From WWR
The Banjo Player,
by Wm. S. Mount, 1856.Almost all ancient societies have had some sort of instrument with a vellum stretched over a hollow chamber with string vibrations creating tones, but most research indicates that the American
banjo was developed from an instrument the Africans played in the United States. They called the instruments
banzas, banjars, or
bangoes. Africans, brought to the new world in bondage, started making their banjars and banzas from a calabash gourd. With the top third of the gourd cut off, they would cover the hole with a ground hog hide, a goat skin, or sometimes a cat skin. These skins were usually secured with copper tacks or nails. The attached wooden neck was fretless and usually held three or four strings. Some of the first strings used were made of horsehair from the tail, twisted and waxed like a bowstring. Other strings used were made of gut, twine, a hemp fiber, or whatever else was available.
To Americans of European descent, the banjo was a creation of the Africans. The instrument was an oddity and was denied respectability. It was, in fact, a musical outcast, lowlier than the fiddle which many "righteous people" knew was from the devil. In the early 1830's, musicians began to use the banjo in minstrel shows, in which they blackened thier faces, and generally imitated African Americans they had seen and heard playing the instrument. Popularity of the banjo began to grow, and spread as far as England, Scotland, and Ireland. With the coming of the California Gold Rush in 1849, the banjo moved to the far west. As it traveled around the Horn and across the continent it became the most prolific musical instrument in the gold fields of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Stephen Foster's
Oh! Susanna became the anthem of the "forty niners" and took on a whole new set of words about the gold rush.
The minstrel show, playing the popular music of the day, continued to be the biggest influence on the popularity of the banjo, not only in the West, but in the entire nation, as well as England and Australia. Of course, the most popular minstrel troupes remained on Broadway in New York and other big Eastern cities where they reigned for fifty years. A few of them toured to San Francisco during the height of the Gold Rush, and into the heartland of America, cris-crossing the continent, and playing in the desert Southwest regions before the Mexican War.
The modern banjo usually has a metal rim, or "pot", a plastic drumhead, and metal strings. Five string banjos are the most common standard...the fifth string being shorter than the rest and used as a drone, plucked only by the thumb. Most have 22 frets. There are also four string banjos (plectrum banjos),
and shorter tenor banjos...
Pete Seeger is generally credited with inventing the long neck banjo (a five string banjo with a neck long enough to hold three extra frets). There are also fretless banjos, and
gourd banjos, six-string banjos tuned like a guitar,
banjo-ukes, banjo-mandolins, and several other combinations.
Some of the favorite Whole Wheat Radio artists who play the banjo include Robin Dale Ford, Joel Mabus, Jed Marum, Pierce Woodward, and Harry Manx.
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