The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Today marks 15 years since I started my banjo journey. Sometime in late 2007, I got the idea that I might  like to play the banjo. Pretty much all the music I was listening to at the time had a five-string, whether it was indie rock, alt country, bluegrass or old-time. Although back then, I didn't know the difference between bluegrass and old-time or that there were so many different ways of playing this plunky instrument. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I wanted to take the leap.  I try not to look back at my life with regrets, as I consider the mistakes I've made as opportunities to learn new lessons. That said, I did have one major regret. When I was in high school, I started to learn to play guitar. However, after a year or so, I gave it up. I can't help thinking how good I would be today if I had just stuck with it.  The idea of playing music has always appealed to me, but I didn't want to make the same mistake I made with the guitar as a teen...

The G.A.R. Hall in Peninsula, Ohio, has been hosting a series of lectures related to the Civil War in recognition of the 150th anniversary of what southerners still call "the war of northern aggression." With "Dixie" being the song of the Confederates during the war and the song's ties to Ohio, it was fitting that last night's lecture should focus on Howard and Judy Sacks' 2003 book Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem,  published by the University of Illinois Press . The Sackses are both affiliated with Kenyon College , in Gambier, Ohio, and residents of Mount Vernon, Ohio, the town where Daniel Decatur Emmett was born and is buried. Emmett was a famous blackface minstrel of the mid-1800s and is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame for such  compositions  as "Turkey in the Straw," "The Boatman's Dance," "Old Dan Tucker" and of course "Dixie." The latter song...

The banjo. What a glorious instrument. The five-string banjo is an American invention. It has roots in a gourd-bodied instrument that slaves brought from Africa and then became mega-popular during the 1800s, when the black-face minstrel shows exploded like Rock and Roll did in the 1950s. After the Civil War, banjos became a hot business item for manufacturers in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago -- heck, even Cleveland had a banjo company headquartered there. From about 1880 until the Great Depression, innovations abounded in banjos from builders like the Dobson brothers, S.S. Stewart, Fairbanks, Bacon, Cole, Buckbee, Lyon & Healy and many more. (For an in-depth history of the banjo, check out America's Instrument by Philip Gura and James Bollman. See  Bill's Banjos and Mugwumps for some photos of these vintage gems.) Banjos made during late 19th and early 20th centuries are highly sought after. Talk to any bluegrass banjo player and you'll lik...