PRETTY NAILS, INC.
William A. Wisdom

Frailing is very hard on a banjo-player's fingernail -- either the index finger or the middle finger, whichever is used to pick the strings. In a single evening of jamming or performing, the back of that one nail will hit the taut steel strings literally tens of thousands of times, doing for the frailer what metal finger picks do for the bluegrass banjo player or a plastic flat pick does for the guitar player. That is, the back of the fingernail hits the strings hard enough to set them ringing over and over and over again, usually at what is called "square-dance tempo"--four blows per measure x about 64 measures per minute = about 250 times per minute = well over 10,000 times in an hour, even allowing for breaks between tunes.

So virtually all old-time banjo players who pick in the frailing or "clawhammer" style are plagued with broken fingernails. Each one has tried a variety of different solutions to the problem. Some eat lots of gelatin to strengthen the nails (nineteen of them pointlessly); some alternate between two different nails; some tape or paste artificial fingernails (homemade or store-boughten) to the picking finger; some spread a drop of Super Glue on the nail and let it dry. And so on. I tried them all, until one of my very favorite banjo players told me that she was never satisfied until she got an acrylic coating applied at her local nail salon. It would grow out slowly, and she'd get it replaced every six weeks or so. It sounded like the perfect solution.

MY INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF BEAUTY

It hadn't occurred to me that I'd actually have to walk into a beauty salon and say something to the effect: "Would you please put a heavy acrylic coating on the middle finger of my right hand...this one here." As good as I was persuaded that this idea was, it still took me another two weeks to work up the nerve to call up the PRETTY NAIL SALON, make an appointment, and walk through the door.

Sure enough, it was full of women of two sorts: suburban ladies getting ready for a big evening out (I suppose), and Vietnamese-American fingernail artists. All eyes turned toward me, and I heard, or imagined that I heard, muffled giggling from one end of the room to the other. I had arrived a little early, so I sat there, the object of something like curiosity or amusement or contempt. The only thing that would have been harder than sitting there would have been to get up and walk out. So there I sat.

When my turn came, I explained that I needed a strong, thick acrylic coating on one nail. I tried to explain what frailing was. No good. So I tried to explain what a banjo was. No better. So I just gave up and submitted to the treatment, which consisted of dipping a small paint brush first into a clear fluid and then into a fine white powder, and smoothing the resulting paste onto the nail.

Making nervous small talk, I asked: "What's in that little jar? Is it water?" "Water?" she said. "Oh, no. Is not water. Is liquid!" I was so delighted by her response that I've never had any trouble going back to what has been "my nail salon" for several years now.

After a year or so, they actually asked me to bring my banjo in and play for them. So now they know exactly what the acrylic coating is for, and what the old-time banjo looks and sounds like.

STATESVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

I got so used to wearing, and when necessary replacing, my acrylic fingernail that I pretty much forgot about it. When it started to come loose I'd drop in to my PRETTY NAIL SALON for a replacement.

Then disaster struck. The nail chipped off while I was at the Fiddlers Grove Festival in Union Grove, North Carolina. By this time I was dependent on the acrylic coating, and was scheduled to play in both the banjo and the band competition the next day. The closest nail salon was 15 miles away in Statesville. So off I went to Statesville, and found the only nail salon in town. This time I was a bit bolder than when I first entered the world of beautiful nails. But the moment I explained that I wanted a single nail coated, all eyes in the place turned...not to the tall man with the big voice, but to the Yankee pervert.

But the nail artist--again Vietnamese-American, but this time male--was quite willing to help. I explained that the coating had to be thick and strong. So he applied what was no doubt the thickest coating he'd ever applied. But I knew that it wasn't nearly enough. "Could you please make it thicker?" I asked. He gave me a long look, and reluctantly proceeded to add a little bit more. "I'm sorry," I said; "but it has to be even thicker." I think that he feared I would tell people where I got the grotesque nail, so I explained that I was leaving town for good as soon as he was done. With one last plea he warned: "Look funny!!" "Go ahead," I said. And he finished a monstrous beauty-nail but wonderful banjo pick.

[A brief story about each of the central towns in this tale. You know how small towns in rural American have a sign post at each end of town? On the road into town from the east is a sign that reads, e.g., ENTERING SPRINGFIELD, and at the other end of town, facing to the west, is another sign that also reads ENTERING SPRINGFIELD. Union Grove is so small that these two signs are on opposite sides of the same post! And, just incidentally, Statesville is the town where Tom Dooley (well, strictly speaking, "Tom Dula") was tried and hung for the murder of Laura Foster.]

MOUNT AIRY, NORTH CAROLINA

You'd think that by this time I'd have learned to replace my nail before going south to a music festival. But it happened again, this time in Mt. Airy, North Carolina (the model for Andy Griffith's Mayberry). My nail broke off just before performance time. Fortunately Mt. Airy is a somewhat larger town; and I'd noticed MARLA'S BEAUTY SHOP AND NAIL SALON on the road into town. So I decided to try again, even though I figured I'd have to go through the mildly unpleasant ritual of explaining why I was there. Fortunately no one but Marla was there. "What can I do for you?" she asked pleasantly. "Well, I'd like to get an acrylic coating on one fingernail." My several years of experience with nail salons north and south had never prepared me for her response: "Oh, sure. So you're a banjo picker, eh?" She did an expert job, since she'd been doing the nail of one of the fellows in town for years. So now every year I drop in to say "Howdy" to Marla, whether I need her or not.


Copyright © 2003, William A. Wisdom