In the music room of his Spotsylvania County home, Danny Haller mixes music from records and tapes onto CDs that he uses for practice. As well as leading a band, Haller also produces 'Bluegrass State of Mind' Sundays at 10 p.m. on WLSA, 105.5 FM. rez View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

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Blind bluegrass

By MICHAEL ZITZ

Date published: 3/30/2003

See a multimedia presentation about Danny Haller by photographer Reza Marvashti.

DANNY HALLER is something of a miracle worker.

The fact that he taught himself to play the banjo might not seem all that miraculous a feat.

But Haller taught himself to play the banjo in total blackness--and taught himself to play well enough to make a living at it.

The Chancellorsville resident, who was born blind, learned by tape-recording bluegrass music on the radio, then playing along with the tapes over and over.

"Not seeing exactly how somebody would hold their hands, I had to figure it out," Haller says.

He finally did it by seeking out one of his favorite players, Walter Hensley, and sitting down with him for two hours following a show.

"I physically put my hand on his hand to 'see' what he did," Haller says now.

To this day, he still occasionally puts his left hand on his own right hand--his picking hand--and tries to remember the way Hensley played.

"I used to work too hard at it and I'd look sort of uncoordinated," Haller says. "A friend would say, 'You've got to shorten up on your stroke.' It would look odd, but I just did it the way that was comfortable for me."

To this day, his technique is "a little different" from other banjo pickers, he says.

But it appears effortless now.

It's been an evolution, he says--one that started about 30 years ago.

It began when Haller was a lonely 15-year-old in a boarding school for the deaf and blind in Florida and his uncle gave him a banjo for company.

"I promptly drove my parents half crazy just trying to get in tune," he sings in his song, "Thank You, Uncle Jimmy," from his solo debut album, "Driving Blind."

Haller, who has lived in Spotsylvania County since 1999, has played as a sideman in the Washington area for 25 years, but only recently formed his own band, Danny Haller and Bluegrass Rules.

When the teenage Haller discovered that Washington radio station WAMU played bluegrass, his reaction was: "Wow, this is great. Now I actually know what to do with this banjo."

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Date published: 3/30/2003