Stone Street STRUMMERS Banjo Band
	Founded 1981 by Dick Alley

The history of the Strummers, as written by Dick Alley himself, can be found on The Stone Street Strummers website .  

In addition to the website information, a few facts about Dick Alley, the person, might be helpful just to understand the drive, the kindness, caring, the talent and the ability to continue the preservation of the tenor banjo. 

During performances, Dick always talked to the audience introducing the members of the band,  giving them a brief history of the band, the purpose of the band and the method of running the band.

He always concluded his brief talk with an open opportunity for anyone interested in playing, whether they were accomplished players, beginners or just wanted to get involved in the band to come down to a rehearsal and “sit in” . If you liked it, come back. 

Dick had the ability to welcome a new member, introduce them to the whole membership and make that member feel as thou they had been a member of the Strummers for years.  Dick could evaluate the new player’s ability to play, seat an inexperienced player next to a more experienced member who would then walk them thru each song and instruct them as they played.  All of this was done with the method and manner that made you feel that this instruction was helping you become accomplished and an intricate contributing member of the band. Dick always encouraged all members to learn, teach others, smile and have fun while you’re doing it. 

  Experienced players were always requested to help instruct others members and to improve on their expertise and encouraged to perform solos and  be featured performers of the band. Once the band was starting to get established the band performed up to 5 gigs a month in the surrounding areas, from retirement centers, center of town concerts to a TV show. What an experience for the musicians of all levels of experience. It was an absolute pleasure to be a Stone Street Strummer player. One most memorable gigs for the Strummers was the Deutshes Altenheim Care Center in West Roxbury, MA.   This is a care facility for people with Alzheimer’s of any level.  The members loved performing there as the residences would be brought into the hall and after playing our third or fourth song most would be singing, waving their arms and cheering for us. The look on their faces and the joy that we brought them gave all of us a lump in our throats as we walked to our cars with our feet about 4 inches of the ground. Nothing could have compensated the players more than the feeling of doing good for those less fortunate.  We would have members drive 90 miles from the cape to play gigs of this nature and love every minute of the ride to and fro.  This was a gig that for a volunteer organization with players from all different walks of life and locations, some working full time and some retired, every member to the person of the Strummers always made the gig. 

As the Strummers membership got larger, a more formal organization was needed to create rules, guidelines and structure to the band.  Dick and the members sat down and over time hashed out a document which was submitted to the Executive Committee for approval and then to the members for the final approval.    The set of rules and guidelines were called an  “ Organizational Foundation” and were reviewed and approved by the members on October 17, 1983.   The “Organizational Foundation” was revised and updated, submitted to the membership and approved on November 1, 1991.   A set of “Protocol Items” was drafted, open discussion ensued presented to the membership and approved on January 24, 1998.  To this day the “Organizational Foundation” and the” Protocol Items”  are still in effect. 

A monthly news letter started in the early 90’s to keep every member up to date with a copy of the current gigs, directions and starting times. In addition with what’s new with the band and or the members, their families, etc, also the long range gigs and their probabilities.

 The band got involved in was performing at grammar schools for kids, the  teachers and the parents. The band always brought different instruments for the children to play and experiment with. It was always with pride that we had when a small child would hop on a lap on one of our players and strum the strings of his banjo  with a pick. We were never sure which smile was bigger, the child’s or the players.

Peter Maher