Why The Banjo Makes America Great

Do you know what a banjo is? In case you don't, a banjo is a four to six stringed instrument with a drum for a head. You probably know that is it played in country and bluegrass bands and might be seen in hillbilly movies. Unfortunately, you might also believe that it's an annoying instrument and has no place in music today. This just may change your mind.

It was invented in the early 1800's by African slaves imitating instruments from their own country. The instrument most likely imitated was the banjar which was commonly made from a hollowed out gourd. Because of its origins, the banjo was an instrument untouched by white society until, according to drhorsehair.com, "A young man named Joel Walker Sweeney, of Appomattox Court House, VA, learned to play a four- string gourd banjo at age 13, from the black men working on his father's farm." When he was older, Joel added a shorter fifth string to the banjo, and started to tour. Until this time, all performances on the banjo seem to have been from black players. Joel started to travel around the country playing his banjo. This was the first time a banjo had preformed in concert halls and people found it new and exciting. The banjo continued to increase in popularity from here on out. Soon minstrel and darkie bands popped up all over the country and performed in crowded concert halls, saloon theatres, wherever they were needed. Darkie bands were called so because they rubbed burnt cork on their face to appear as if they were from the Deep South. In 1857, minstrel banjo playing reached a high point as the first banjo contest ever was held in New York City. Over half the city attended this stunning event, in which, everyone was cheering and shouting for their favorite banjo player creating a huge uproar. The winner of this competition was a man named Tom Briggs who played for the Christy Minstrels. He was sent on a tour to California, where he and his band would go on tour. Unfortunately, on the boat trip through Panama, Briggs contracted a fever of which he died shortly before he arrived. A few years after this event, the Civil War began and spread the banjo even further.

During the Civil War, many banjo players joined in both the Confederate and Union armies. The players who joined were mostly amateurs and taught each other the banjo for enjoyment between fighting. Throughout the war, banjoists were constantly sought out for units because during the lulls between battles there wasn't anything to do other than listen to music. A banjo was a valuable spoil when found among the dead, even if you couldn't play it. If you had the good fortune to find one, chances were that if you didn't know how to play it, someone in your brigade could teach you. Because of the reaches of the American Civil War, the banjo spread west further than it had gone before. According to drhorsehair.com," 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, like Christy's Minstrels, Buckley's Serenaders, The Congo Melodists, and The Virginia Minstrels, to name a few, remained on Broadway in New York and other big Eastern cities where they reigned for fifty years." The banjo also returned to the mining camps out west and could be heard at night around the fires in camps. If a town was large enough to have a theatre, opera house, or show hall, or even a saloon with a stage, chances are that there was a banjo in there and chances were that it would fill the hall. In fact, some of the high-class member in American society believed that the banjo should be an orchestra instrument.

Probably the most drastic change in banjo history was influenced greatly by a man named Earl Scruggs, a man who began playing the banjo at an early age. Earl learned the style that was relatively common in his native town of Flint Hill, North Carolina; a style called three finger picking. The banjo was usually strummed upon but the three finger style made sharp crisp notes and was similar to the way a fiddle is played. By the time earl was in the 3rd grade he had already designed his own banjo tunes. Before World War Two, Earl was a professional musician who worked with his brothers.