Basic banjo history ignored in classic banjo introduction (edited by moderator)

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

The 30 minute "introductory" video on Classic Banjo is nice playing but every comment the speaker makes about banjo history is simply wrong, not about things that are controversial but about information available to any person seriously concerned with banjo history, information available in sources easily available internationally for decades.  Anyone who bothers to consult foundation sources on these issues like Carlin's masterpiece on Sweeney, Bollman and Gura,  the Grove Encylopedia articles by Scott Odell and Bob Winans, the more recent work of Greg Adams and Shlomo Petscoe,  etc. etc. knows what this man says is wrong, inaccurate. (edit)

 

It is not my job to explain these points.  This person obviously hasn't done any serious looking into banjo history and apparently heard some talk from people who are ignorant or read something written decades ago, or has been living underground isolated from serious discussion of the banjo and its history. 

 

but it blackens the eye of the classic banjo movement, an important custodian of the instrument's entire history, a home to principal contributors to its retification over the past 30-40 years, to be associated with such stupidities.

 

 

 

[Mike Moss]

Hi Tony,

thanks for the heads up. I didn't pay much attention to the documentary and I tuned in mostly for the playing. It is very easy for misinformation to seep into our discourse, especially when it is being rehashed over and over in mainstream books and documentaries.

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

His playing is wonderful,  but he doesn't know anything about the history, but it is not his job.  But I have seen this posted as a link to learn what classic banjo is about and been asked by people who don't know about it is this what they think, what about the real history.    He didn't set out to give banjo history when he did it, but if it is put forward as an introduction to it, it creates problems.

Of course those of us who style ourselves banjo historians have to realize this stuff reflects how much better a job we need to get the real information out to the public

[thereallyniceman]

Tony, while I respect your views, but please do not insult people on the site, We are all gentlemen here. 

I considered the naivety of the Joel Sweeney introduction as secondary to the spectacular playing by Peter and Mitch. I consider the function of this site to promote the "playing" of Classic Style banjo to a new generation of players, if they wish to research the in depth origins there are plenty of other websites and reference sources available for them to do that.

Why not write a short precis correcting the inaccuracies  regarding the origins as a supplement to the video?

..or even a larger history to be given a place of its own on the website?

But please no personal insults as they are not needed here.

[marc dalmasso]

Yes , spectacular playing and may be a simple & incomplete history of the banjo ;

But do  a guy exist who could both tell us the complete & true history of the banjo and play perfectly ?

one thing more i appreciate : Peter speaks an English very easily to understand for a French guy like me ; so i understood all the details of the story

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

I did particularly enjoy the playing of those pieces, but why not just stick to the playing of those pieces.  What this says is whoever recommends it considers the work we do on the history of the banjo to be irrelevant or wrong .  

 

If I have time I will write some things uop with a list of references.   But right now I am in and out of medical stuff

 

 

[Jody Stecher]

I don't know if the "medical stuff" is your work or is a reference to your personal health. In either case, good luck and best wishes.

 I think  that many here are not aware of your historical work and have no opinion about its relevance or veracity. I know your name as a champion of black banjo playing and I think that is terrific and excellent but I know no details and  I disagree with the proposal that someone who may like the Titanic video is automatically against your work!  One must have exposure to something before an opinion can be formed.

I have not seen the video in its entirety. I got to the part where stroke style was badly displayed and portrayed and I turned it off. My getting fed up with that doesn't mean that I agree with your work or that I do not, or that I have an opinion about the part of the video I didn't watch. I have no opinion about the part I didn't see or hear. Those who recommend the video are likely to have no opinion about your work, having not been exposed to it.  Why don't you tell us about it? We are all eager to learn. Most of those who post to this site are  amateur classic banjo players and not professional scholars or even amateur scholars. 

A list of references to what was amiss in the video would be a good first step in allowing visitors to this site to have an inkling as to what has disturbed you and to understand what was misrepresented (besides the mistaken notion that stroke style is the same as 1950s/60s folk-pop frailing).

Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist said:

  What this says is whoever recommends it considers the work we do on the history of the banjo to be irrelevant or wrong .  

 

If I have time I will write some things uop with a list of references.   

[Joel Hooks]

Hi Tony!

We've come a long way from just a few years ago and we are making headway.  Just think about what has been brought to the table recently.  And compare that to the Scruggs' book history!

I've focused on that ignored gray area of post war to the early 1880s.  The whole overblown "elevating" thing still turns my stomach.  These guys were having fun, and though they were products of their time respected the banjo.

A point that I like to make is that the tails and evening wear was not to "legitimize" the banjo.  That was the "rock star" dress of the era.  That is the late 19th century equivalent to the way Dave Lee Roth dressed in the 1980s.

The tux was then's leather jacket and custom tailored torn bluejeans.  It was not making it better or more educated, it was just the cool thing to do.

Another point is the transition of cork was the fake banjo contests.  Those were really just a way for banjoists to just be banjoists.  No cork, skits or bad (to our ears) comedy-- just the best banjo they could play.

I look forward to your comments.  

But keep in mind how far we've come.  Also keep in mind that this is us in this discussion.  Most folks who go to see a banjo show in the park don't really care and won't remember what was said.

The ones who do will find the truth and help in the cause to uncover more.

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

This has little to do with ME.  The focus on my research has not been on banjo origins,  early minstrelsy etc or the roots of the guitar banjo style although I bask in the glorious work folk like Joel Hooks have done.   In fact, over the years I have developed more and more of a grudging sympathy for poor Joel Walker Sweeney who never ever made any of the claims made in his name in this clip, and whose true glory is unfortunately dimmed by people who identify him with this stuff he had nothing to do with

What makes me angry is that folk like Joel Hooks and his colleagues have gone to considerable effort to make available to the world the direct historical documents on these things.  Others, including familiar names here like Robert Winans, Greg Adams,  Jim Bollman and David Gura,  Jim Webb, and so many others have documented all of this stuff by rather hard work, but we still have to deal with the same dreck.

Even Scruggs tried to make amends for what he (or Louise or whomever they hired) did.  He ordered an ekonting and several other West African instruments for the museum  Scruggs, established about himself and the banjo from our friend Ulf in Stockholm.  Ulf  protested against this piece before I did tomorrow I will post a little piece with links to easily obtainable references which refute this stuff.

 No problem if someone posts this thing as exquisite entertainment, a glorious example of the least known and most forgotten, but clearly essential, aspect of both historical and present banjo playing, but not without noting everything he says about banjo history is pretty much wrong about salient points that are not just questions of specialized facts.  But when I see it posted around as an introduction to the banjo and its history and people whom I know who are not banjo insiders ask me about the stuff there, how am I supposed to react.

 

 

The medical problems are purely my own.  When I mentined them in reply I did not realize that my response was going here but to the very nice man who is indeed very nice

 

He is also completely correct about condemning the intemperate tone of my first remarks

 

 

[Jody Stecher]

Looks like I misunderstood the word "we". I took it to be in the royal plural sense. You meant "us". Well then, that's —as my aphorism-fracturing  great uncle used to say – " a horse of a different story". 

[Mike Moss]

It's always fun to ask the "elevation theory" proponents for example of those wonderfully complex arrangements of classical music they claim were played, and watch them stall, spin, crash and burn. I believe Karen Lynn even went so far as to posit the existence of a "classical style" as opposed to a "ragtime style" (!!!). This myth is proving to be even more resilient than the Sweeney myths.

[Tony Thomas MFA Black Banjoist]

Linn uses the term "classical" throughout her book, drawing upon Robert Webb as her source.   She and Webb are quite clear to  indicate that they mean "classical" to refer to a technique based on that they ascribe to classical guitar, and are clear that apart from a small handful, the approach involved playing various forms of popular music.  Both Webb and Linn make clear that the terms guitar banjo and parlor banjo also describe the approach and style.   Webb's source for use of this term is Robert Winan's 1976 article in the JAF: "The Folk, the Stage, and the Five-String Banjo in the Nineteenth Century" which also uses this term in the same manner as Linn and Webb do "the "guitar," or "classical," style of playing, which,as the name implies, is essentially the application of classical guitar techniques to the banjo" (page 428).  In contrast in his 1994 collaboration with Eli Kaufman "Minstrel and Classic Banjo: American and English Connections"  Bob uses "classic"  Throughout.

 

Linn, Webb, and the Winans of 1974 are all clear to say that the term "classical" to refer to their belief that this technique was borrowed from classical guitar.  This designation seems to reflect a familiarity with similar techniques in classical guitar, but a lack of familiarity with the numerous approaches to popular and parlor music guitar in the late 18th century and early 19th century that more closely resemble guitar banjo than the actual classical guitar approach and were no doubt involved in the development of the style.

 

Then again it is quite rare to find any kind of 19th century use of the term "classic banjo" or "classical banjo" for that matter to refer to this technique and approach.  In writing about the banjo, the term guitar banjo is a much more practically useful term to describe the three and four finger banjo style first elucidated in writing by Converse.  This covers all players who attempt this technique, regardless of their choice of music, instruments, or repertoire.

Whatever its derivation,  Classic Banjo seems a useful term to describe the evolution of approaches that might be more properly termed "parlor banjo" where a particular repertoire, and implied setting and choice of instrument is understood.   It appears more useful largely because people in the classic banjo movement prefer it to parlor banjo. 

 

Perhaps it is useful as one can point to late 19th century and early 20th century banjoists who used the guitar banjo method but also used steel strings,  resonated banjos, and eschewed or were denied the polite middle class or upper class settings or pretensions associated with parlor banjo.  For example, it seems wrong to write as I have written for publication, that Gus Cannon played classic banjo given that he preferred a very loud Van Epps recording banjo with steel strings and sometimes used Scruggs-like rolls in his playing.  He probably would not have known what a person was talking about if they asked him if he played classic banjo, might have differed strongly if he were asked if he played parlor banjo, and would have agreed that he played guitar banjo.

 

 

 

[Mike Moss]

Labels stem from alterity and the need to set oneself apart from the "other". Back in the day, the name "guitar style" was more likely adopted to set the style apart from the then-common stroke, or banjo style, rather than from any actual similarity with guitar playing technique. Likewise, "finger style" became increasingly common in the 1920 as opposed to plectrum style, and classic banjo emerged from the need to set our style apart from the new folk and country styles such as bluegrass that were coming to the fore. Fortunately, "parlour banjo" is a stillborn term that never took off!