George Gibson: Mountain Banjos were "Durable Copies" of Gourd Banjos

"The earliest mountain banjos did not have a 'can' rim to support the head - the head was tacked on just as it is on gourd banjos. I have proved that gourd banjos were in the Carolinas by the 1780s; they were likely widespread on the frontier by that time. The first person who made a mountain banjo did not have to be acquainted with any instrument other than a gourd banjo. He made the mountain banjo round like a gourd and tacked on a head.

"It is my opinion that the mountain banjo was first made before the Civil War by mixed race people in upper east Tennessee, southwest Virginia and a part of western North Carolina. After the manufactured banjo became more common in the late 1800s, southern artisans began bending wood to make rims in emulation of these banjos - southern chair makers had been bending wood since colonial times. It is actually easier (when using primitive tools) to make a tack head banjo by bending wood for a rim than it is to make the mountain banjo with a tack head. There is only one reason why one would put in the extra work necessary to make a tack head mountain banjo: to make a durable copy of the gourd banjo.

"I have collected folk instruments for years, many of my folk banjos and dulcimers can be seen at the Artisan Center in Hindman, Kentucky. I have not seen a mountain banjo in southeast Kentucky, the folk banjos found there are of two types: bentwood rim banjos, most with hardware from the late 1800s to the 1920s (I have a collection of catalogs from that era) and hexagonal and octagonal instruments (a few are square) with tacked on heads. The hexagonal and octagonal banjos likely predate the bentwood rim banjos and are not copies of commercial instruments. The Hindman Settlement School has a photo of Ada Smith playing a hexagonal banjo in 1907. Stuart Jamieson recorded Aunt Liz Hill playing an octagonal banjo in 1946, and had a copy made from memory. 

"John Rice Erwin (Musical Instruments of the Southern Appalachian Mountains) found most of his folk instruments, including mountain banjos and some of the type found in southeast Kentucky, in upper east Tennessee and southwest Virginia. This is where many mixed race people lived, some of whom later emigrated to southeast Kentucky. It should be noted that these mixed race people were culturally the same as their neighbors, most said they were white but some claimed Portuguese or Indian ancestry. They originated around the Chesapeake in Virginia and Maryland."

- George R. Gibson (personal communication, 20 April 2018)