(Note: This is not a complete history, but it gives a pretty good summary of the development of the instrument. Published sources for this information are listed at the end, as well as many internet sources.)

EARLY HISTORY

Banjos belong to a family of instruments that are very old. Drums with strings stretched over them can be traced throughout the Far East, the Middle East and Africa almost from the beginning. They can be played like the banjo, bowed or plucked like a harp depending on their development. These instruments were spread, in "modern" times, to Europe through the Arab conquest of Spain, and the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. The banjo, as we can begin to recognize it, was made by African slaves based on instruments that were indigenous to their parts of Africa. These early "banjos" were spread to the colonies of those countries engaged in the slave trade. Scholars have found that many of these instruments have names that are related to the modern word "banjo", such as "banjar", "banjil", "banza", "bangoe", "bangie", "banshaw". Some historians mention the diaries of Richard Jobson as the first record of the instrument.. While exploring the Gambra River in Africa in 1620 he recorded an instrument "...made of a great gourd and a neck, thereunto was fastened strings." The first mention of the name for these instruments in the Western Hemisphere is from Martinique in a document dated 1678. It mentions slave gatherings where an instrument called the "banza" is used. Further mentions are fairly frequent and documented. The best known is probably that of Thomas Jefferson in 1781: "The instrument proper to them (i.e. the slaves) is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa."

BANJOS DURING MINSTREL ERA

White men began using blackface as a comic gimmick before the American Revolution. The banjo became a prop for these entertainers, either individually or in groups. By the early part of the 19th century, minstrelsy became a very popular form of entertainment. Joel Walker Sweeney and his Sweeney Minstrels were already popular by the 1830s. By 1843 the Virginia Minstrels began to do an entire show of this blackface entertainment and this is usually the date used to mark the beginning of the minstrel era. The Virginia Minstrels had 2 Banjo players, Dan Emmett and Billy Whitlock, a pupil of Sweeney. In addition Minstrel shows usually had a fiddler, a bones player and a drum/tambourine. We know from early Banjo instruction books by performers like Thomas Briggs, 1855, Philip Rice, 1858 and Frank Converse, 1865 that the minstrel style of playing was the "downstroke", what we call frailing today. This style was learned from the slave performers themselves. [Frailing is the use of the thumb and/or one or more fingers to “pluck” the strings.]

HISTORY OF THE BANJO’S FIFTH STRING

Joel Walker Sweeney of The Sweeney Minstrels, born 1810, was often credited with the invention of the short fifth string. Scholars now know that this is not the case. A painting entitled The Old Plantation painted between 1777 and 1800 shows a black gourd banjo player with a banjo having the fifth string peg half-way up the neck. If Sweeney did add a fifth string to the banjo it was probably the lowest string, or fourth string by today's reckoning. This would parallel the development of the banjo elsewhere for example in England, where the tendency was to add more of the long strings with seven and ten strings being common. Sweeney’s claim to fame was the spread banjo entertainment with his minstrel show. It is thought that Sweeney contracted with a drum maker in Baltimore, William Boucher, to start producing banjos for public sales. These banjos are basically drums with necks attached. A number have survived and a couple of them are in the collections of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. Other makers like Jacobs of New York or Morrell who moved his shop to San Francisco during the Gold Rush, helped to supply the growing demand for the instrument in the mid 1840s as the minstrel shows traveled westward to entertain the gold diggers.

MINSTREL TO PARLOR

From the 1840s through the 1890s the Minstrel show was not the only place to see banjo players. There are records of urban Banjo contests and tournaments held at hotels, race tracks and bars, especially in New York to the enthusiastic cheering and clapping of sometimes inebriated crowds. Most of the contestants were white in the early contests but there are records of black players taking part in the post-civil war era. Urban bar room players, minstrel show performers, slave performers, southern country players, all these performers were to come together during the Civil War (1860-1864). Regiments and Companies formed Minstrel groups and bands to entertain themselves during lulls in battle as did sailors aboard gunboats. After the Civil War soldiers carried the knowledge and appreciation of the instrument home to almost every corner of America. During most of this time the banjo was looked-down upon by the more well-to-do classes of the population. Articles in the papers of the day like that in the Boston Daily Evening Voice of 1866, classified the Banjo of the 1840s and 1850s as an instrument in "the depth of popular degradation", an instrument fit only for "the jig-dancing lower classes of the community..."

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FOUR STRING BANJO

By 1866, however, the instrument had become a "universal favorite" with over 10,000 instruments in use in Boston alone. The cause of this sudden popularity was the introduction of the banjo as a parlor instrument. This is the somewhat misnamed "classical" period of the banjo. The banjo was played in the "classical" style which meant that it was picked with the fingers in imitation of the popular guitar players of the day. Many outstanding performers and teachers had banjos named after them that incorporated their own changes in the instrument in an attempt to make the banjo more refined and above all louder. Jazz entered the picture in the early 1900’s and the banjo became an integral part of the early jazz bands as rhythm instruments. At first, 5-string banjos were used. However, It was found that the banjo could be heard better if stroked with a “plectrum” (now known as a “pick”) as opposed to the frailing method with the fingers. Banjoists took off the short drone string, and used the instrument without it. Eventually, manufacturers started making the instrument with only four strings and calling it the plectrum banjo (because it was “picked” with a “plectrum”). It featured the same tuning as the five string banjo, only without the fifth (drone) string. Manufacturers also developed hybrid instruments, blending banjos with mandolins. These shorter neck banjos became popular with mandolinists and violinists, since the fingering was the same as their instrument. These “tenor banjos” became increasingly popular with bands, since their higher pitch provided more ring and could be heard better through the sound of the other instruments. The name “tenor” banjo is thought to be from the name "tango banjo” because the instrument rose to popularity through the Tango dance craze that swept America. The stock market collapse of 1929 and the world wide depression that followed wiped out the banjo. To quote Robert Webb, "Demand for its bright happy sound disappeared almost overnight. Professional orchestras made a quick transition to the ‘arch-top’ guitar, developed in the 1920s by Gibson and others which provided a mellow and integral rhythm more in keeping with the subdued nature of the times...” No doubt the invention of the microphone and subsequently, the amplified guitar were a part of the transition.

FOUR STRING BANJO ORGANIZATIONS

Fretted Instrument Guild of America
The Fretted Instrument Guild of America, also known as FIGA, is a non-profit international musical organization that was founded in 1957. Membership consists of approximately 2000 people...mostly four string banjo, but also mandolin, guitar, ukulele and related fretted musical instrument players and enthusiasts from all over the world. Many FIGA members are musicians - of all levels - from beginner to top professional. FIGA publishes a semi-monthly newsletter, has an annual convention, and provides scholarship support to young people interested in fretted musical instruments. There are also FIGA supported “banjoramas” held in various cities around the USA and Europe year round.

The American Banjo Museum
Located in the restored “bricktown area” of downtown Oklahoma City, OK, the American Banjo museum is a world-class museum dedicated to celebrating the music and heritage of the banjo. A tour of the museum will enable you to witness the history of the banjo from its African roots, though its heyday during the Roaring 20’s, to its present voice in Bluegrass, folk and world music, and its banjo “Hall of Fame”.

The museum houses the largest collection of banjos on public display in the world. Also, you can enjoy banjo performances and video theaters, a recreation of a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor (in commemoration for all that this organization did for banjos in the 1960’s), and much more. More information can be found at www.banjomuseum.org or by calling the museum at 405-260-1323. Be sure and mention that www.banjomusic.biz sent you there!

Sources:

• That Half-Barbaric Twang, The Banjo in American Popular Culture: Karen Linn, Univ. of IL Press, 1991.
• Mike Woitowicz, Banjoist. Personal notes and reference materials.
• The Eddie Peabody Story: Author, Lowell Schreyer, Self Published, Mankato, MN, 2000.
• The Banjo Entertainers. Author, Lowell Schreyer, Minnesota Heritage Publishing, 2007.

Prepared by:
Mike Woitowicz 11/07