The topic of distinguishing between old-time 3 finger banjo has come up several times in the past few years--so I thought I'd post this exquisite example of old-time 3 finger picking in a stringband. This is one of my favorite old-time bands, the Ozark Highballers, playing at the Fayetteville, Ark. farmers' market. The banjo player is the should-be-legendary Clarke Buehling. He also plays virtuosic classic banjo as well as minstrel style, but this is his stringband backup approach. It's 3 fingers, thumb lead and in this example, quite "simple". The banjo here is rhythmic, perfectly supportive with a driving repetitive pattern that echoes the fiddle/harrmonica rhythm so closely it almost sounds as though he's playing melody. The guitar & banjo are in close tandem with one another in support of the melody instruments. Anyway---just a terrific example of less is more. If you want to see the "more" part, check out other videos of the band in which Clarke plays solo.