I started Black Banjo Then
and Now because I thought Black banjoists I kept meeting
online needed to get together. As well, we soon found
other banjoists and scholars needed a place to discuss
the African origin and Black legacy of the Banjo.
We needed a place to express the explosion of African
American banjoists including African American Heritage
Elder Etta Baker, Taj Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Guy
Davis, Otis Taylor, Sule Greg Wilson, Don Vappie, Dr.
Joan, and Rex Ellis, all known in the old-time, blues,
classic, and jazz banjo communities. There are others,
less famous, we’ve found along the way like Boston
civic and cultural leader Dr. Theodore Landsmark, William
the Bluegrass picking bailiff on TV’s Texas
Justice, Rashunda a former TV anchor from Highpoint,
North Carolina now working in Zurich whose online queries
got me to launch the Black Banjo Then and Now Group in
the first place, elementary school students in Mississippi
and Buffalo studying four string banjo, and a young brother
in Georgia who wants to play the blues.
I did face bigotry from a small pseudo-redneck element
in Banjo L in the month’s before I launched Black
Banjo Then and Now. However, banjo-l’s members
and its owner handled them and handled them well. I launched
Black Banjo, not out of any negative feelings bout Banjo-L
as has become the myth, but because of the positive need
to gather the Black banjoists and because of a need to
focus the discussions others I met on banjo-l and elsewhere
wanted to have about Black banjo playing, then and now.
The significant racism comes from those who see old-time
music as a cultural white flight to an old time world
as white as the suburbs they inhabit, where the only
blacks are kindly aged relicts who can be foci of their
paternalism. For example, when I casually mentioned Black
Banjo in the Yahoo group of an old-time jam I participated
in or on various online lists brought a series of attacks
on me or the idea for having a Black banjo group. Responses
included the idea that banjo playing and old time music
are supposed to be “fun” and apparently Black
Banjo playing isn’t and the ever popular idea that
discussing anything from an African American perspective
is “racist.”
Yet, in addressing the real history of the music, you
cannot escape the issue of race. As my dear friend Allen
Feldman likes to say, race pervades and you cannot ignore
it or remain neutral. The old time South had a great
racial mixture in music and culture as well as murderous
terror against Black people. Youth influenced by cultural
and political radicals revived old-time music in the
late 1950s and early 1960s to embrace the culture and
the struggles of poor and oppressed people, not to flee
to the suburbs. The original Friends of Old Time Music
had concerts not only for Tom Ashley and Dock Boggs,
but also for Son House and Dock’s friend, Mississippi
John Hurt. Black Banjo Then and Now revives and intensifies this
discourse. We cannot help but confront the fact that
not only was the South of the “old times” pervaded
with racism, but that the society we live in, including
the playing and discussion of old-time music, blues,
and every other music, is pervaded with racism .
Black Banjo Then and Now is a forum for old-time music
players, scholars, and thinkers who remain concerned
for the history and struggles, the Black and white that
pervade the banjo and its musics. We’ve had great
contributions from Dan Gellert, Kerry Blech, Allen Feldman,
Joel Shimberg, Andy Cohen, George Gibson, Scott Odell,
and Anita Kermode. Before illness blocked the way, we
had the support and many contributions by the great Stu
Jamieson. We’ve all talked about Maybelle Carter’s
banjo and Tom Ashley’s trombone as well as the
Black Johnnie Bukka and the two white Johnny Bookers.
Yet, Black banjoists also aim to connect with Black
scholars, cultural workers, community leaders, and every
day people about how Black banjo playing relates to African
American culture and community Then and Now.
We’ve just received the assistance of Henry Louis
Gates in connecting major African American music scholars
with our Gathering and our group. Our goal is to repatriate
the banjo to the Black nationality as well as to connect
to our African and Caribbean cousins who brought the
banjo to our shores. We not only look back to the
past, but forward to how Black banjo playing can relates
to the expression of 21st Century Blackness.
We found things many of us did not expect. For, example
we’ve become fascinated with the continuing story
of four and six string Jazz banjoists, the most significant
20th Century African American banjo experience. We’ve
also discussed the parallels between Black fiddling and
banjo playing in the transmission of playing styles and
traditions from Africa. We’ve come to recognize
how much African American string band music of all kinds
has been neglected by both the commercial recording industry
and by folklorists of other eras. We’ve also celebrate
the way contemporary African American banjoists use the
banjo for jazz, blues, funk, rap, and other musics that
continue the Black tradition.
All along we’ve received great support from many
in the banjo community, particularly from the Old
Time Herald and its hard working staff and editors.
Tony Thomas is the founder and list-owner
of Black Banjo Then and Now, an internet listserve. He
lives in North Miami, Florida. He has been playing traditional
music since 1962 and he plays a Gold Tone Whyte Laydie
banjo.
BlackBanjoTony@aol.com
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