Banjo History | 1600-1750 "Emergence Period"
Added 2018-03-24 21:50:53 +0000 UTCMost of us know that the American five-string banjo traces it's history to a family of west African musical instruments that were introduced to North America via the Atlantic slave trade.
Blacks, whites, natives and people of mixed race worked, lived and began forming families together along the southern frontier of colonial America beginning in the mid-1600s. Historical evidence of black Americans playing both banjo and fiddle are commonplace by 1750, as are descriptions of the banjo as being an instrument of, 'the lower classes.' It is likely that the transmission of banjo culture from black to white Americans occurred during this period.
Archibald Ferguson (of southwest Virginia) and Joel Sweeney (of Appomattox, Virginia) are the first two white people explicitly described in the historical record as banjo players. However, Gibson's 2000 article "The Banjo in Appalachia" provides convincing evidence that at least one white frontier hunter in Kentucky was making deer gut banjo strings as early as 1788. This Maysville, Kentucky deer hunter named Mr. Rector (and locally known as 'Old Leather Stocking') may have been the first white banjo player in American history. (Gibson 2000) https://kentuckyexplorer.com/nonmembers/01-01023.html
In this video I begin discussing my view of the history of the banjo drawing on the following published sources:
"The Banjo: America's African instrument" by Laurent Dubois (Harvard University Press 2016)
"The Banjo in Appalachia"by George Gibson (Kentucky Explorer Magazine 2000)
"America's Instrument: the banjo in the ninteenth century" by Philip Gura & James Bollman (UNC Press 1999)
To read more of George R. Gibson's research on banjo history visit his website: http://www.banjohistory.com and pre-order "Banjo Roots and Branches" (https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/23cnd4ft9780252041945.html) due out this summer, 2018 which will feature contributions both from Gibson and one of our active contributing members here, Tony Thomas.
Comments
"Folk music is high-class music. There's a lot of low-class people singing it." Great stuff. This could be the basis of your future PhD thesis in musicology. I haven't seen the sources, but it makes sense that poor folks and slaves from Virginia would carry their new shared musical tradition with them into the back country. For all you might hear about recently arrived Ulster Scots heading across the mountains in the 18th century, in reality all kinds of people moved into the hills and poured through the gaps in the mountains, presumably taking their music with them. By the way, could you by any chance take a close up of your chair? I am really interested in the seat!
Micheál Mac Labhrás
2018-03-25 01:14:15 +0000 UTC
