Joe Bethancourt
Encyclopedia
W.J. Bethancourt III (born 1946) is a traditional American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 musician (a player of folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

), based in Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

.

Biography

Bethancourt was born in El Paso, Texas
El Paso, Texas
El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...

. He began learning banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 at age 9, after he heard his maternal grandfather, C. H. Burnett, playing fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

. His first banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 was given him by his grandfather, and was "an old S.S. Stewart." This banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 is now in the able hands of his nephew, Tom Purtill.

When his family moved to Phoenix for the final time, in 1961, Joe began learning guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, hanging around coffeehouses, mariachi
Mariachi
Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...

 bands, bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 groups, and a place called "J.D.'s," where he would sneak in to listen to a local guy called Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Jennings began playing at eight. He began performing at twelve, on KVOW radio. Jennings formed a band The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J on KVOW, KDAV and KLLL...

. With the "folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 boom" of the '60's just hitting its stride, he found that all that music he had learned as a child stood in good stead.

His first "real pro" gig came at age 18. The Phoenix acoustic scene was active and thriving and Joe hung out with people (then unknowns) like John Denver
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...

, the Irish Rovers and Jim Connor
Jim Connor
James "Jim" Matthew Connor , born on Monday, May 11, 1863, in Port Jervis, New York, was an American professional Major League Baseball player. Connor was 29 years old when he broke into the big leagues on July 11, 1892, with the Chicago Colts. He did not play in the majors again until...

 ("Grandma's Feather Bed"), and with some of the best in Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...

, Ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

 and traditional Mexican musicians.

He spent a stint with a local bluegrass band, "Ma Tucker's String Band," playing with Jeff Gylkinson ("The Dillards
The Dillards
The Dillards are an American bluegrass band from Salem, Missouri, consisting of Douglas Flint "Doug" Dillard The Dillards are an American bluegrass band from Salem, Missouri, consisting of Douglas Flint "Doug" Dillard The Dillards are an American bluegrass band from Salem, Missouri, consisting of...

") and Doug Haywood (keyboard player/songwriter for Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....

). He also worked with noted entertainer Dan "Igor" Glenn in several bands. Joe credits "Igor" with teaching him much about the entertainer's art.

In 1968–1969, Joe worked in L.A. as a studio musician, where he made his first record, "The Joe Bethancourt String Concert Album." It was very favorable reviewed by Billboard (magazine)
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 and given a four star rating.

Joe returned to Phoenix, where he became influential in the original KDKB
KDKB
KDKB is a commercial Rock music formatted radio station located in Phoenix, Arizona. It is owned by Sandusky Radio and licensed to Mesa Radio, Inc...

 underground radio "scene," hosting his own radio show on KDKB, "Folk Music Occasional," with (the late and much lamented) Bill Compton. He was also a regular on the Emmy award-winning "Wallace and Ladmo Show" on KPHO-TV
KPHO-TV
KPHO-TV, channel 5, is a CBS-affiliate television station located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. KPHO-TV is owned by the Meredith Corporation, and has its studios located on Black Canyon Highway in the Alhambra Village section of Phoenix, with its transmitter located on South Mountain in Phoenix...

 (Ch.5) in the 1980s, and worked with children in the Arizona Commission for the Arts' "Artists in Education" program for about 6 years. He still does occasional Artist Residencies at local elementary schools.

For almost 17 years, he was the "house band" at a little restaurant at 19th Ave. and Bethany Home Rd, in Phoenix, called "Funny Fellows," playing instruments from his enormous collection of traditional (and not so traditional) instruments. During this time, he was instrumental in founding the Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

 chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism
Society for Creative Anachronism
The Society for Creative Anachronism is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century...

. He is no longer active in the organization, however, though he retains his membership in the Dark Horde. His Filk music within the SCA, under his Society name of Master Ioseph of Locksley, is legendary. Some call him a seminal influence on the acoustic music scene in Phoenix, crediting him for much of their style and technique.

He plays no less than 65 different instruments; from his beloved banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

s (yes. plural! He has one of the finest collections of antique banjos in the Southwestern United States, and uses them on stage!) to 12-string guitar, all the way to more exotic things like 6-course Cittern
Cittern
The cittern or cither is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval Citole, or Cytole. It looks much like the modern-day flat-back mandolin and the modern Irish bouzouki and cittern...

, Celtic harp, Lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

, and Ozark Mouthbow!

He was nominated for the (Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

) Governor's Arts Award, and his recordings are now on file at the University of East Tennessee's Appalachian Archives Folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 collection. He's also on the advisory boards of the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall Of Fame and the Tombstone Western Music Festival. Popular Country Music singer Lynn Anderson called him "a genius" in the Summer 2007 issue of "Western Way" magazine.

He operates his own production company, White Tree Productions, and has recorded solo, with another noted songwriter, Leslie Fish
Leslie Fish
Leslie Fish is a filk musician, author, and anarchist political activist.-Music:Along with The DeHorn Crew, in 1976 she created the first commercial filk recording, Folk Songs for Folk Who Ain't Even Been Yet...

, and with the neo-Celtic band The Bringers, all for Random Factors of Los Angeles. He teaches acoustic instruments of all kinds out of Boogie Music in Phoenix, Arizona, and is active in an historical reenactment
Historical reenactment
Historical reenactment is an educational activity in which participants attempt torecreate some aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge at the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire...

group, the 9th Memorial Cavalry.

Discography

  • That Great Big Way Out There (Random Factors)
  • Who Fears The Devil? (Random Factors)
  • Celtic Circle Dance (Random Factors)
  • Naked Banjos (Random Factors)
  • Ride Back In Time (Random Factors)
  • It's About Time (The Bringers) (Random Factors)
  • Our Fathers Of Old (with Leslie Fish) (Random Factors)
  • Serious Steel (with Leslie Fish) (Random Factors)
  • Smoked Fish And Friends (RF-1004) (Random Factors)
  • Arizona Road Song (White Tree Productions)
  • Old Red Cat (White Tree Productions)
  • The Black Book Of Locksley (White Tree Productions)
  • The Filk Was Great: The Best of ConterPoint 3; Gonglomeration Inc
  • 357 Miles East Of L.A. (Zia)
  • CactusCon Choruses: NASFIC 1987 (WailSongs)
  • This Train Is Bound For Glory (Carsten) LC 75-751068
  • Arizona Sounds KDKB Vol. 1 (Dwight Karma)
  • String Concert (Public) PS 5001

External links

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