How reliable, kind and helpful so many of you are!  Thank you for the
messages in responce to my question about whether Mark Twain played the
banjo.  I  haven't looked for his own account of the same incident where he
may have mentioned a guitar instead of a banjo.  I'm not as excited by
mention of him and a guitar.  Banjos played a big part of my teenage years
as I had friends who played in New Orleans Jazz Bands.  There was a time
when I was the only girl in Sacramento who could CHARLESTON!  I just saw
the banjo player I knew back then at a mutual friend's 80th birthday
party!  He's a retired presbyterian minister who still appeared at our
local  annual Jazz Festival with the Silver Dollar Jazz band for years.

I did find via google one of the songs mentioned in the article, which I
had NOT heard of before.

Thank you so very much for sharing what you know about the question.

Arianne Laidlaw