Get Up in the Cool
Your Host
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Cameron DeWhitt
Cameron DeWhitt has hosted 528 episodes.
Cameron DeWhitt is a clawhammer banjoist and Old Time musician living in Philadelphia. He hosts the weekly podcast Get Up in the Cool, which features conversations and musical collaborations with some of Old Time's heaviest hitters, like Ken Perlman, Adam Hurt, Spencer & Rains, and Jake Blount. As an interviewer, Cameron balances an effusive curiosity for the potential of traditional music with a dogged respect for its origins. Serving as audience surrogate, Cameron asks illuminating questions to Old Time's best and brightest while telling the larger story of the tradition's modern era. And with over 80 episodes released and no signs of slowing, Get Up in the Cool is quickly becoming one of the largest available archives of new Old Time recordings.
Cameron is the innovator behind "pitchfork-style" banjo, a three-finger clawhammer technique that allows the player unprecedented access to melody, harmony, and rhythms typically roped off from clawhammer players. With pitchfork-style, he improvises over tunes in a way that most old time banjoists would only attempt with meticulous arrangement. In Cameron's hands, traditional melodies are transformed from repeated statements into philosophical discussions, accelerating the folk process in a single performance.