Dan The Banjo Man

Phil Cordell performed as Dan the Banjo Man and supplied every instrument on the 1974 album of that name aside from portions of its rhythm guitar. Earlier, under the Springwater name, he had scored a 1971 U.K. number-five single titled “I Will Return.” Cordell tracked the Dan the Banjo Man LP inside a cramped cellar in Ninfield, Sussex, England; although the sessions contained no banjo, an automatic wah-wah pedal produced the banjo-like guitar timbre he sought. After the title track appeared in a German orange-juice commercial it became a hit instrumental there, prompting demand for a nearly all-instrumental album that mixed new pieces with covers of older material such as “Bring It on Home,” “I Got You Babe” (retitled “I Got You Dan”), and “The Locomotion.” These selections relied on layered guitars whose unusual textures and effects yielded a sound reminiscent of synthesizers. Eight bonus cuts were added to the 2005 CD reissue, most of them written and recorded years later by Cordell together with his son Charlie Cordell, including a 2005 remake of “Dan the Banjo Man.”