BANJO “LIKE THE DOG” YOUNGBLOOD

Ringleader • Impact Architect • Morale Coach • Friar of the Real and Ridiculous• Soapbox Americana Musician• Owooga Clown

Recently localized in Grants Pass, Or, Banjo “Like the Dog” Youngblood is a Houston-fucking-Texas-born-and-brewed storyteller, songwriter, professional troublemaker, community builder, and lifelong steward of the sacred space where our differences don’t matter.

His continued education has included five years riding freight trains, ten years rubber tramping in caravans, fifteen years in and around vaudeville, circus and grassroots community service, countless stages, long roads, strange jobs, deep loves, beautiful failures, and a lifetime spent discovering what happens when people are given permission to play and dare to.

Musically, Banjo calls what he does Soapbox Americana—folk music kicked off the porch and dragged through blues, ragtime, jug band, jazz, vaudeville, comedy, storytelling and whatever else happens to be lying around. As an Owooga Clown, he brings that same philosophy beyond the stage: the ridiculous can be useful, laughter can be medicine, and play can be serious business.

Today, Banjo is the Ringleader of Medicine Show Revival: The Community Forward Circus, curator, performer and songwriter of Banjo Youngblood & The Long Story Shorts, front man for Banjo Youngblood and the Banned, an Impact Architect, Community Impact Consultant, Corporate Morale Coach, Quality of Life Coach, wedding officiant, community and event organizer, artist, straight G, father, husband, friend and your humble Friar Banjo “Like the Dog” Youngblood.

The titles change.

The work underneath them doesn’t:

Bring people together. Make them laugh. Give them something worth remembering. And leave the place and the people a little more alive than we found them.

Banjo has spent much of his life doing what he loved in hopes that money would eventually fuel the fire.

He’s got that backwards.

Now comes the experiment:

Do what fuels the fire—and trust the money to flow.

This website is the living record of that experiment: the music, performances, coaching, community projects, impact work, ridiculous ideas, merchandise, stories, accomplishments, failures, dreams and invitations still being written.

It is also a promise:

Not to play it small.

As an homage to YOU, as big as you are.

“You’re enormous” is what I’m saying.