Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #522562 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 394 pages

Customer Reviews

A MUST READ
I have only recently began playing the banjo and feel this book has taken me 100% closer to being the well rounded musician I aspire to be. If you are interested in history, music, and the banjo this is where to start!

Retrieving the real Black origin of the Banjo & its Playing
i HAD JUST handed in my MFA thesis to be published. I realized library priviledges I had had for 12 years would be gone in a couple weeks, I went to the music section of the FIU library and bumped into this book. I loved it, it loved me. I read it straight through--didnt go to work the next day. I have been studying and playing traditional American music for 40 years, and this is one of the best books on any level I have ever read. Ater talking about picking up the banjo for 40 years, I bought one right after I read this book and have bought another since.

So much of history and opinion about popular music is just congealed prejudice and wishful thinking. This is science and real life. The banjo is an African instrument, the traditional way of playing it is the African way of playing it. Not to speak of the non traditional post WWII guitar influenced Bluegrass way which simply adds as many blue and blues notes into the music as can be found.

What romanced me in this book is her interviews with African American banjo players from North Carolina and Virgina--some of whom have passed on since the book came out. The Photographs in there are great too.

Cece Also made a movie of these guys that was shown back when the book first came out. While it has been out of circulation for years, she will be showing it at the April 7-10 2005 Black Banjo Then and Now Gathering at Appalachian State College in Boone North Carolina.

You see that scene in the library was 6 years and three banjos ago. The book and the recordings and other development have brought many African American artists back to the banjo and back to the roots players that inspired Cece's book. Earlier this year (2004), I launched Black Banjo Then and Now, a group on Yahoo that carried forward where this book leaves off. We gather together Black banjoists from around the country, many scholars of the banjo including Cece, and folks of many types who honor or are interested in the Black legacy of the instrument. You might want to join us.

But back to this book: Buy it, give it to your friends, make sure every library has this book, make sure this book is taught in the schools, This is it!

The only thing better than this book is its accompanying CD!
Cecelia Conway and Scott Odell should be awarded an enormous fellowship from the MacArthur or Guggenheim folks for additional research. This book merits a readership among anyone who so much as owns a "banjer." The accompanying CD (called "Black Banjo Songsters" and available on the Smithsonian/Folkways label) is a bit academic in its notes and its repetition of songs, but hearing the likes of John Snipes and Dink Roberts go to town is thrilling.