Career
Okie's banjos were entirely hand-made using his custom 'block pot' technique, which consisted of turning out a glued together ring of wood, usually walnut or maple, or a combination thereof. They are heavier than most, with a slightly wider neck (Okie claims this was favored by the guitar players he was trying to convert to banjo) and often the peghead is inlaid with a variety of shapes and symbols that are Okie signatures - a tall cowboy hat, claw hammer or double claw hammer, and a crescent moon with star.
Allen Hart uses an Okie Adams banjo on his "Old Time Banjo" album, playing in the claw-hammer style Okie favored and encouraged.
Okie was a consistent presence on the West Coast folk festival circuit, and his son Jim 'Okie Jr.' Adams plays and competes often, wielding his father's prized banjos. Always a teacher, Okie's generosity touched and inspired many musicians and banjo makers, among them Greg Deering, founder of Deering Banjo company who recently stated that he'd produced and sent out over 60,000 banjos from his workshop and "there was a part of Okie Adams in every single one."
He was also an accomplished race-car component maker, known for the Okie Adams "drop axle" he developed whilst working as a welder in 'blairs' automotive of Pasadena during the 1960s.
Read more about this topic: Okie Adams
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)