make your way there. In case you haven't heard, Colorado in the winter is pretty cool!
For more information on Kort McCumber or to listen to/purchase CD's, go to kortmusic.com, cdbaby.com, and Itunes.com. For a more up-close and personal kortmusic experience, go to the Boulder Theater on January 4th.
The New Line of Banjos From
Ome
By Ken Perlman, Banjo Newsletter, September 2003
I first met Ome founder Chuck Ogsbury in the late 1980s, when my Boston friend Ed Britt brought him round for an introductory visit. Even then Chuck had already been in the banjo building business on and off for almost twenty-five years. He had created the Ode Banjo Company in the early 1960s and built some legendary 5-strings, sold that off to Baldwin Piano, and in 1970 he and a few partners started up the Ome company on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado. Although Ome had built mostly 5-strings in its early days, by the early 1980s its market niche was primarily the high-end tenor and plectrum market. By the time of our first meeting, however, Chuck had regained full control of the company and begun to devote much of his energy to re-establishing Ome as a major player in the world of 5-string banjo manufacture.
This decision was the start of roughly fifteen years of product development and experimentation. There have been radical changes in terms of rim designs, tonal systems, neck shaping, and hardware. There has also been considerable development in terms of available inlay patterns and other decorative aspects of banjo design.
As I came to know Chuck and his line of banjos, I came to realize that he was both a banjo visionary, and a true perfectionist. His purpose all along seems to have been to create the best crafted, most attractive instruments he possibly could. More important, his restless quest to create the best banjo possible has also extended into the realms of tone production and playability.
Chuck now feels that the development process has reached fruition, and that his current line of instruments (both 5-string and 4-string, both resonator and open-back) are the best Ome has produced to date.
I'll start with the open-back line, since that's the one I'm personally most familiar with. To appeal to the varied tastes of old-time banjo enthusiasts, Ome now makes three kinds of open-backs, all of which are available with both 11" and 12" rim sizes. Other things being equal, 11" sized rims yield a bit more clarity and high-end overtones, while 12" rims offer more warmth and low-end overtones. The 11" models are available with the modern standard 24-bracket configuration or with the 28-bracket configuration once characteristic of the Fairbanks/Vega line (I always preferred the 28-bracket system because with this configuration the brackets don't dig quite as much into the lap). To help maintain just the right level of string tension on both 11" and 12" open back models, Ome has developed its own specially designed sweet tone tailpiece.
* The Minstrel is designed for those who want a warm, woody tone perfect for vocal accompaniment, or for blending in with a present-day old time jam session. It has a 3-ply, 3/4" thick maple rim that features a carved "tone-rim" instead of a tone ring. Although some other builders glue on a separate piece of hard-wood to serve this purpose, Chuck made a conscious decision to carve this tone-producing system directly out of the rim, so that it is all in one piece. The idea here is that just as much tone is lost through the glue joint, as is gained by using a harder or more resonant bit of wood. Generally, the necks on this model are made of mahogany instead of the usual maple, which also makes for a less piercing sound.
* The Old-Time adds a small brass ring to the above described rim and tone rim system, to suit those who like the warm-woody tone but want just a bit more clarity and projection. In terms of banjo building history, this is closest in principle to the design of many late 19th century banjos.
* The Traditional banjo is for those old-time banjoists who want power, punch, and a wide range of dynamic and tonal expression. It has a complex tone ring set on a 9/16" multi-ply curly maple rim. This ring, based on one of the B & D (Bacon & Day) Silver Belle tone production systems, features a triangular-in-cross-section spun brass outer shell within which a quarter-inch steel rod is kept suspended under pressure. My own banjo is of this type, and I can attest that the system yields strong and even tone production throughout the banjo's range, which means that both miking and recording are a breeze. Comparing this system to the vintage Vega tubaphone, for example, I would say that the Traditional has its own characteristic sound, but in terms of every tonal measure I can think of, it's more or less in the same ballpark as its famous antecedent.
Chuck mentions that open back models are also available with 4-string tenor or plectrum necks, and in fact that the 12" Old-Time model with tenor neck is now selling quite well among players of Irish-style tenor banjo. Open backs are also available with 6-string guitar-banjo necks. According to a recent players' survey, the two most promising 6-string models each feature 12" rims: one model has the silver-spun tone ring, the other has the wooden tone rim.
For still more power and punch, the 11" traditional model is also available with a Megatone tone ring. In addition, as an extra option, all open-back models can be fitted with a Flushfit resonator, a wooden "lid" that clips on to the coordinator rods and fits across the entire back of the banjo, in effect creating a sound-chamber (this is akin to the old "pie-plate" resonators that you'll find on some early-20th century banjos). Next I'll move on to the bluegrass line. Ome has just developed a new version of the cast-brass Megatone (mastertone-like) tone ring within the last three or four years, which is designed to strongly evoke the pre-war "flathead" sound. In further pursuit of this sound, Ome has also adopted the pre-war idea of using a zinc-alloy die cast resonator flange (as opposed to the brass flange previously used). They have also done a lot of experimentation on the fit of pot and neck, the thickness of neck, and the fit of ring and three-ply 3/4" maple rim. In addition they have also developed their own Harp tailpiece, designed to keep the strings evenly spaced, while varying the tension to place a bit more pressure on the treble strings, and a bit less on the bass.
Resonator 5-string banjos are also available with a sand-cast, bell-bronze archtop tone ring, with top-tension construction, with radiused (curved) fingerboards, or with old-growth water-cured maple rims.
In terms of the jazz line, Ome produces a full complement of both tenor and plectrum 4-string banjos, all of which employ the 9/16" multi-ply curly maple rim with silverspun tone ring, and the harp tailpiece. There are three basic models:
* The Standard Jazz is fit with the same kind of resonator used for bluegrass instruments (historically, it goes the other way of course; bluegrass instruments wound up with the resonator originally designed for the tenor-banjo version of the Gibson Mastertone). Unlike the instruments of the megatone line, it has a two piece brass flange.
* The Classic Jazz features a "bell-shaped" spun brass resonator flange, and the overall appearance of the resonator is like that featured on the old B & D Silver Belle banjo line.
* The Megavox Jazz feature a deep wall resonator with a top-mounted flange.
Ome banjos feature a wide array of peghead and fingerboard inlay patterns, each more beautiful than the last, with fanciful names like Renaissance, Bright Angel, Rain Forest, Columbine and Odyssey. There are also a plethora of other options in terms of stain color, peghead shape, metal engraving, heel carving, resonator decoration and the like. I don't have the space to go into all these here, but you can get a really good look at many of them in the new Ome Catalog. To conclude with a few words from Chuck: "After working all these years, we have completed a new product line of instruments. These are the best instruments we've ever made. Now the challenge is just to keep building them!"