Why Black Banjo:
The Black Banjo List Serve
By Tony Thomas
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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.
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Mississippi John Hurt was a farmin' man,
