The Authentic One-Stringed Canjo

• “A trademark, {often designated by the symbol (TM)}, is a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.” ~ [United States Patent and Trademark Office]

When the CanJoe Company of Blountville, TN began operating as a legal and licensed business in the year 1994, there was no other individual, entity, corporation or business anywhere in the world established for the purpose of making and/or for commercially selling the one-stringed “canjo” instruments except those also being made and offered by Herschel R. Brown of North Carolina. Herschel Brown officially originated the prototype instrument design creating the first ever before known anywhere in the world one-stringed “canjo” instrument as it is recognized today and he also coined the name, ‘canjoe’ as the identity of the instrument. The CanJoe Company did not spring up as a separate competitor of Herschel Brown’s business but was instead a fully authorized direct dealer (and also collaborator in the instrument design improvements over time) of Herschel’s original instruments and was actually established with Herschel’s personal and direct assistance along with his personal blessings. Herschel Brown was both a business associate and a very close personal friend and from the very beginning of his ‘discovery’ of the “canjo” creation, he shared it by giving one of his very first, original instruments as a gift to me (CanJoe*John). Herschel’s first comment upon giving it was, “take this out and show it to folks, they’ll love it”. A few days later, upon again seeing Herschel at his shop, my reply to him about his newly created instruments was, “Herschel, people love these things! They’d sell anywhere!”. Well, Herschel certainly had already recognized the commercial potential but he was a very busy building contractor and though he fully intended to and did make his instruments available for commercial sale, mostly as kits at first, he immediately gave his permission and he offered to personally supply full support and the materials necessary for the CanJoe Company to become into existence. The task then of introducing the instruments in to the commercial market was neither easy nor cheap. The earliest years of operating as the CanJoe Company were spent mostly as a vendor attending music festivals and craft shows, paying for marketing (fliers, brochures, cards, advertisement, etc), paying for the vendor & booth fees, travel & accommodation expenses, instrument parts & materials, shop expenses and labor costs, legal fees, licenses, taxes and many other expenses that small businesses require in order to operate. The exclusive right for using the name, “canjoe” or “canjo” to identify to the public the product made, offered and sold as well as to identify the business itself became legally and publicly established by being “first in use” anywhere as well as due many years of hard earned and expensive efforts through first in marketing; making public appearances and by costly advertising. Eventually, now, others have discovered the opportunity possibilities for their potentially making money by offering to the public and selling similar items. Disregarding the legal or ethical considerations and the facts of these products origins, or the many years and great financial expenses that were expended and required in order to establish them as commercial products, others are now putting their own versions on the market using the already established identifying trademark name, “canjo” or “canjoe”, for publicly identifying their copycat items. Some also are currently using already established slogans, similar logo designs and other marketing tools created by the CanJoe Company such as the music tab books that were originally produced by and are still in use by the CanJoe Company. Now, this post is not at all about any “sour grapes” concerning any entity operating as competition in legitimate business but is instead about those who unethically confuse the public by posing as representing the CanJoe Company or even as impostors attempting to physically resemble or to publicly represent themselves as CanJoe*John… and especially those who are boldly calling themselves by similar titles, such as ‘Canjo Anybody Else’ or who are using unearned titles by referring to themselves in public as “the Canjo Man”. Simply this, the CanJoe Company spent many years fording the difficult and costly barriers required in order to introduce a new-to-the-world product and to establish a business. All products (instruments) made and offered by the CanJoe Company are of the very finest and highest quality possible and by virtue of the CanJoe Company’s period as first in commercial existence, by its hard earned and well deserved reputation, and with its vast experience over all others in all aspects of anything called, related to, or associated with the term ‘canjoe’ or ‘canjo’, whether in designing, creating and/or manufacturing and in offering for sale to the public or the marketing of these products, the CanJoe Company is absolutely without reservation the only, anywhere in the world, that produces for sale to the public the “real deal”, authentic one-stringed ‘canjoe’ musical instruments.
The medication comes in a convenient sachet that is swallowed with water. cialis tadalafil tablets The cultured ADSCs may bring some adverse results due to such high in calorie food generico viagra on line http://melissaspetsit.com/services/ taken. Citrulline is produced naturally in the body, which is a factor could increase agility viagra shop usa in stock and more protruding penis with the decline of fats in the area, showing the image of bigger penis size. Masturbation is a free cheap viagra technique that helps to boost short term memory dramatically. Further, there exists only ONE “CanJoe*John” in this world which is a title not only well recognized & established as a public and professional identity in the entertainment and business world but also a legal name/identity belonging only to the one and only individual who holds exclusive right of use for any purpose, public or private; whether in signing contracts, doing business as, signing business checks to any bank, or as officially representing the CanJoe Company and any affiliated or other businesses, or as for any other intent or purpose through and by the use of the identity for any reason, any where.

John L. VanArsdall (now known to the world as CanJoe*John) was born and raised in the mountains of east Tennessee where he was exposed to many styles and genres of music, and especially the music of the Appalachian mountain regions. His father played an old Stella guitar and sang “hillbilly” tunes to entertain his five kids when they were all small children. As John got older, his first attempt to learn music was at age six when his mother paid for his first piano lessons, but he had no interest in even attempting to learn to read music and his piano lessons ended shortly after they began. When he was eight years old, another kind of music caught his attention.
In 1963, while he was visiting his grandmother who was then the manager of the Blue Ridge Parkway Craft Center, of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, he was introduced to the mountain lap dulcimer. A Southern Highlands Arts Guild member and master craftsman, Edsel Martin, from the Black Mountain, NC area was in the shop to show and sell his hand carved wooden birds and also a beautiful hourglass shaped walnut dulcimer. John’s grandmother, Louise, acquired these items for the shop and put them on display. John had closely watched and listened as Mr. Martin demonstrated the tuning and strumming of the dulcimer and he was intrigued and curious to try it. Every opportunity John found, he would carry that dulcimer onto the mansion’s big wrap around porch and while taking in the panoramic view of the distant western NC Brown Mountains, he would strum away as he quickly learned to play by ear the old time tunes he recalled his father singing. John’s grandmother having purchased that dulcimer gave it, instead of to John, to his older sister, Kathy.
That same year, while still just eight years old, John decided he’d try learning to play a harmonica. His first Honer cost just $2.50 and he quickly learned to play any tune that he could hum or whistle on that mouth harp. Around the age of ten, John’s Dad bought for him a baritone ukulele which is essentially a small four stringed guitar, and with a Mel Bay book showing chord patterns, John learned to strum a few tunes. By the age of twelve, John felt he had outgrown that ukulele and he asked his Dad for an electric guitar as his gift for Christmas. His Dad bought himself a new banjo too, so he and his Dad both decided to take lessons, John on the guitar and Dad on his newly purchased used Gibson Master Tone banjo. They both went for their lessons together to the same instructor, but, as like the piano lessons before, John barely progressed. The instructor was trying to teach him how to read music and to follow the notes from sheet music provided. Instead, John wanted to learn to play Rock N’ Roll and he didn’t practice the sheet music, so the instructor encouraged him to give up on the lessons.
Each summer returning to visit his grandmother at the craft shop, John listened to and watched as other old time craftsmen and musicians who brought and played their hand made fiddles and open-back banjos to the shop. John’s heartfelt hankering was his true desire to learn the fiddle. Later, when John began attending the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, he met a young classmate that had an old fiddle and who allowed him to borrow it for a few months. Not knowing how to tune it or properly bow it, produced terrible sounds as he attempted to play it and he soon gave up, but John wasn’t satisfied that he could not be able to appease his yearning passion. He quietly waited until the right opportunity when he could get another attempt at a fiddle. A few years later his parents were planning to take a trip to visit him and his wife, Paula, in their coastal North Carolina home. Prior to their visit, during a phone conversation, John’s Dad asked if he could bring anything from home. John said, “yeah Dad, I want a fiddle…saw them for sale at a music store down the road from you”. Of course his Dad was surprised but he purchased a cheap fiddle and brought it to him. John discovered that the only way to learn to play it, though, was to find other fiddlers. He started attending local jam sessions hoping to pick up on any “licks” or techniques that any fiddle player was willing to show him. With obsessive drive, he practiced and practiced and found himself attending many other jam sessions and bluegrass shows in the eastern NC region. He met a group of guys that were all learning on their own instruments how to play bluegrass so they all formed a band and called themselves “New River Grass”, a name reflective of the river that was in their coastal NC county. John played the fiddle with them for nearly seven years and as they practiced together, performed and traveled together, all became very accomplished musicians and entertainers.
One evening in early 1990 while attending a local jam session, John met Herschel Brown, a local building contractor who also made mountain dulcimers as a hobby. Herschel, just a few days prior to this meeting, had created his first cool little one stringed dulcimer that he had made from a fretted pine finger board and he used a ‘Mountain Dew’ soda can as its resonator. Herschel, that evening gave one of his newly invented canjoe instruments to John (of which he had already also coined the instrument’s identity as a “canjoe”) and he told John to “take it out and have fun with it”. John fell instantly ‘in love’ with Herschel’s great little invention and after doing just as Herschel had suggested, he returned to Herschel’s shop a couple of days later expressing that “everyone loves these things!” Herschel told John that he had no time to make them on a large scale (at that time) but that he’d help John get started on making them for others, so John and Herschel became good friends and in collaboration they began producing the world’s first ‘canjoe’ instruments in Herschel’s shop. [Hershel did eventually separately mass produce his own simple kit version of the instruments supplying a wood worker’s hobby craft retail business and he also continued making and selling his own versions to the public as kits and as completed instruments]. A couple of years later, John’s employer passed away from cancer so he and Paula decided to move back to Tennessee in early 1993. Soon, after moving, John met Ralph Blizard, the world famous Appalachian long bow fiddler who lived just a few miles from him in Blountville, too, and in no time, John and Ralph became good friends. Ralph began teaching John his old time bowing techniques and a few of his old time tunes and John’s getting involved in the local old time Appalachian music jam sessions with Ralph helped solidify his interest in learning, playing, and performing old time and mountain music. Of course John was then mostly playing his fiddle at these sessions but he also quickly became well known in his new home town area of Blountville for his canjoe pickin’, too. The very same canjoe instrument that he had originally received from Herschel had now become a major part of his music life and later, in 1994, when Paula fell ill with cancer, he used it to help entertain her. It was Paula who gave John the name “CanJoe*John” after he jokingly declared himself to be “the world’s greatest canjoe picker”. John then established the licensed business, the CanJoe Company, again with Herschel’s assistance in the later part of 1994. Paula passed away in early 1995, and John then set out to do just what he had earlier quipped, to become the “world’s most unique musician” and to be the official provider to the world market of the authentic one-stringed original canjoe (aka canjo) musical instruments. Through his personal appearances at major festivals, public performances, radio, television, newspaper stories, magazine articles and now with stories about him in several published books by various authors, and with his CD music recordings and videos, he became established and world recognized as the master picker and master maker of the official, original Herschel Brown designed canjoe instrument. He has since played many major venues including being the ONLY canjoe instrument picker (so far) to have ever played the Grand Ole Opry [November 4, 2006]. He also has been awarded the adult “Bluegrass Instrumentalist of the Year 2007” by the North American Country Music Association International (NACMAI) and has received many other music industry awards, has performed with legendary artists on many stages and at venues such as MerleFest in NC, has produced and released two music CDs, continues to design and build beautiful canjoe instruments that are recognized as true works of art and he is now on regular tour of children’s specialty hospitals, called the “Tour of Smiles”, where he entertains sick kids and gives hundreds of his hand made instruments to chronically ill children to be used as “smile therapy”.

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For more information on ordering the authentic canjoe musical instruments or for booking CanJoe*John please call 423-323-0174

Copyright © 2001 [The CanJoe Company]. All rights reserved. Revised: September 20, 2011

In 1994, Paula VanArsdall, my wife, was diagnosed with an incurable type of kidney cancer and her health was quickly declining. During her remaining few months on this earth, she highly enjoyed being entertained with music and by laughter, even at times she had NOTHING to laugh about or to even smile about, she still smiled and often laughed anyway. During a particularly rough day for her, just before Christmas of 1994, as she lay bedridden and barely able to do much of anything other than read or watch TV, she requested I play her some music to liven up her day. She didn’t want to hear the more often played fiddle music that day but instead requested I play her some tunes on the original canjoe instrument that my good, personal, close friend and associate, Herschel Brown, had personally made and had given to me. I sat in the middle of our large queen sized bed as she lay in a motorized hospital bed across the room as I picked tunes for her on my canjoe instrument by her request. As I picked, her head would bob in time to the rhythm of the notes spilling from the one string out of the can and as I would frequently glance up, I would observe while I picked that there was a prevailing huge smile beaming from her face. That experience taught me that there was some kind of ‘magic’ in that stick with the string and can and as I picked, Paula made the comment, “you’re getting pretty good on that thing, John!”. That is when I made the comment that “I’m only a mediocre fiddler but maybe I can become the ‘world’s greatest canjoe picker'”, and at that moment Paula stuck up her thumb and enthusiastically commented, “go for it ‘CanJoe*John’!!!”… and from that moment forward and forever more, I became “CanJoe*John”. Now, the purpose of this particular post is to explain that this nick name grew to become much more valuable than it began. Quite a lot of men are having trouble in bed the first things they will have in mind is viagra 100mg generika http://www.learningworksca.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/R_313SBR.pdf and other sex pills. These therapies are provided best viagra in india in the safe environment, keeping the comfort of the patient in mind. The doses of this Ed drug is different in different people and the duration of this effect to stay in the body also depends on what kind of food products a man is eating. ordering viagra from canada It uses only natural pharmacy online viagra ingredients which have been proved to play a important function in regulation of the inflammation in the gallbladder. As I introduced my products to the world markets by shipping or selling my instruments in the public venues, I wanted to ensure the public consumers that they were purchasing the authentic, official, original canjoe instruments so I began signing that signature to each and every one of them that I made. As I also began and have continued performing public venues and stages, my professional name was, is, and always will continue to be recognized and acknowledged as “CanJoe*John”. The name and the signature became and continues to be completely synonymous with my identity, exclusive to me only and a trademark that the public recognizes as exclusive to the CanJoe Company products. This same name and signature has also become a legal entity in that it is used as a binding signature for the signing of legal contracts whenever I perform and also is recognized and used by the bank to identify financial transactions pertaining to the CanJoe Company business. Now for the past 17 years, the name “CanJoe*John” belongs exclusively and legally to my person only. My name IS NOT JOE nor is it ‘Canjo Joe’ or any other version. My legal identity and trademark signature is ONLY as CanJoe*John and there are absolutely no others. My person or my products ARE NOT identified by any other signature and no other person, corporation, or business can legally or ethically use any form of my identity to market or sell their products without my written (and signed) permission. To prevent any product ‘canfusion’ please look CLOSELY at any signature or identifying mark found on the instrument before purchasing and if it’s not signed as “CanJoe*John”, it’s NOT authentic.