The Blog

This is a forum for previous years presentation, on-going banjo research projects, upcoming events, and news.
  The Banjo Gathering
  • Home
  • About
    • 2022 Gathering
    • 2021 Gathering
    • 2020 Gathering
    • 2019 Gathering
    • 2018 Gathering
    • 2017 Gathering
    • 2016 Gathering
    • 1998-2015 Gatherings
  • Blog
  • Contact

Banjo Newsletter Features the Banjo Gathering

2/15/2019

0 Comments

 
​The rest of the world dropped away from our consciousness, replaced totally by banjos, banjo music, banjo players, banjo builders and how banjos became “America’s Instrument.”
Picture
Read more from first-time attendee Louis Linden and his thoughts on the Banjo Gathering, featured in a recent issue of Banjo Newsletter. 
0 Comments

20th Anniversary Banjo Gathering Concert

12/17/2018

0 Comments

 

     For those who missed the 20th Anniversary Banjo Gathering in Bristol, Virginia/ Tennessee, we are happy to share the concert courtesy of Radio Bristol here on our blog. Enjoy! 

Part 1
Part 2
0 Comments

A Digital Banjo Museum

11/5/2018

6 Comments

 

Support The Banjo Project on Kickstarter and be part of the first digital banjo museum!

 From the project website: "Since 2002, The Banjo Project has produced and collected over 300 hours of original video, with interviews and performances by banjoists in all styles: Pete Seeger, Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Rhiannon Giddens, Mike Seeger, Taj Mahal, Sonny Osborne, Cynthia Sayers, Don Vappie and many others, as well as expert commentary from banjo builders, historians and researchers. Meanwhile, over the past decade, there has been a quiet explosion of cultural history research, critical reappraisal, and musical reinvention, including producer Marc Fields’ PBS documentary Give Me the Banjo (narrated by Steve Martin, national broadcast 2011)."
"Marc knew from the start that the banjo’s long and contested history could not be fully represented in a standalone TV documentary. The challenge: how to leverage the new media technologies, our archive of original media and the wealth of recent scholarship to provide cultural context for the instrument, its diverse music and players, and make it accessible to the widest possible audience? We spent the past seven years developing other media platforms, finally arriving at an innovative online media platform we’re calling a digital museum."

Read more about The Banjo Project and support the museum today!

6 Comments

Brooks Masten on Get Up in the Cool

2/13/2018

2 Comments

 
In 2016, Brooks Masten presented about his history as a banjo builder and his influences and personal style. If you missed it, he was recently interviewed on the Get Up in the Cool Old Time Music podcast and tells his story with some great tunes tucked in between. 
Picture

Click here to listen to the full interview on the Get Up in the Cool podcast.

Check out Brooks's website for more info on his banjos.

2 Comments

The Banjo in Baltimore (and Beyond)

2/8/2018

0 Comments

 

Long time attendee and banjo maker Pete Ross was interviewed with Kristina Gaddy on the Hey Baltimore podcast about the early history of the banjo and the instrument's connections to Baltimore, Maryland.

The knowledge and research that are behind this podcast are a result of the last 20 years of the Banjo Gathering. Much of the research into the West African connections to the banjo have been done by participants Ulf Jagfors, Schlomo Pestcoe, and Bob Carlin. Pete Ross, Bob Winans, and Greg Adams did an extensive presentation about banjo maker William E. Boucher, which transformed into an exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. And in recent years, Pete and Kristina have presented on Baltimore banjo maker Levi Brown and early American banjos. 
0 Comments

​Celebration of Alan Jabbour's Life & Music

12/12/2017

3 Comments

 
​The life and music of renowned Appalachian-style fiddler & folklorist Alan Jabbour (1942-2017) will be celebrated at the Library Congress on Thursday, January 18, 2018 from 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM. 

The event features a reception (with food and drink), brief presentations on Alan’s accomplishments and legacy by Carl Fleishhauer, Stephen Wade, and Ken Perlman, and a jam session (led by Ken) devoted to the well-known old-time tunes that Alan collected from Henry Reed and other Appalachian fiddlers.
FREE ADMISSION; OPEN TO ALL
Thursday, 18 January 2018
6:00 PM – 9:30 PM

Mumford Room
6th Floor
Madison Building
Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington DC
Picture
Alan Jabbour and Ken Perlman
3 Comments

The Strychnine Banjo: Jake Wallace & Lotta Crabtree

12/6/2017

3 Comments

 

At the 2017 Banjo Gathering, CW Bayer presented the wild history of banjos out west. His book The Strychnine Banjo, follows the accounts of Charlet Roades and Jake Wallace's exploits from the 1850s to about 1910.  Below is an except, describing Jake Wallace playing banjo to accompany Lotta Crabtree in Virginia City in 1863.

​During 1862 and early 1863, Jake Wallace played with some of the major San Francisco minstrels stars at McGuire’s Opera House and the Eureka Music Hall. During the summer of 1863, in Virginia City at the Virginia Melodeon on C Street, he accompanied Lotta Crabtree as she sang a Mart Taylor lyric, “Bound for the Land of Washoe:"  

Bound For The Land Of Washoe (Words: probably Mart Taylor, 1863)

Exciting times all around the town,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
Stocks are up and stocks are down.
Glory to old Washoe.

Washoe! Washoe!
Bound for the land of Washoe,
And I owned three feet in the “Old Dead Beat,”
And I’m bound for the land of Washoe.

​There is the big Gould and Curry, and the Great Wide West,

Glory, Glory to Washoe.
O! I think they are the largest and the best.
Glory to old Washoe.

There is the Yellow Jacket tunnel, and my Mary Ann,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
Oh, Johnny, how is your dog, or any other man,
Glory to old Washoe.
Oh, see the crowd on Montgomery Street,
Glory, Glory to Washoe.
Everybody is talking feet,
Glory to old Washoe. ​​
     Founded in 1859 and the site of a huge gold and silver lode, Virginia City teemed with young men and was a wild place. One night a local fireman, Louis La Page, shot out the footlights as the performers ran out the back of the stage. Then, one of the stagehands stole all their instruments:

Read More
3 Comments

Bob Carlin's New Book

7/21/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
Bob Carlin and Hank Sapoznik at the 2014 Collector's Gathering in New Jersey.

Jason Verlinde writes that everyone needs Bob Carlin's new book Banjo: An Illustrated History. You may have heard Bob talk about this project at previous Gatherings, and now you can hear a podcast interview with Bob from Fretboard Journal. 

2 Comments

A Musical Passage with Hans Sloane

7/15/2016

4 Comments

 
Picture

Join Hans Sloane in tour of early music in the Americas through the Musical Passage website. 

In 1707, Sloane wrote  Voyage to the Islands of Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica, and explored what this new world of the Caribbean Islands had to offer. He also described (and transcribed) the music he encountered, both what he heard and the instruments he saw, including the "Strum Strum"  banjo. Three amazing scholars - Laurent Dubous, David Garner, and Mary Caton Lingold - have brought the text to life with annotations, clips of music, and an exploration of early African diasporic music. The site, sponsored by the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University, has so much to offer.
Explore away, banjo lovers! 
4 Comments

Tony Thomas on Key Banjo History Concepts 

6/14/2016

1 Comment

 
Tony Thomas, scholar and banjo player, presents "Key ideas of banjo history" at the Eighteenth Annual Banjo Gathering (formerly known as the Banjo Collectors Gathering) at the Baltimore Waterfront Marriott on October 30, 2015.
1 Comment
<<Previous

    About

    This is a forum for previous years' and on-going banjo research projects. If you are interested in submitting something for the blog, please use the "Contact" page!

    Archives

    May 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    July 2017
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016

    Categories

    All
    17th Century
    1850s
    1860s
    1870s
    1880s
    18th Annual Gathering
    18th Century
    19th Century
    20th Annual Banjo Gathering
    20th Century
    A.C. Fairbanks
    Adam Hurt
    Alan Jabbour
    American Banjo Museum
    Appalachia
    Baltimore
    Banjo
    Banjo Book
    Banjo Builder
    Banjo Gathering
    Banjo History
    Banjo Newsletter
    Banjo Presentation
    Birthplace Of Country Music Museum
    Bob Carlin
    Bob Winans
    Brooks Masten
    Carribbean
    Cathy Fink
    CW Bayer
    Duke University
    Early Banjo
    Electric Style
    Fairbanks
    Fairbanks & Cole
    Gathering Presentation
    Give Me The Banjo
    Hank Schwartz
    Hans Sloane
    Jake Wallace
    Jim Bollman
    Kristina Gaddy
    Levi Brown
    Lotta Crabtree
    Marcy Marxer
    Minstrel Banjo
    Minstrel Era Banjo
    Minstrel-Era Banjo
    Musical Passage
    Nevada
    Old-time
    Pete Ross
    Peter Szego
    Strum Strum
    The Banjo Project
    Tony Thomas
    Western Banjo
    Whyte Laydie

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
    • 2022 Gathering
    • 2021 Gathering
    • 2020 Gathering
    • 2019 Gathering
    • 2018 Gathering
    • 2017 Gathering
    • 2016 Gathering
    • 1998-2015 Gatherings
  • Blog
  • Contact