ABOUT THIS BOOK

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.

Contributors: Greg C. Adams, Nick Bamber, Jim Dalton, George R. Gibson, Chuck Levy, Shlomo Pestcoe, Pete Ross, Tony Thomas, Saskia Willaert, and Robert B. Winans.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Robert B. Winans is a professor emeritus of American literature and folklore at Gettysburg College.

REVIEWS

Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize, American Musical Instrument Society, 2020

— American Musical Instrument Society

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title

Copyright

Contents

Editor's Introduction

Part I: Setting the Scene

1. Changing Perspectives on the Banjo’s African American Origins and West African Heritage Shlomo P

Part II: Exploring the African Roots

2. Banjo Ancestors: West African Plucked Spike Lutes Shlomo Pestcoe

3. List of West African Plucked Spike Lutes Shlomo Pestcoe and Greg C. Adams

4. Searching for Gourd Lutes in the Bijago Islands of Guinea-Bissau Nick Bamber

5. Interviews with Ekona Diatta and Sana Ndiaye, Master Musicians Playing within Traditional and C

6. The Down-Stroke Connection: Comparing Techniques Between the Jola Ekonting and the Five-String B

Part III: Into the New World—Caribbean Developments

7. “Strum Strumps” and “Sheepskin” Guitars: The Early Gourd Banjo and Clues to its West African Roo

8. “Finding” the Haitian Banza Saskia Willaert

9. The Haitian Banza and the American Banjo Lineage Pete Ross

Part IV: Into North America—Early Banjo Sightings

10. Zenger’s “Banger”: Contextualizing the Banjo in Early New York City, 1736 Shlomo Pestcoe and Gr

11. The Banjar Pictured: The Depiction of the African American Early Gourd Banjo in The Old Plantat

12. Black Musicians in Eighteenth-Century America: Evidence from Runaway Slave Advertisements Rober

13. Mapping Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Citations of Banjo Playing, 1736–1840 Robert B

Illustrations

Part V: Inquiries into White and Black Banjo in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century America

14. Black Banjo, Fiddle, and Dance in Kentucky and the Amalgamation of African American and Anglo-A

15. The Changing Intonational Practice of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Banjo Jim Dalton

16. Gus Cannon—“The Colored Champion Banjo Pugilist of the World” and the Big World of the Banjo To

17. Defining a Regional Banjo Style: “Old Country Style” Banjo or Piedmont Two-Finger Picking Rober

Contributors

Index