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Finger-Picking Good

Tribune photo by JOHN CEBALLOS

Kelly Emerson displays his banjo-playing skills in his office at the Sun City Center Community Association. He has been playing the banjo since he was 12 and has served as the community association's senior maintenance supervisor for the last dozen years.

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By JOHN CEBALLOS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 14, 2008

SUNDANCE - When Kelly Emerson was an 11-year-old growing up in Tiltonsville, Ohio, he joined a band with a few of his friends.

He soon realized he had a natural aptitude for playing several musical instruments.

"I started playing drums when I was 10, but the band had two drummers and the other guy was better than me," Emerson said. "They sort of pushed me to electric guitar and that became my primary instrument for a while."

Apparently, that innate musical ability was inherited.

His father is Bill Emerson, a legendary banjo player who has received numerous awards throughout the course of a five-decade career.

Still, the younger Emerson has managed to establish a successful musical career of his own with minimal involvement from his father.

"I'd say I saw him three times up until I was 34 years old," Emerson said of his father. "I visited him at a gig when I was in my 30s and we chatted for hours, but he's moved on and has his own family."

Emerson, 46, continued playing music throughout his teens - he can play the guitar, banjo and harmonica - and eventually signed on as lead guitarist for Norman Nardini and the Tigers in his mid-20s.

Though the group had a deal with Epic records, Emerson returned to Tiltonsville a few years later, took a sales job and put music on the back burner.

"I still did music, but only on the weekends," Emerson said. "At that point I was a little burned out with music."

He moved to Ocala a year later and he put his banjo down for six months.

"I still can't believe I did that," Emerson said.

Eventually, he found his way back into music. After taking a sound engineering class at Mirror Image Recording Studio in Gainesville, he began writing and recording songs at his home.

In 1989 he moved to Ruskin, and he has remained in South Shore ever since.

"I moved here because of a girl," Emerson said. "What else could possibly bring me to Ruskin?"

During his time in South Shore, he has left his imprint on the community.

He is the senior maintenance supervisor for the Sun City Center Community Association, where he has worked for the past dozen years.

However, it's Emerson's music that has left the most lasting impression in the area.

For 12 years, Emerson and fellow band mates Gary Garbelman and Frank Dodd have played countless events in the area - such as the Ruskin Tomato and Heritage Festival - as Three Floors Up, a three-piece band specializing in rock and blues.

The group is scheduled to perform at Circles restaurant in Apollo Beach on July 18 and 25.

Emerson and Garbelman also perform as The KEGG - the duo's name comes from the initials from each member's name - and released a CD in 2002 that sold 1,000 copies.

Emerson also released a solo CD that year called "Big Daddy's Barn Burner Blues," which sold 1,350 copies.

"He has a style as strong and distinctive as his father, Bill," Robert C. Buckingham said in a review for Bluegrass Unlimited magazine at the time of the CD's release. "His playing is forceful and clean."

Though Emerson has played music on and off for more than 30 years - and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future - and shared the stage with people like Paul Schaffer and Rick Derringer, he may become better known for helping other musicians with their sound.

In 2000, while taking apart and reassembling his banjo, he got the idea of hand carving his banjo bridge out of Florida cherry wood.

Since that time, he has sold more than 7,000 Emerson Power Bridges. Emerson carved each banjo bridge - he was able to create up to seven an hour - before partnering with Ken Bailey in Plant City, who has been manufacturing them since 2004.

In addition to the banjo bridge, Emerson operates the Banjo Ranch Recording Studio out of his Sundance home, which he shares with Amy, his wife of two years.

"We met online three years ago," Emerson said. "We're one of those Match.com success stories you hear about."

He is also able to make his recording equipment portable so he can record off-site events.

"My motto is that I offer high-quality recording at a very affordable rate," Emerson said.

"I love playing gigs, but my main ambition right now is recording."

GET TO KNOW

WHO: Kelly Emerson

AGE: 46

WIFE: Amy

LIVES: Sundance

JOB: Senior maintenance supervisor for the Sun City Center Community Association

Reporter John Ceballos can be reached at (813) 865-1555 or jceballos@tampatrib.com.

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