Documentary

(0:00) The banjo’s been an emblem of American culture, it’s been uh…

(0:05) Sonny Osborne: Probably right to call out probably the man that has made uh all of us guys up here play the banjo or either has been a great influence as he has in my complete life and my whole banjo playing ability is- I could probably credit to this one man. Let’s all give a tremendous welcome for the probably the best in the world, Earl Scruggs!

(0:26) [Audience applause]

(0:30) [A banjo minstrel tune called “Jim Along Josie” begins playing before fading out]

(0:38) [Upbeat banjo music begins playing in the background] Noah: The banjo: A quintessentially American instrument, known for its association with white music genres like country and bluegrass.

(0:47) Hannah: From Earl Scruggs to Pete Seeger to Steve Martin to even Taylor Swift herself, the banjo has made its place as an icon in Southern white culture.

(0:55) [Music fades] Noah: But actually, the banjo’s roots don’t come from white people at all.

(1:05) Hannah: The banjo is directly descended from West African lutes such as the ekonting, ngoni, and kora. The African lute tended to be unfretted with round necks, much unlike the flat necked, fretted banjos that are popular today. There is no one African lute that can be credited as being the sole antecedent to the banjo, though the ekonting is notable for its structural similarities to the early gourd banjos. These lutes were popular among Jeli storytellers and musicians, commonly known as Griots, who excelled at preserving rich history and cultural traditions through their performances.

(1:36) [A video of a group of three Jeli musicians performing a song and dance plays]

(2:02) [The video and audio fades out]

(2:04) Hannah: The Transatlantic Slave Trade began in the 15th century, disrupting and displacing the lives of millions upon millions of Africans, who were torn from their homes and thrown into the horrific conditions of slavery in the Americas.

(2:15) [“Koromanti #1,” a calming, yet mournful banjo song originally composed by enslaved Africans in Jamaica, begins playing quietly in the background] Noah: Many of these Africans were placed at Caribbean sugarcane plantations, wherein they were able to foster what Jake Blount describes as a “counter plantation system” that helped them form a new kind of shared culture by blending their African roots with their new surroundings in the Americas.

(2:29) Hannah: Within this counter plantation system, enslaved Africans from countless different cultures were able to merge their individual traditions into a new shared instrument: The banjo. The body of this new instrument was typically constructed from gourds or calabashes, with an animal hide head and at least two gut strings.

(2:45) Noah: Enslaved Africans would often improvise songs using the banjo, connecting them back to longstanding African musical traditions such as those of the Jeli storytellers. The banjo helped to foster a shared sense of community amongst enslaved people despite the horrific conditions they were forced to endure.

(3:01) Hannah: After their days of grueling labor, they would often gather together and sing and dance to the banjo, both mourning the loss of their cultures and lives but also celebrating the new one they were able to create in the face of slavery.

(3:14) [“Koromanti #1” begins to fade out]

(3:17) Noah: The first instances of the banjo having been spread to the United States date back to the 1730s, where the design soon evolved to be mass produced with new synthetic materials as well as wood and steel. During this transfer of technology, a fifth string and frets were added to the instrument.

(3:33) [“Dooley,” an incredibly upbeat banjo hillbilly song, by the Darlings from the Andy Griffith Show plays in the background] Hannah: The banjo was spread to more and more communities, particularly white communities who then adopted it into their own music. However, despite its invention being owed to Africans and enslaved African Americans, the banjo was quickly appropriated by these white Americans who used the instrument to portray racist stereotypes against Black people in minstrel shows.

(3:50) [“Dooley” cuts off]

(3:50) [A film portrayal of the real minstrel group “Christy’s Minstrels” performing the song “Ring, Ring de Banjo” plays. The song makes a racist mockery of African American dialects and tells the story of a freed slave who wants to return to his master.]

(4:21) [The movie clip fades out] Noah: Minstrel performers such as Thomas Rice, most well known for his performances as Jim Crow, used blackface and highly exaggerated racial stereotypes to portray Black people as a whole as overly foolish and naive, always singing and dancing with their banjos. Instead of maintaining their strong roots in African and African American communities, banjos became far more strongly associated with these incredibly racist depictions.

(4:44) Hannah: As American minstrelsy became widely popular, both the shows and the banjo itself were spread to England, which was highly unusual for the time, since most music-related knowledge tended to be spread from England to the United States instead of the other way around. In England, new forms of the instrument and new playing styles emerged, although these changes were never adopted by Americans, who remained the primary influences over it.

(5:09) Noah: In the mid-twentieth century, there was great change in the public image of the banjo, marked by a significant shift in American mass media. The banjo’s previous associations with Blackness faded as guitars took center stage. In contrast, the banjo became synonymous with poverty, lawlessness, and uneducated white male rebellion in the South and Southwest.

(5:30) Hannah: Films such as the Nixon-era psychological thriller, Deliverance (1972), set in Appalachia, or Cool Hand Luke (1967), set in a Florida prison camp, demonstrate the stereotype of lawless “hillbillies” that were associated with the banjo, rather than Black artists. Today, this stereotype still influences us, with Southern white artists still strongly associated with the banjo. However, recently female country artists such as Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift have gained recognition for playing the banjo. Public perception has gradually shifted, beginning to romanticize banjos and their role in bluegrass and country music, viewing them as almost charming aspects of rural life. 

(6:03) [A clip of Dolly Parton performing her story and song called “AppleJack” on the banjo. The story told through the song is of Parton’s old friend who played the banjo]

(7:00) [“Darling Cora” by Amythyst Kiah plays in the background. It is a banjo song with a darker, more intense and adventurous feel] Noah: Black people have continued to play the banjo despite shifting public perceptions of the instrument. Players employ it skillfully in diverse genres that include old-time string band music, jug band music, ragtime, blues, and mento. There is an ongoing movement known as the “Black Banjo Renaissance”, which strives to reconstruct views on the banjo. Artists and researchers are working to preserve the history of the American Banjo, reintegrating its value in the counter-plantation system as a freedom technology.

(7:26) [The background music switches to Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson’s performance of “John Henry,” a far more upbeat banjo and fiddle duet] Noah: Through music from the archives, artists create community and work for political advocacy.