Stephen Arkin Obituary

1944 - 2022
August 24, 2022
Steve Arkin, Brooklyn-born banjo player and publishing executive, died at 78. He grew up among New York's legendary Washington Square music scene, playing old-time and bluegrass music in early bands with Jody Stecher, David Grisman, Maria Muldaur, and other outstanding musicians. He went on to play banjo with Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys. In James Rooney's book Bossmen, Monroe is quoted: "Steve could play the best backup banjo I ever heard!".
He won numerous banjo contests and played in many bands, including the nationally-known Northern Lights and Virginia-based Troublesome Creek, whose record on County Records received widespread critical acclaim. He played clawhammer and his own brand of 3-finger style with equal facility, and taught bluegrass and old-time banjo at a variety of music camps and festivals. Steve played most recently with his wife Cathy Mason and frequent collaborators in the Old Time music community including the band New Cut Road.
After attending Marlboro College, where he studied art history, he enjoyed a long, successful career in book publishing, including positions at Little Brown, Oxford University Press, and AMACOM Books. He was an avid antiques collector-especially the pottery of Ulisse Cantagalli and other renaissance-style maiolica. His homes were brimming with aesthetic marvels.
The son of Kenneth Arkin and Gertrude Feller, he often returned to live in Brooklyn (most recently Park Slope), but also established deep roots and life-long friendships in Salem and Cambridge, MA, and Cleveland, OH. He was equally at home-and surrounded by friends who were like family-at folk music hubs such as Clifftop, Lake Genero, Mount Airy, the Harry Smith Frolic, Gerde's Folk City, and Club Passim (née Club 47). In 2018, he moved to a green oasis in Melrose, MA with Cathy-hiking, swimming, entertaining, traveling, teaching, and making music together.
"Steve was like ten people rolled into one: a banjo virtuoso, an expert on art, design and architecture, a world-class teller of shaggy dog stories, a thoughtful gift-giver, a wine snob," his nephew Peter recalls. "He LOVED what he loved. Family gatherings. Walden Pond. Lewis Carrol, antique sofas, Martin guitars, medieval tapestries, the Alan Lomax tapes, MC Escher, New England. Kevin Enoch banjos. Kyle Creed banjos. Mike Ramsey banjos. Talking about, designing, playing banjos. His dear friends in the music scene. His kids. His sister, his nephews and nieces. His wife Cathy."
Steve is survived by Cathy Mason, his daughter Emily Arkin and son-in law Chris Braiotta, his son Jon Arkin, and step-daughter Amelia Mason; his sister Susan Birkenhead, his nephews Peter Birkenhead, David Birkenhead, and Richard Birkenhead, his niece Alison Wall, their spouses, and twelve great-nieces and nephews, all of whom adored him.
A small family memorial will be held in Melrose MA, with a large musical celebration for friends and family to follow in the new year. Donations in his memory may be made to progressive political causes and get-out-the-vote organizations.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by New York Times from Sep. 1 to Sep. 2, 2022.

Memories and Condolences
for Stephen Arkin

12 Entries

Raun Burnham

August 26, 2023

I miss him often. He used to listen to my stuff on SoundCloud and post his own. I miss that. I hope he's playing up a storm in some jam session on a sunny day in the hereafter.

Bhikkhu Bodhi

September 20, 2022

I had been a friend of Steve's back in 1961. We were in the same French class at New Utrecht High School. We had only a casual acquaintance at that time. The next year, I ran into him while taking a walk in Boro Park, Brooklyn, where we both lived. We chatted for a while and found that we were both inclined toward counter-cultural modes of thought. He invited me to accompany him to a party in Greenwich Village, and from that point on we became close friends. During this period, we would often go together to the Village for the Sunday afternoon jam sessions at Washington Square Park. We would also visit the coffee houses where wandering musicians would drop by to play sets. One scruffy kid who turned up to play at a coffee house we visited in the summer of 1961 would later become famous under the name "Bob Dylan."
When we were late getting back to Brooklyn, I would stay overnight at his house and he would inundate me with record after record of bluegrass. He inspired me to buy a banjo and try to learn to play it, but I lacked the resolve to overcome the challenge of learning the instrument well.
After I started college in 1961, we lost contact. I eventually went off to Sri Lanka to become a Buddhist monk (in 1972) and a translator of Buddhist texts. I spent 24 years in Asia, mostly in Sri Lanka. I resettled in the U.S. in 2002. After joining Facebook, out of curiosity I looked up Steve on FB and found he was still a maestro musician. I regret now that I didn't try to re-establish contact with him.

GW Rodgers

September 7, 2022

Very talented man, only got to see him play a few times at Clifftop, RIP Sir!!

Zeke Smukler

September 7, 2022

I miss you, Steve. But I liked seeing you at Janie´s Jumpstart.

Mark Hogan

September 6, 2022

A life well lived.

Tommy Hanway

September 4, 2022

Steve, I have an old Mastertone of his that I bought off Marc Horowitz. I understand now why it wasn't his favorite banjo, but it still sounds great.

I enjoyed Steve's challenges musically, personally, and just having him around made one want to practice more. Steve could play banjo in so many styles, and he mastered them all.

He told me once, "Bluegrass has to be perfect, or, not at all."

We were looking at a certain band's dress (leather vests), and they didn't sing all that well. The playing wasn't up to bluegrass standards.

Steve knew a lot about a lot of things. I wish I had gotten to know him better. We did have fun, and I had one lovely walk with him that truly life-changing for me. Steve could move energy!

My condolences to all his family and friends. He was a one-of-a-kind, deep, intense and inspiring.

Fred Bartenstein

September 4, 2022

I knew and played in a bluegrass band with Steve during his Salem, MA, years in the early 1970s. I treasure those memories and appreciated his friendship. Condolences to the family.

Mike Goldfield

September 3, 2022

My condolences and best wishes to Steve's family and friends. I met Steve in the early 1960s. We became good friends, but lost touch after a decade, although my brother Steve, himself an accomplished banjo player met him later and became lifelong friends. Steve and I met at a concert where he was performing, then bumped into each other later in the Village. We hit it off, although I was a fairly mediocre guitar player. I visited him at Marlboro and occasionally at his mom's house where he was living. We had no money, so we often went to Gerde's Folk City, bought cokes and stood at the bar so we wouldn't have to pay the $2 cover charge. He hooked me up with Reverend Gary Davis (through his close friend Stephen Grossman, one of the Reverend's best students), with whom I took lessons for two summers. Rest in peace, Steve,
Mike Goldfield

John McCarthy

September 2, 2022

I knew Steve back in the mid 1980s when we attended a weekly jam at a used bookstore in Salem, MA. I enjoyed playing with him and getting to know him and found him a remarkable resource musically and in so many other ways. In the past few years I enjoyed reconnecting with him on Facebook and sharing memories from the part of New England where I grew and where he lived for the past several years. I will treasure my time with him and his memory.

Raun and Jerry Burnham

September 2, 2022

Please accept our heartfelt sympathy to all. We will miss him just a whole lot. Raun and Jerry Burnham

Steve Goldfield

September 2, 2022

Steve and I first met at Clifftop on the recommendation of mutual friend, Marty Cutler. We became friends and discussed many things banjo. My older brother, Mike, knew Steve in the 1960s.

Veronica and Cheryl Karlinsky-Barber

September 2, 2022

May your hearts soon be filled with wonderful memories of joyful times together as you celebrate a life well lived.

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