#rowan corbett

[blackrockandrollmusic-blog]

Rhiannon Giddens - She’s Got You

[fuckyeahblackcountrymusic]

So You Think You Know the Banjo?

If you've ever considered banjo music to be an American creation, you don't know the banjo. In fact, if you think of the banjo as an inherently Southern instrument, you don't know the banjo.

If you think that the banjo can teach us nothing about American history, Southern culture and modern race relations, then you certainly don't know the banjo.

And you’ve probably never heard the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

For those of you like me who are not formally trained musicologists, here's a super-quick summation of the first 400 years of banjo history:

1) The handmade gourd instruments that would become the modern banjo originated in West Africa. 2) Enslaved Africans carried the “banjar” and its music to North America by way of the Caribbean. 3) Traditional string music (and the banjo itself) was appropriated from slave culture and was spread into the greater American popular culture through minstrel shows and blackface performances. And 4) the banjo was popularized throughout the United States and Europe by white performers, with various regional playing styles emerging and evolving simultaneously – from the rhythmic role the banjo played in traditional New Orleans jazz to the fingerpicking sound of bluegrass that bloomed in the Appalachian mountains, among many others.

In short, we owe the banjo's modern presence in America to Africans who were brought here against their will. Thus has the banjo become like okra, an undeserved gift to all parts of Southern culture, but one that came only from the people our ancestors enslaved.

If any of this is news to you, welcome to the club. [Read More]

[blackrockandrollmusic-blog]

Carolina Chocolate Drops: African-American string music unearthed from history 

Banjo music first crossed over to whites in mid-1800s, with stars like Bill Sweeney, who performed in minstrel shows. The Drops perform a lot of songs from that era. They’ve also inserted a few contemporary pieces, including one by Tom Waits, as well as a crowd-pleasing re-think on Blu Cantrell’s hip-hop hit, “Hit ’Em Up Style.” “We were playing black high schools to teach them about this history, and when you come there with banjos and fiddles the kids think, ‘What the hell is this?’” Giddens says. “We wanted to find a song they could relate to.”