[Dixielandjazz] One More Post on Banjo Origins

[Gluetje1 at aol.com]

A recent post on the Black Banjo via Yahoo Groups summarizes an  accurate 
response to the question here a few days ago about drone string  on banjo 
origins.  It is authored by that group's webmaster and  copied in full below.  Two 
other resources for any with  interest: 1. _http://www.jazzbanjo.com/_ 
(http://www.jazzbanjo.com/)      You may have special interest in the Jazz Banjo Artist 
link which identifies  both current and historic jazz banjoists.  You may 
want to contact that  webmaster, John Mumford, if you do not find a name there 
that you think  belongs.
2. There is also a Yahoo Group identified as fourstring banjo (focused on  
the banjos used in Dixieland) for any on this list with an interest in  that.  
And with that I promise to shut up on this list (for the moment)  with respect 
to banjo talk.
Ginny 
 
A Paste of Message by Tony Thomas on Black Banjo
As far  as I know Joel Sweeney never claimed that he invented the 
banjo except in  one brief and comical instance. When Sweeney first 
toured England, he  believed he had the first banjo on the ancient 
isle and made claims that  made audiences think that his banjo was 
the only one in existence and he had  made it without saying such 
words. To this end, Sweeney kept his banjo  locked up in a hidden 
place. Despite this, someone was able to make a  replica of his banjo 
and begin performing with it in days! Of course, people  less famous 
than Sweeney had brought banjos to England before.

The  claim that Sweeney created the banjo was only advanced after his 
death. Its  main proponent of SS Stewart, the great manufacturer and 
propogandist of the  banjo. Stewart wanted to market the banjo to 
the middle class by "elevating"  it. The banjo up to his time had 
been identified with Black folk, working  class rowdies, and 
immigrants, not the proper set. As part of his attempt to  detach 
the banjo from its origins, Stewart invented the fiction that  
Sweeney invented the banjo or essentially rescued it from a rude 
negriod  prehistory and made it what it is. Stewart had a 
considerable propoganda  machine: magazines and newspapers about the 
banjo, books, banjo conferences,  flyers, banjo schools, speeches and 
endorsement by famous banjoists.  

This fiction carried.

Defenders of the Sweeney legend--not of  Sweeney who never popounded 
this ideas--retreat to the idea that Sweeney  invented the five 
string banjo or added the fifth short drone string to the  banjo. 
Neither idea is true. Five string banjos were known before Sweeney.  
Indeed banjos with up to 9 strings were reported before the  
manufacturing standardization of five string banjos began to  
dominate.

Sweeney did popularize the addition of what banjoists  called the 
fourth string making five-string banjos more popular than the  
previous four-string banjos. However, the short drone string is an  
essentially African feature known and standard in most banjos before  
Sweeney's time. Also while apparently less common than four string  
banjos, five string banjos were also known before Sweeney's  time.

Poor Joe Sweeney suffers from lies about him propounded after he  was 
dead. Indeed, there may be a day after our deaths when folks will  
believe that Eric Ervins invented the banjo. Sweeney was apparently  
along with Dan Emmett one of the first minstrel banjo players to 
have  actually learned (or stolen depending on how you look at it) 
Black music  from Black people, having learned his music from 
enslaved African Americans  in the Virgina area where he grew up. His 
banjo playing and singing were  reputed to be the most Black of any 
of the white minstrel performers of his  epoch.

The research and revival into minstrel banjo by Joe Ayres whom you  
are no doubt acquainted with played a crucial role in the 
rediscovery of  the African American origin of the banjo and American 
banjo styles, despite  the unfortunate polemical axe some have 
developed in regard to minstrel  banjo because of the debate over the 
origin of Appalachian banjo (was it  from minstrels or Black players).

If you look into our archives, you will  find a lot of discussion 
about minstrel banjo playing, issues of minstrelsy  and racism, and 
other early banjo material.

I would be most  interested in your own view about Sweeney's role and 
what you can add or  criticize about words above about Sweeney.

I should have said that  besides our archives you can look in our 
links and files sections to find  more material on minstrelsy and 
minstrel banjo.

Of course, with the  aid of advances in medical technology some of us 
may live long enough to  read the words of the study of Joel Sweeney 
that Bob Carlin is reputedly  writing. At 59, I have resigned myself 
to the fact that I may die before  that tome sees the light of day. 
Should that happen, can someone read a few  lines of it over my grave.
Of I forgot, I am a Neptune society dude. I am  being cast into the 
sea, and that only because my actual preference, throw  what cannot 
be donated into the dumpster, is not favored by Florida  law.

Tony Thomas