jlink - Posted - 10/09/2022:  10:21:44

Hi all,
New member here. Below is a shortish list of books I’ve come across online about the history of the banjo. Anyone care to recommend one to start with, or to add to the list? (Leaving out Instruction books for now.)
Thanks!
John

Carlin 2007. The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy

Carlin 2016. Banjo: An Illustrated History

Dubois 2016. The Banjo: America’s African Instrument

Gaddy 2022. Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History

Gura 1999. America’s Instrument: The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century

Jones-Bamman 2017. Building New Banjos for an Old-Time World

Linn 1994. That Half-Barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture

Winans, Ed. 2018. Banjo Roots and Branches

Brian Murphy - Posted - 10/09/2022:  11:23:47

Others on the history of the banjo in U.S. (excluding picture books and those devoted to things like Gibson banjos):

Lowell H. Schreyer, The Banjo Entertainers:  Roots to Ragtime A Banjo History (Minn. Heritage 2007)

The Birth of the Banjo (Katonah Museum of Art) (2003) (curators:  Robert Shaw, Peter Szego, George Wunderlich)

Laurent Dubois, The Banjo: America’s Favorite African Instrument (Harvard Univ. 2016)

A History of The Banjo: Frank Converse’s Banjo Reminiscences (Heller ed. 2011)

Cecelia Conway, African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia: A Study of Folk Traditions (Univ. Tenn. 1995)

Robert Lloyd Webb, Ring the Banjar: The Banjo in America from Folklore to Factory (MIT 1984)

Leo Mazow, Picturing the Banjo (Penn State 2005)

davidppp - Posted - 10/09/2022:  11:41:20

Very influential with respect to all serious banjo scholarship and predating all of the above is Dena Epstein's Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: black folk music to the Civil War (1977). There was very little known about the lives of enslaved Africans in the way of primary historical sources dating before the Civil War. One of Epstein's insights was to look also to the Caribbean, which was the location of the earliest big plantations. She's not singly focused on the banjo, but it figures large in the people's music.

A fine video documentary was made about her, the research and writing of that book, and the book itself by Jim Carrier, called The Librarian and the Banjo.

I recommend both unequivocally.

Alvin Conder - Posted - 10/09/2022:  12:00:03

All excellent recommendations!!

Now the hard part on your end...finding all these books. I think a number of them are now out of print. 

Edited by - Alvin Conder on 10/09/2022 12:01:55

Joel Hooks - Posted - 10/09/2022:  16:10:23

quote:

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Originally posted by Brian Murphy

 

A History of The Banjo: Frank Converse’s Banjo Reminiscences (Heller ed. 2011)

 

 

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All Heller did was retype the pages from the Cadenza that Carl Anderton gathered and I scanned and uploaded to the Internet Archive.  Don't buy this, just read the original pages here.

archive.org/details/conversereminiscences

Also of interest is Albert Baur's letters.  Baur was one of the very few Civil War soldiers confirmed to have played banjo during the war.  Much of what he wrote about his personal experience has been supported with extant documents and one extant known banjo which is mentioned in these letters. 

Read them here for free from my scans:

archive.org/details/baur-lette...jo-player

I like to recommend that people read things from history and not about. The classic era covered its own history pretty well.  A lot of modern written histories puts the author's personal slant on the narrative, usually from the "folk" or academic point of view which tends to make the classic era out to be something it was not because it was based around popular music which carried with it strong commercial ties to capitalism.   Or, the classic era is dismissed or passed over with a vague and quick description for this world wide phenomena that ran for over 4 decades.

 Recommended reading includes:

Stewart's Journal 

digitalguitararchive.com/2017/...-journal/

The Cadenza

digitalguitararchive.com/2020/...-cadenza/

The Crescendo

digitalguitararchive.com/2020/...rescendo/

The BMG (British, but filled with good stuff)

classic-banjo.ning.com/page/bmg-magazines

If one is going to study a culture they should be able to read the language that they spoke.  With the banjo that was standard notation.  Each piece of sheet music, instruction book, or folio tells a story. Each printed or manuscript piece is a recording that only requires the use of a banjo to play back.

When I started looking into banjo history I was quickly frustrated as I could not check citations for context.  I always check citations when I am reading a book (where I can) and at that time very little of the original work was available without travel and trips to dusty library basements (if you were even granted access).

I have made it my mission to scan and upload to the Internet Archive every bit of banjo related documentation I can get my hands on.  I am regularly adding to this so check it ever so often to see of there is new stuff added.  I want all of this accessible to anyone interested.

Here is a link to all of the stuff I have uploaded so far.  Scattered among the endless pieces of sheet music are bits of ephemeral worth checking out. 

archive.org/details/@joel_hooks

jlink - Posted - 10/10/2022:  09:12:42

Wow, a lot of great things to check out here. Thanks to all who replied!