Dave Crawford uses the stroke style banjo playing technique on his album “Keep Off The Bluegrass” (click here to listen). He plays minstrel to modern music on the album using a modern Romero made 5 string banjo strung with Chris Sands’ heavy duty nylon strings.

Dave, lives in Wales, has been a finalist (in the top 5) in the UK National Music Teaching Awards for the guitar for the years 2005, 2006, 2007. In 2008 he has come top in the UK National Music Teaching Awards for the guitar and is therefore the UK No1 Guitar Tutor for the year.

As he says “teaching guitar is my day job but what interests me most is the 5 string banjo.” Whilst he teaches, plays, composes and arranges banjo music Dave also undertakes historical research into both the music and the instrument. 

In 2007 Dave’s investigation into the history of the banjo took him to Syria to see whether the instrument may have originated in the Middle East before migrating via Africa to the United States.