The 2023 Banjo Gathering in Bristol on the Tennessee/ Virginia border was held at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and the Sessions Hotel from Thursday, November 2 through Sunday, November 5.
The Gathering consists of three full days of presentations, exhibitions, and a banjo marketplace for studying, buying, selling, and trading historical and vintage banjos, parts, and related items. We also have banjos from some of the world’s finest instrument makers available to view and buy/trade.
Since 1998, the Banjo Gathering has been the platform for banjo collectors, researchers, instrument builders, and musicians to share new scholarship and findings about the banjo as a historical, cultural, and built object.
The Gathering consists of three full days of presentations, exhibitions, and a banjo marketplace for studying, buying, selling, and trading historical and vintage banjos, parts, and related items. We also have banjos from some of the world’s finest instrument makers available to view and buy/trade.
Since 1998, the Banjo Gathering has been the platform for banjo collectors, researchers, instrument builders, and musicians to share new scholarship and findings about the banjo as a historical, cultural, and built object.
Presentations & Panels
Thursday, November 2nd, 2023
10:00 AM-1:30 PM -- SET UP @ The Sessions Hotel
PRESENTATIONS at BIRTHPLACE OF COUNTRY MUSIC MUSEUM
1:45 PM-2:15 PM -- Maryland Banjo Styles: Ola Belle Reed and More ^- by Lydia Martin & Heather Pankl - Lydia Martin and Heather Pankl discuss Maryland banjo players, especially Ola Belle Reed and other female banjo players. History, technique and tunes will be briefly covered in this workshop. Lydia and Heather are currently completing a Maryland State Arts Council Folklife Apprenticeship to study the banjo styles of Maryland and surrounding areas.
2:20 PM-3:35 PM -- Curators' Talk and Women in Old Time Exhibit^ - The curators of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum discuss the creation of the exhibit "I've Endured."
3:35 PM-4:15 PM -- BREAK*
4:15 PM-5:00 PM -- Making Music: The Banjo in a Southern Appalachian County^ - by Bill Allsbrook - Making Music: The Banjo in a Southern Appalachian County takes a close look at the instrument and banjo players in Haywood County, North Carolina. Author William C. Allsbrook Jr., MD, presents the oral histories of thirty-two banjo players, all but two of whom were born in Haywood County. These talented musicians recount, in their own words, their earliest memories of music, and of the banjo, as well as the appeal of the banjo. They also discuss learning to play the instrument.
5:05 PM-5:50 PM - Early and Late Banjo Player Bertie Caudill Dickens Made Music with Fiddler Tommy Jarrell^ - Cece Conway - An exploration of Galax-area banjo player Bertie Caudill and her interactions with Tommy Jarrell.
6:00PM - 7:30PM - DINNER on Your Own
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
7:30PM-8:15PM - Motorcycles, Minotaurs, & Banjos^ - Steven Sherrill - "In September of 2021, on my 60th birthday, I left my central Pennsylvania home on a modest motorcycle, carrying a small banjo, and in the company of a massive myth. We rode down the spine of Appalachia to visit the graves of six banjo heroes and one murder victim. The trip became a story about 21 days and 60 years. A story about music and about making work."
8:15PM-10:00PM - SOCIAL*
10:00 AM-1:30 PM -- SET UP @ The Sessions Hotel
PRESENTATIONS at BIRTHPLACE OF COUNTRY MUSIC MUSEUM
1:45 PM-2:15 PM -- Maryland Banjo Styles: Ola Belle Reed and More ^- by Lydia Martin & Heather Pankl - Lydia Martin and Heather Pankl discuss Maryland banjo players, especially Ola Belle Reed and other female banjo players. History, technique and tunes will be briefly covered in this workshop. Lydia and Heather are currently completing a Maryland State Arts Council Folklife Apprenticeship to study the banjo styles of Maryland and surrounding areas.
2:20 PM-3:35 PM -- Curators' Talk and Women in Old Time Exhibit^ - The curators of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum discuss the creation of the exhibit "I've Endured."
3:35 PM-4:15 PM -- BREAK*
4:15 PM-5:00 PM -- Making Music: The Banjo in a Southern Appalachian County^ - by Bill Allsbrook - Making Music: The Banjo in a Southern Appalachian County takes a close look at the instrument and banjo players in Haywood County, North Carolina. Author William C. Allsbrook Jr., MD, presents the oral histories of thirty-two banjo players, all but two of whom were born in Haywood County. These talented musicians recount, in their own words, their earliest memories of music, and of the banjo, as well as the appeal of the banjo. They also discuss learning to play the instrument.
5:05 PM-5:50 PM - Early and Late Banjo Player Bertie Caudill Dickens Made Music with Fiddler Tommy Jarrell^ - Cece Conway - An exploration of Galax-area banjo player Bertie Caudill and her interactions with Tommy Jarrell.
6:00PM - 7:30PM - DINNER on Your Own
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
7:30PM-8:15PM - Motorcycles, Minotaurs, & Banjos^ - Steven Sherrill - "In September of 2021, on my 60th birthday, I left my central Pennsylvania home on a modest motorcycle, carrying a small banjo, and in the company of a massive myth. We rode down the spine of Appalachia to visit the graves of six banjo heroes and one murder victim. The trip became a story about 21 days and 60 years. A story about music and about making work."
8:15PM-10:00PM - SOCIAL*
Friday, November 3rd, 2023
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
10:00AM-10:45AM -- Bay State Banjos^-Jim Bollman - Jim lets us dive into photos from his collection of banjos and ephemera from Massachusetts and the high Victorian era of banjo building.
10:50AM-11:35AM -- Pickin’ in Petticoats: Women and “The Improvement of the Banjo^ - Michael Wright - Women’s active involvement in “The Improvement of the Banjo” (c. 1870-1900) marked the first time in modern history that women (other than chanteuses such as Jenny Lind) were able to come out of the parlor to perform popular musical instruments (banjos, mandolins, guitars) in public. This was facilitated by emerging political movements, such as Abolition and Women’s Suffrage, and cultural developments, such as leisure time, improved communications, and consumerism enjoyed by the new Middle Classes. This helped pave the way for wider female participation in all the forms of popular music entertainment to follow.
11:35AM - 2:oo PM -- DISPLAY TIME/ LUNCH on your own*
PRESENTATIONS at EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY
2:00 PM-3:30 PM -- An Exploration of the Reece Museum's Banjo Collection at East Tennessee State University
3:30 PM-4:15 PM - Banjoists in the Jack Guy Collection^ - Burgin Matthews - Earlier this year, the nonprofit Southern Music Research Center, in partnership with the North Carolina Folklife Association, made available in its online archive the remarkable Jack Guy Collection: a repository of 250+ audio recordings, more than 100 photographs, and over an hour of film footage documenting the historic music community of Beech Mountain, NC. Southern Music Research Center director Burgin Mathews will offer a brief overview of the new archive before delving specifically into the banjo-related material in the Guy collection. Through these audio-visual artifacts, Beech Mountain banjo makers and players – including local icons Tab Ward and Rosa Hicks – are presented in a variety of cultural contexts, illuminating the intersections of mountain heritage, homegrown entrepreneurship, popular culture, the folk revival, and the meaning of “tradition” itself in the heart of a single, celebrated mountain community.
4:20PM - 5:05PM - The Legacy of Banjoist Will Keys^ - ETSU Professor and musician Roy Andrade will moderate a conversation with Jerry Keys and Richard Hood, nephews of the great Will Keys. The session highlights Keys, and Jerry and Richards’s own paths with the banjo. Jerry is a first-rate bluegrass player, and Richard is an east-Tennessee 2-finger player similar to Will Keys.
5:10PM - 7:30PM - DINNER on ETSU Campus (Coupon for all registered attendees) or on your own
7:30PM-9:00PM - BANJO CONCERT AT ETSU** - With Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Bill Evans, Grace Van't Hoft & Friends, Tom Mylet, Lydia Martin & Heather Pankl, and ETSU students!
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
10:00AM-10:45AM -- Bay State Banjos^-Jim Bollman - Jim lets us dive into photos from his collection of banjos and ephemera from Massachusetts and the high Victorian era of banjo building.
10:50AM-11:35AM -- Pickin’ in Petticoats: Women and “The Improvement of the Banjo^ - Michael Wright - Women’s active involvement in “The Improvement of the Banjo” (c. 1870-1900) marked the first time in modern history that women (other than chanteuses such as Jenny Lind) were able to come out of the parlor to perform popular musical instruments (banjos, mandolins, guitars) in public. This was facilitated by emerging political movements, such as Abolition and Women’s Suffrage, and cultural developments, such as leisure time, improved communications, and consumerism enjoyed by the new Middle Classes. This helped pave the way for wider female participation in all the forms of popular music entertainment to follow.
11:35AM - 2:oo PM -- DISPLAY TIME/ LUNCH on your own*
PRESENTATIONS at EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY
2:00 PM-3:30 PM -- An Exploration of the Reece Museum's Banjo Collection at East Tennessee State University
3:30 PM-4:15 PM - Banjoists in the Jack Guy Collection^ - Burgin Matthews - Earlier this year, the nonprofit Southern Music Research Center, in partnership with the North Carolina Folklife Association, made available in its online archive the remarkable Jack Guy Collection: a repository of 250+ audio recordings, more than 100 photographs, and over an hour of film footage documenting the historic music community of Beech Mountain, NC. Southern Music Research Center director Burgin Mathews will offer a brief overview of the new archive before delving specifically into the banjo-related material in the Guy collection. Through these audio-visual artifacts, Beech Mountain banjo makers and players – including local icons Tab Ward and Rosa Hicks – are presented in a variety of cultural contexts, illuminating the intersections of mountain heritage, homegrown entrepreneurship, popular culture, the folk revival, and the meaning of “tradition” itself in the heart of a single, celebrated mountain community.
4:20PM - 5:05PM - The Legacy of Banjoist Will Keys^ - ETSU Professor and musician Roy Andrade will moderate a conversation with Jerry Keys and Richard Hood, nephews of the great Will Keys. The session highlights Keys, and Jerry and Richards’s own paths with the banjo. Jerry is a first-rate bluegrass player, and Richard is an east-Tennessee 2-finger player similar to Will Keys.
5:10PM - 7:30PM - DINNER on ETSU Campus (Coupon for all registered attendees) or on your own
7:30PM-9:00PM - BANJO CONCERT AT ETSU** - With Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Bill Evans, Grace Van't Hoft & Friends, Tom Mylet, Lydia Martin & Heather Pankl, and ETSU students!
Saturday, November 4th, 2023
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
10:00AM-10:45AM -- The Real Round Peak: Deconstructing the Clawhammer Styles of Some Well-Known Roots Banjoists from the Mount Airy Region of North Carolina^-Ken Perlman - The clawhammer style now known as Round Peak – as practiced by such players as Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, and Tommy Jarrell – crystalized in and around Mt. Airy, NC in the middle third of the 20th century and was incorporated into the national folk music scene via contacts between these players and enthusiastic music-revivalists at Union Grove and other Southern contests. By the late 1970s, the Round Peak style had largely pushed aside an earlier stream of traditional downpicking drawn from such Kentucky- and Virginia-based artists as Tom Ashley, Rufus Crisp, Hobart Smith, and Wade Ward. Through note-for-note transcriptions and my own live demonstrations, I’ll analyze the playing styles of some of the best known Round Peak roots players and show what elements they had in common and how their styles differed both from each other and from practitioners of the “earlier” clawhammer stream.
10:50AM-11:35AM -- Martin Žák: Sustainability, the Banjo, and Old-Time Music in the Czech Republic^ - Lee Bidgood - Martin Žák's work to teach Czechs about old-time American string band music, particularly about the banjo, translates foreign culture into Czech contexts. Martin's unlikely career as a banjo-playing advocate, educator, and salesman reveals his passion, persistence, and ingenuity as a social/cultural entrepreneur—and indicates the nature of the Czech Americanist community in which his work resonates. What does it mean to play (and teach, and sell) the banjo in the Czech Republic, and can does Martin's approach to these tasks teach us?
11:35AM - 2:15 PM -- DISPLAY TIME/ LUNCH on your own*
PRESENTATIONS at BIRTHPLACE OF COUNTRY MUSIC MUSEUM
2:15 PM-2:45 PM -- Black Banjoists in the Library of Congress^ - Joe Johnson - In 2023, Joe Johnson created "African-American Banjo Music: Resources in the American Folklife Center" for the Library of Congress, which provides information on discovering materials at the LOC about African Americans who play the banjo. He'll discuss the process of putting the guide together, as well as challenges and limitations he faced during the process.
2:50 PM-3:35 PM - Developing an African-Centric Musical Analytical Approach To Understanding Banjo History^ - Bill Evans - How can we best use the tools of musical analysis to deepen our understanding and appreciation of banjo history? Based on the work of musicologist/composer Olly Wilson, we will look at a set of musical parameters that include not just the notes that we hear but also the tonal, ensemble and cultural/functional characteristics that can help us to more deeply understand – and hear more clearly - the continuing West African influences on American banjo music as traced through 19th century minstrelsy, classic banjo and 20th century banjo styles, including bluegrass.
3:35PM - 4:15PM - BREAK / DISPLAY TIME
4:15PM - 5:00PM - Small But Might It Be?^ - Kristina Gaddy and Pete Ross - In 2023, we learned of a gourd instrument in at the collection of the Ethnological Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Collected by a Swedish government official while in the Caribbean in 1797, the instrument appears to be a very detailed model of a banjo. While it shares some characteristics with the four extant early gourd banjos, it also has some interesting differences. In this presentation, Kristina Gaddy and Pete Ross will share photos of the instrument, an analysis of its construction, and the provenance of the instrument. Part of this discussion will include a consideration of what makes and early banjo a banjo.
5:05PM - 5:50PM - Following the Sounds of Dr. Joan Dickerson: Classic Banjo, Biography, and Racial Politics in America - Maya Brown-Boateng - With over 35 years of experience within the banjo community, Dr. Joan Dickerson, expresses a passion for the instrument and its history through her commitment to education, musicianship, and participation in a variety of banjo styles. As a Black woman, she navigates the intersections of gender and race through her encounters with the joys and discomfort, praise and dismissiveness, and the feelings of belonging and objectification within banjo performance spaces. As such, her life offers an incredible record of resilience and musical collaboration that allows us to reimagine the banjo as a material object that mediates personal, social, political, and cultural relationships. Drawing from our personal conversations, her private archives, and our classic banjo lessons, this paper offers a biographical view of Dickerson’s decades-long contributions to Pittsburgh’s banjo scene, and it extends the discussions about women in banjo across racial and historical politics.
6:00PM- 7:30PM -- DINNER on your own
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
7:30PM-8:15PM - Backstep Cindy: Commercial Recordings of Women Banjo Players & String Band Musicians in the 78rpm Era - Christian Stanfield - From Samantha Bumgarner to Little Laura Dukes to Wilma Lee Cooper, this multimedia presentation will examine the contributions of female banjoists, banjo uke players, and other early string band musicians toward commercially released recordings from the 1920s through the 1950s. Featuring original 78rpm records played on a wind-up Victor III home phonograph, the recordings will be accompanied by images on screen and commentary that will place them in the context of their time and significance, along with biographical sketches of the artists represented.
8:15PM - 10:00PM - SOCIAL*
Sunday, November 5th, 2023
Jam TBD
^Available as part of the Virtual Gathering
*Throughout the day and evening, there will be time between presentations for conversation and jamming, as well as viewing, trading, or purchasing banjos, other instruments, and banjo-related ephemera
**Open to the public but ticket required
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
10:00AM-10:45AM -- The Real Round Peak: Deconstructing the Clawhammer Styles of Some Well-Known Roots Banjoists from the Mount Airy Region of North Carolina^-Ken Perlman - The clawhammer style now known as Round Peak – as practiced by such players as Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, and Tommy Jarrell – crystalized in and around Mt. Airy, NC in the middle third of the 20th century and was incorporated into the national folk music scene via contacts between these players and enthusiastic music-revivalists at Union Grove and other Southern contests. By the late 1970s, the Round Peak style had largely pushed aside an earlier stream of traditional downpicking drawn from such Kentucky- and Virginia-based artists as Tom Ashley, Rufus Crisp, Hobart Smith, and Wade Ward. Through note-for-note transcriptions and my own live demonstrations, I’ll analyze the playing styles of some of the best known Round Peak roots players and show what elements they had in common and how their styles differed both from each other and from practitioners of the “earlier” clawhammer stream.
10:50AM-11:35AM -- Martin Žák: Sustainability, the Banjo, and Old-Time Music in the Czech Republic^ - Lee Bidgood - Martin Žák's work to teach Czechs about old-time American string band music, particularly about the banjo, translates foreign culture into Czech contexts. Martin's unlikely career as a banjo-playing advocate, educator, and salesman reveals his passion, persistence, and ingenuity as a social/cultural entrepreneur—and indicates the nature of the Czech Americanist community in which his work resonates. What does it mean to play (and teach, and sell) the banjo in the Czech Republic, and can does Martin's approach to these tasks teach us?
11:35AM - 2:15 PM -- DISPLAY TIME/ LUNCH on your own*
PRESENTATIONS at BIRTHPLACE OF COUNTRY MUSIC MUSEUM
2:15 PM-2:45 PM -- Black Banjoists in the Library of Congress^ - Joe Johnson - In 2023, Joe Johnson created "African-American Banjo Music: Resources in the American Folklife Center" for the Library of Congress, which provides information on discovering materials at the LOC about African Americans who play the banjo. He'll discuss the process of putting the guide together, as well as challenges and limitations he faced during the process.
2:50 PM-3:35 PM - Developing an African-Centric Musical Analytical Approach To Understanding Banjo History^ - Bill Evans - How can we best use the tools of musical analysis to deepen our understanding and appreciation of banjo history? Based on the work of musicologist/composer Olly Wilson, we will look at a set of musical parameters that include not just the notes that we hear but also the tonal, ensemble and cultural/functional characteristics that can help us to more deeply understand – and hear more clearly - the continuing West African influences on American banjo music as traced through 19th century minstrelsy, classic banjo and 20th century banjo styles, including bluegrass.
3:35PM - 4:15PM - BREAK / DISPLAY TIME
4:15PM - 5:00PM - Small But Might It Be?^ - Kristina Gaddy and Pete Ross - In 2023, we learned of a gourd instrument in at the collection of the Ethnological Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Collected by a Swedish government official while in the Caribbean in 1797, the instrument appears to be a very detailed model of a banjo. While it shares some characteristics with the four extant early gourd banjos, it also has some interesting differences. In this presentation, Kristina Gaddy and Pete Ross will share photos of the instrument, an analysis of its construction, and the provenance of the instrument. Part of this discussion will include a consideration of what makes and early banjo a banjo.
5:05PM - 5:50PM - Following the Sounds of Dr. Joan Dickerson: Classic Banjo, Biography, and Racial Politics in America - Maya Brown-Boateng - With over 35 years of experience within the banjo community, Dr. Joan Dickerson, expresses a passion for the instrument and its history through her commitment to education, musicianship, and participation in a variety of banjo styles. As a Black woman, she navigates the intersections of gender and race through her encounters with the joys and discomfort, praise and dismissiveness, and the feelings of belonging and objectification within banjo performance spaces. As such, her life offers an incredible record of resilience and musical collaboration that allows us to reimagine the banjo as a material object that mediates personal, social, political, and cultural relationships. Drawing from our personal conversations, her private archives, and our classic banjo lessons, this paper offers a biographical view of Dickerson’s decades-long contributions to Pittsburgh’s banjo scene, and it extends the discussions about women in banjo across racial and historical politics.
6:00PM- 7:30PM -- DINNER on your own
PRESENTATIONS at SESSIONS HOTEL
7:30PM-8:15PM - Backstep Cindy: Commercial Recordings of Women Banjo Players & String Band Musicians in the 78rpm Era - Christian Stanfield - From Samantha Bumgarner to Little Laura Dukes to Wilma Lee Cooper, this multimedia presentation will examine the contributions of female banjoists, banjo uke players, and other early string band musicians toward commercially released recordings from the 1920s through the 1950s. Featuring original 78rpm records played on a wind-up Victor III home phonograph, the recordings will be accompanied by images on screen and commentary that will place them in the context of their time and significance, along with biographical sketches of the artists represented.
8:15PM - 10:00PM - SOCIAL*
Sunday, November 5th, 2023
Jam TBD
^Available as part of the Virtual Gathering
*Throughout the day and evening, there will be time between presentations for conversation and jamming, as well as viewing, trading, or purchasing banjos, other instruments, and banjo-related ephemera
**Open to the public but ticket required
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