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A Musical Life: Robin Roberts

Jedd Beaudoin

Robin Roberts has been playing in a variety of music settings for several decades. He and musical partner Billie Preston are prominent members of the Wichita music scene and can be seen and heard around town on a regular basis.

I started playing the banjo in 2007. It changed my life and it’s been my passion since then.

In 2007, when I was getting ready to leave down there … I see this golf cart going by me and I see this kid sitting on the back of the golf cart and he’s playing a banjo. For some reason, the sound of that banjo stayed in my head. I couldn’t shake it.

As it turns out that year, I was having some health issues. I ended up having heart surgery on September 27, which is the week after I left Winfield. I almost died down there.

While I was off work for a month, I started playing the banjo.

And then, after working on it, obsessively, day after day and hours on end, it finally became my primary instrument and that was my goal. There was a time when I couldn’t even play the guitar because I was so focused on the banjo.

Jedd Beaudoin is host/producer of the nationally syndicated program Strange Currency. He has also served as an arts reporter, a producer of A Musical Life and a founding member of the KMUW Movie Club. As a music journalist, his work has appeared in Pop Matters, Vox, No Depression and Keyboard Magazine.