Banjo Roots and Branches / edited by Robert B. Winans.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Winans, Robert B.

Series:

Music in American life.

Music in American life

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Music--History and criticism.

African Americans.

Lute--Africa--History.

Lute.

Banjo--History.

Banjo.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (279 pages).

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2018]

Summary:

"The story of the banjo's journey from Africa to the western hemisphere blends music, history, and a union of cultures. In 'Banjo Roots and Branches', Robert B. Winans presents cutting-edge scholarship that covers the instrument's West African origins and its adaptations and circulation in the Caribbean and United States. The contributors provide detailed ethnographic and technical research on gourd lutes and ekonting in Africa and the banza in Haiti while also investigating tuning practices and regional playing styles. Other essays place the instrument within the context of slavery, tell the stories of black banjoists, and shed light on the banjo's introduction into the African- and Anglo-American folk milieus. Wide-ranging and illustrated with twenty color images, 'Banjo Roots and Branches' offers a wealth of new information to scholars of African American and folk musics as well as the worldwide community of banjo aficionados."-- Publisher's description.

Contents:

Banjo roots research: changing perspectives on the banjo's African American origins and West African heritage / Shlomo Pestcoe and Greg C. Adams

Banjo ancestors: West African plucked spike lutes / Shlomo Pestcoe

List of West African plucked spike lutes / Shlomo Pestcoe and Greg C. Adams

Searching for gourd lutes in the Bijago Islands of Guinea-Bissau / Nick Bamber

Interviews with Ekona Diatta and Sana Ndiaye, master musicians playing within traditional and contemporary commercial contexts / Chuck Levy

The down-stroke connection: comparing techniques between the Jola Ekonting and the five-string banjo / Greg C. Adams and Chuck Levy

"Strum strumps" and "sheepskin" guitars: the early gourd banjo and clues to its West African roots in the seventeenth-century circum-Caribbean / Shlomo Pestcoe

"Finding" the Haitian Banza / Saskia Willaert

The Haitian Banza and the American banjo lineage / Pete Ross

Zenger's "banger": contextualizing the banjo in early New York City, 1736 / Shlomo Pestcoe and Greg C. Adams

The banjar pictured: the depiction of the African American early gourd banjo in The old plantation, South Carolina, 1780s / Shlomo Pestcoe

Black musicians in eighteenth-century America: evidence from runaway slave advertisements / Robert B. Winans

Mapping eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century citations of banjo playing, 1736-1840 / Robert B. Winans

Black banjo, fiddle, and dance in Kentucky and the amalgamation of African American and Anglo-American folk music / George R. Gibson

The changing intonational practice of mid-nineteenth-century banjo / Jim Dalton

Gus Cannon - "The colored champion banjo pugilist of the world" and the big world of the banjo / Tony Thomas

Defining a regional banjo style: "old country style" banjo or Piedmont two-finger picking / Robert B. Winans.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-252-05064-9