Instrument Makers:
by Steve Mcgrail;Sully’s Banjos.
From The Living Tradition magazine number 34, October 1999Tony "Sully" Sullivan has a bit of a love affair with banjos. Quite a big one, truthfully, and it goes back a long way - to before he won both the
All Ireland and All Britain banjo championships in 1976. He still plays the banjo daily ("both through choice and for self- discipline", he explains), and he’s a renowned designer and producer of the instrument. If you’re at a traditional session, you may well see one of this tenor creations such as the "Kildare"; or perhaps you’ll hear somebody singing along to a long-necked 5-string of his. Move into the jazz or bluegrass scene, and you may encounter a Sully C-tuned, or an exotic Sully "guitar banjo". His instruments, in other words, tend to crop up everywhere."I don’t actually build them myself", he says. That’s down to my colleague John Hullah from Norfolk, who’s a master luthier. But between us, we’ve come up with particular designs to make
these instruments stand out in a crowd, as I believe they do".He believes rightly. For a start, their fine wood finish in maple or mahogany or walnut, or above all, in pale sycamore, quickly identifies them. So does their generally restrained use of pearl inlays. The instruments seem clean and effective rather than flashy
.(since this article, the Bohee models have come on stream, and they ARE fancy) Yet for all that, naturally, they’re not there solely to look pretty. "Oh no", he says, "the goal has always been to achieve the optimum sound. It was for this, not for mere appearances that I got involved in making in the first place". Fair enough, so where precisely did it all begin?Sully came to music in the 1960s, when at Art School. He was attracted to the banjo early on, teaching himself to both play the tenor and the G versions. But he immediately hit problems, because of the low quality of instruments then available to him. "At the time, there were still pre-World War 1 instruments around. It wasn’t merely that they were finished, with frets gone and machine heads slipping, but most were designed for jazz anyway. The necks didn’t let me play the sort of music I wanted, Irish basically. The tone of many of them was poor. Even so, there was this terrible mystique about them, that being ancient, they had to be good. They simply weren’t, and since I and other people needed something that actually worked, I set about devising just that".
The results of these labours emerged over the next two decades. Currently, taking into account modifications in fittings, neck lengths and so forth, he has about a dozen banjo varieties that he sells. Players such as Mike Harding and Michael McGoldrick use Sully’s. Unsurprisingly, he does himself.
He’s an accomplished traditional musician, sharing platforms with the likes of De Dannan and the Furey’s. Nor is he restricted to traditional playing either, having performed with jazz/bluegrass innovators like Bela Fleck. He records and composes also, not to mention producing tutor books and banjo accessories.As to what makes a good banjo, he says there’s no one single element. "Everything comes into the picture.
What I’m sure of is that unlike some other sorts of instruments, banjos don’t deteriorate with age, if properly made. It’s also true that they enjoy being used. It’s amazing how one that’s been left for a while improves when it’s played again, as if the vibrations were making the whole structure come alive. Everything matters, even the type of wood used for the neck will affect the sound. The heads are crucial. They’re all plastic since the 50s, very reliable of course... Occasionally, a 5-string player wanting an old-fashioned tone will request calf skin, but not too often, fortunately, as they’re awful to fit... Our special Halshaw rims are definitely one of the secrets of a good sound. They can give lots of bass or lots of brightness and treble, whatever the player wants. Our resonators are similarly important. Open-backs can be easily fitted with them, plus a 24- piece flange set to upgrade the entire instrument".Sully’s banjos and other material are available one from his company Halshaw Music. He established this in 1979. He had already been involved in collecting, repairing and dealing in banjos and Halshaw was an obvious step to take. Apart from anything else, it’s helped to make fast the link between
his deep knowledge of the banjo and his ideas for its improvement, and John Hullah’s instrument-making skills. His instruments sell throughout Europe, Japan, North America and South Africa. Now, reviewing Halshaw’s success to date, and with masterly understatement, he says of it: "I’m quite pleased, you know, I really do think things are going alright". Well, yes it sounds just possible that they might be indeed...See Index page for link to "Living Tradition" magazine