Just getting started on some banjo history. Can you recommend something that would talk about the actual early tunes played by folks in different communities. I think the tune I learned from you; "Hook and Line" is a very early banjo or fiddle tune. I would like to know more about these early banjo tunes and their origin.
George Gibson's old banjo history articles (there are several) from the late '90s offer some of the best details for pre-WW2 banjo titles, tunings, and techniques: banjohistory.com/article
Fantastic Banjo roots and branches Americas iInstrument African echoes in Appalachia Sinful tunes and spirituals Black folk music till the civil war Folk songs of the Southern United States Got it Thank you, this sounds like a good place to start. Can you tell me anything about the hajuj instrument?
I would recommend "That Half Barbaric Twang - The Banjo in American Popular Culture" by Karen Linn. A little dated now, but very good on the development of the classic style and the interplay between black vernacular and white bourgeois culture during the nineteenth century.
That's my arrangement of a song called "Old Shoe Boots and Leggings" I learned from a recording of Aunt Molly Jackson. When I do it I sing "brogan boots and leggings" so type that in to see my version on yTube. It's an old song, they sing it in Ireland and Britain often as "Old Man From Over the Sea" or "Old Man From Lee."
I have a copy of "America's Instrument" and it's a very good book. Another book is "Foxfire 3" edited by Eliot Wiggington. It has a chapter on banjos and stories about mountain banjo players and how to make banjos. I made a cake box banjo once from an example in the book.
Thanks, Clifton! I have the American Instrument book but I’m looking forward to reading the others. The banjo imho is the key to understanding the history of multiculturalism in the US!
Late coming to this ( as usual ) sorry for that, but have you come across " Ring the Banjar! " -The Banjo in America from Folklore to Factory. Robert Lloyd Webb is the author, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It accompanied an exhibition they put on in 1984 . A couple of essays of the history and musical styles of the early days, and another on the banjo makers of Boston by James F Bollman, with photos of the instruments in the exhibition. Not a very big book but interesting and nicely produced.
The BBC "Arena" documentary on Woody Guthrie mentions using hatpins as fiddlesticks. As if playing fiddle wasn't hard enough, you then get some fool pounding on the strings with sharp objects? :)
Paul, it's now generally agreed that the instrument emerged during the 17th-century, either in the Caribbean or back in West Africa. The most thorough research I've seen on its early origin is Adams & Pestcoe's article in Banjo Roots And Branches. They argue that the flat fingerboard, nut and tuning pegs are European elements adopted by Afro-Caribbean gourd lute makers to create the "banjo."
@@CliftonHicksbanjo I recall reading (in 1975) that the middle eastern rebec may also be related to the banjo. I think I read it in Earl Scruggs book, but hey, it's been 44 years so don't hold me to that.
@Thomas D It's complex but, basically, the Irish tenor descended from the American five-string banjo which, in turn, descended from gourd lutes played in West Africa and the Caribbean. Nobody knows for certain whether the original "banjo" first emerged in Africa, the Caribbean or both simultaneously.
