Ed Masley

The Republic | azcentral.com

Joe Bethancourt, a fixture on the Phoenix folk scene for several decades, died Thursday evening after being ill for more than five months. The multi-instrumentalist was 68.

Cher Bethancourt, his wife of 33 years, would not discuss the details of his illness, other than to say, "It was just kind of one thing after another after another. But as far as personal things are concerned, we have always been very, very private.

"He was OK about people talking about what he does with his music."

She was 18 when she met her future husband.

"He was playing in a little place over a bookstore that used to be on Mill Avenue, this little place called the Muse. He was introduced to me by my boyfriend at the time. We would go there on a regular basis to listen to him sing and play.

"And then we kind of went in separate direction and somebody told me 10 years later that he was playing at a place called Funny Fellows on Bethany Home Road in Phoenix. So I went with some friends and it just kind of went from there."

She and her husband had a lot of similar interests, she said, "although he was much more into music. And it isn't that I'm not. He's just so talented. He knew an amazing number of instruments. He knew an amazing amount of information. He knew so much about music. And it wasn't just the kind of music he played. He knew so many things."

Born in El Paso, Bethancourt moved to Phoenix with his family, as a child, in 1961. By then, he was already playing banjo. In Phoenix, he learned guitar while attending North High School and was heavily inspired by his grandfather, a fiddler.

"I began to spend more and more time with the old boy," he told The Republic in 2003. "He not only taught me about Appalachian music, but he started showing me other types of music, like mariachi, which I took to right away."

The young musician was gigging professionally by 18 on the local acoustic scene, playing bluegrass in Ma Tucker's String Band and working with Dan "Igor" Glenn in several bands.

"Yeah, Joe goes back a long way," says Clint Diffie of Boogie Music in Phoenix, where Bethancourt taught banjo, mandolin, guitar and other instruments. "There's a lot of us old timers out here in the Valley and it's truly a shame. We've lost a lot of entertainment history when it comes to the nightclubs and musicians. And some history has definitely gone away with Joe. That's for sure."

From 1968 to 1969, Bethancourt worked in L.A. as a studio musician, where he recorded "The Joe Bethancourt String Concert Album." Returning to Phoenix, he hosted a radio show called "Folk Music Occasional" on KDKB with Bill Compton and was a regular on the Emmy-winning "Wallace and Ladmo Show" on KPHO-TV (Ch.5) in the '80s, featuring odd instruments.

As Bethancourt recalled those appearances in The Republic, "I would just come out and say, 'Here's a weird musical instrument. Let's hear what it sounds like.' It was really fun working with those guys."

He was also an artist in residence for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, teaching children throughout several different Arizona school districts.

A regular at Funny Fellows for 15 years, Bethancourt played more than 65 musical instruments, from banjo to mandolin, 12-string guitar, Cittern, bagpipes, Celtic harp, lute and Ozark mouthbow.

"Most of the instruments I play are stringed, and many of them are related in some way," he told The Republic. "It's like a foreign language. Once you learn the language of the instrument, you can play it and anything like it."

He played a wide variety of folk styles but tended to focus on the music of the southern Appalachian and Ozark mountains, where he spent time as a youth.

"My mom was a ragtime pianist, so I heard a lot of that," he told The Republic. "But the majority of the music I heard was Appalachian music. Everybody played, family members, neighbors, friends. There were just songs that everybody knew."

A founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism in Arizona, he participated in several historical reenactment groups, including the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers and the Single Action Shooter Society.

Country singer Lynn Anderson called Bethancourt a genius in a 2007 issue of Western Way magazine , and last year, he was inducted into the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame.

A private memorial service will be held for immediate family. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent through Paypal at GPA-AZ.com or to GPA-AZ, PO Box 2365; Glendale, AZ 85311-2365.