Curious Conversations, a Research Podcast

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Travis

What do you think of when you hear banjo music? If you are of a certain age, you may be thinking of particular Burt Reynolds movie, but regardless your age, most likely you're thinking of something related to country music and possibly even the Appalachian region of the United States. But what is the actual history of this instrument? Where did it come from and how did it evolve to hold this type of cultural relevance?

Virginia Tech's Patrick Simmons has been studying this very topic, and he was kind enough to join me for a curious conversation about all these questions and more. Patrick is the graduate program's coordinator and a communication specialist with the Department of Political Science, as well as an instructor of Appalachian studies. His research focuses on the intersection of music history and race and class relations. And in 2021, he wrote a dissertation titled, Hip Hop Bluegrass Banjos in Solidarity, Race and Class Histories in Appalachia. USA. So Patrick shared with me how he sees the banjo as a historic artifact that intertwines race and class with the overall history of the United States. He explained how the banjo came to America and how its reputation and use evolved during the 19th 20th centuries and how that was influenced a lot by both minstrelsy and the music industry. He also shared insights as to current banjo players, many of which are trying to reclaim the history of this instrument.and all of which, in my opinion, at least are worth a listen. I'm Travis Williams and this is Virginia Tech's Curious Conversations.

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Travis

Well, when I was reading your dissertation, what I really felt like was in there was this idea of looking and using the banjo as almost this way to explore racism in America, specifically in Appalachia. Is that accurate to what your dissertation was? I kind of get it?

Patrick

I mean, yeah, I think that's a good synopsis of the thought process and the ways in which the banjo operates as kind of this artifact in American history. We can use the banjo to kind of help us understand these systemic racial structures and the US from their origins all the way to current day and the way in which the banjo has kind of this parallel trajectory with race and class in the US as well as within the music industry and race and class in the US. So as the music industry developed, so did race and class structures, because race and class structures ultimately were at the backbone of the music industry. And the music industry followed what these societal racial structures were doing in the first place. So it's really quite telling, things like minstrelsy, for instance, and the role of enslavement.

And the role that the banjo played for both liberation and oppression really tells a story of yes, oppression, yes, racism, yes, violence, but it also tells a story of hope and liberation.

Travis

What is it about the banjo that makes it this an artifact that's capable of doing that?

Patrick

You know, I, that's, that's a question. That's a great question. And I don't think I can precisely answer that with, you know, in 30 minutes or even an hour, you know, Rhianna Giddens talks about a lot of this in terms of we, we need to stop thinking of history as like black and white and, and hit one history as opposed to another one, you know, essentially stealing from another, as opposed to thinking of like this constant flowing and evolution of history. And the banjo is really there. It's kind of the backbone of that evolution in lots of ways. I think going back to the origins of the banjo being from Africa and African instrument brought over on the transatlantic slavery brought on the ships aboard the ships as a way to kind of, you know, as horrible as this sounds and it is horrible transatlantic slavery is just abysmal. It's horrible. It's like one of the worst, worse things that humans have done to one another. But the banjo was brought on board to keep up morale, to keep people alive. And in a way, as horrific as slavery is, the banjo was that mechanism of hope. It was a mechanism of oppression, but it was also a mechanism of hope, a mechanism to release one's sort of...struggles, even for a moment, but also as way to kind of like talk to one another and speak to one another in ways that, you know, probably weren't allowed on the ships or maybe you couldn't communicate with people who, you know, you didn't speak the same language of yet. You spoke music, right? You spoke the banjo. And it's those echoes that kind of echo through the history in Appalachia, but also around the country and around the world. The banjo is worldwide. It's Americana is like one of the biggest genres in the world. Country music is one of the biggest genres in the world and the banjo is right there at the heart. It's that history that's at the heart of all of this, yet it's never spoken about. And I think the original Banjo Griot's the ones that told these stories early on, the African players. And I think Sinners does a decent job of this as well. The picture by Ryan Coogler, right? It does a pretty decent job of this. I think it misses some parts, but it's the telling of those stories and kind of the ways in which it links to all of these different eras in time, but also the ways in which it tells a similar story and it kind of connects people together. And I think that's the beauty of the banjo and kind of what's Rihanna Giddens is saying. Everyone is kind of connected through that history because it's American history. African-American history is American history and we're all kind of connected. It's about talking about it and the banjo gives us that opportunity to talk about it because those echoes are so loud today that, you know, People ignore it, but maybe we shouldn't. That's kind of the point.

Travis

Yeah. Well, you mentioned the banjo coming to America from Africa. I'm curious, was there a, is there a pivotal point in our history where it evolved from being an African instrument to what people may more stereotypically view as like an Appalachian instrument?

Patrick

Yeah. So, this is something I teach in my classes and this is something I'm very cognizant of this whitewashing of history, which again, the banjo is so good at kind of linking all of our histories together and telling these stories so clearly yet no one really listens to it because of tha whitewashing of history. So I would say around, you know, the 1800s or so is when the banjo was starting to become more popular with white people. They were starting to hear it more before. There's this book, Kath Barber Twang, where it's talked about as like this kind of rough music that white people don't really quite like. Thomas Jefferson talks about it that way. Others talk about it. There's something interesting about it, compelling about it, but it's not quite mainstream. People don't really like it, but a lot of people are playing it. A lot of people are still dancing to it, right? And that's also very much linked to hip hop. You think about hip hop when hip hop was first coming around in the 70s you know, mid 70s and kind of those garages and all around like Brooklyn and these communities coming together singing their stories. The same thing was said about hip hop. No, that it's this kind of rough kind of edgy, you know, criminal music, so to speak, right? This criminality almost attached to it or this otherness attached to it, I think is a better word. But in the 70s and 80s, obviously, you the war on drugs kind of coming in and that criminality attached to it. But with the banjo, it's kind of this otherness. And yes, in many ways criminality attached to it as well, particularly with the slave trade. And so I think, yeah, around that time, the 1800s or so, you had more white people starting to kind of like it or talk about it more. And interestingly, I believe in that book, they talk about like women picking it up as well, which is, which is fascinating. I don't know as much about that. That wasn't something I really focused on, but that is a fascinating pivot. But around like the 1830s, you have this guy named Thomas Darmouth Rice, who's considered like the father of minstrelsy, who really kind of took it upon himself to learn the banjo from the griots originally. And he went around and did minstrel shows where he would kind of sing these songs that he learned, but did it more in kind of like a mocking stereotypical way, kind of denoting true black culture. Again, I put that in quotation marks, true black culture.

And then really around the turning point was probably like in the 1830s with Thomas Darmouth Rice, but then comes along Joel Sweeney. And Joel Sweeney from Appomattox, Virginia is considered like the father of the five string banjo because he put that fifth string on there, right? And then with that fifth string, you could kind of tune it lower to be more compatible with the fiddle. And that's where you get that kind of interaction with the banjo and the fiddle. However,

The history is so skewed because there is evidence that black people were playing the fiddle much, much earlier. there was this interaction, this fusion again, going back to that Rihanna Guinness quote, like there is that fusion that was already occurring where black people were playing the fiddle in the 1700s as well. They were going to balls, they were playing fiddles, they were playing banjo. And, you know, there's no like actual history there. There's no one documenting it and writing it down, which makes it so difficult to really say for sure all actually black people were playing right, the fiddle and the banjo well before the minstrels. We can't say that, right? It's just kind of, was common knowledge that black people played the banjo, there was no like written evidence that this was the actual history. And so that makes a lot of this difficult, but you kind of have to piece things together. And so the 1830s, Joel Sweeney considered the father of the banjo. And around that turn, he kind of started doing the Virginia minstrels and minstrels really started taking full effect, you blackface, blacking up as kind of like this mocking stereotypical image of the African American as this kind of buffoon, this dimwitted buffoon in a way. It was more like slavery is kind of promoting slavery in a way. You know, backing slavery isn't the happy-go-lucky slave, as the black person was actually happy being a slave. And that's what a lot of this menstrual music did. It's not to say the menstrual music was bad. It wasn't.

Which is kind of weird to say, but the minstrel music was incredibly popular. The minstrel scene was incredibly popular. It was basically what pop music would be today is what you would hear with the minstrel songs. Things like Jump Jim Crow, for instance, that's Thomas Darmouth Rice. But the history of Jump Jim Crow is another one where you have this interpretation of Jump Jim Crow by Thomas Darmouth Rice, but Jump Jim Crow was written by enslaved peoples as a satire on enslavers and the ways in which they kept pushing the enslaved to go, go, go, go. No matter what I do, I have to jump Jim Crow. I got to jump, jump, jump. You got to go faster and faster and faster. And there it was a satire on like, no matter what I do, I'm always kind of being pushed to the edge and I can't do it anymore. Whereas Thomas Darmouth Rice took this as like the happy go lucky slave narrative. And from there you have Minstrelsy kind of taking off and you have this image of this black, yeah, this dimwitted black buffoon kind of criminal kind of, you know, slave person that became stereotypical understanding of black culture in the US. And that's really where this took off. from the 1830s onward, Minstrelsy kind of ruled the day. And it wasn't just in the South. It was in the North. It went to the, it went overseas. People really love this idea of traditional black culture as told by white people in blackface. And blackface didn't go anywhere. I mean, we still have blackface today. People still do it. It's insane. Jimmy Kimmel did it in 2003 think 2007, right? It like full blackface with like Carl Malone. So yeah, I mean, that's where the history really took off. That's where that distortion took off was this whitewashing of the banjo as this white man's instrument because Joel Sweeney obviously is the one that popularized the five string banjo and kind of made it infamous in many ways.

Travis

So did it shift then from more minstrel type performances to other performances, you know, being played in non-minstrel settings?

Patrick

Yeah, mean, minstrel was basically what you would think of as like early string band music. So this is pre music industry. And you would have banjo playing on steamboats. You'd have banjo playing all over, right? There's a good book by Phil Jameson called Who Downs Reels and Frolics. That's a fantastic book that discusses kind of dance, but it also gets into this understanding of early banjo players, early minstrel players. Sissi and O'Conway is kind of the...biggest voice on this, would say, in terms of like her research on the banjo. And she did a lot of interviews with North Carolina Piedmont banjo players, black banjo players that you wouldn't think of. But all these people were playing the banjo, but no one really cared about it, despite these people being like the predecessors, right? The ongoing kind of traditions of banjo griot, the banjo griot traditions, where it's been passed down from father to son to daughter and so on. Elizabeth Cotton, another one. fantastic, fantastic player. She played left-handed because that's the only way she knew how to play. And she learned it from her father who learned it from his and so on and so forth. So you have these stories told over decades, centuries even, that kind of make their way here. and so with that 1830s, 1860s, 1870s, you more or less minstrelsy, kind of moving into string band where you'd have the banjo and the fiddle played together. And then eventually you'd have like the string band tradition kind of taking off around that time too, particularly around the 1880s where you just have like guitar and other things kind of making their way in there mandolin. So yeah, around the 1880s is where you start to see the shift away from kind of minstrelsy. Minstrelsy starts to fall out of popularity around the 1880s, 90s into the 1900s. It doesn't mean it went anywhere because Virginia Tech had a minstrel truth in the 1890s, I believe.

Travis

When we talk about menstrual trips, are we specifically talking about people doing blackface? That's what that is. I just want to make sure that I understand it correctly.

Patrick

Yeah, for the most part, they're doing blackface and caricatures of black people, usually incredibly racist, stereotypical depictions of black people, either as, again, like I said, as like the dimwitted buffoon, as a criminal, as a rapist, as whatever they decide to do. It's never a good thing. It's always as a way to demean African-American people. And this was also precedent, give precedence to violence against African-American people, whether it be lynching or whether it be other forms of violence like enslavement as well. So, or in legal codes as well, just being able to live your life as a free person was also heavily influenced by minstrelsy early on.

What's fascinating to me because I think growing up in Appalachia, think stereotypically, would not have assumed that the banjo had the type of history that it had and the racial history that it had. think most of the time when I heard of banjos, the first thing I thought of was deliverance. And that was the stereotype that was in my mind. And so I'm curious, when you get like through the 1900s, do we still have African Americans?

Travis

I'm assuming there are still some playing the banjo, but is it still as popular? Did it wane off? Is it picking back up or what's the history there?

Patrick

Yeah, so that history is interesting. And I think the history is picking up, right? People are, African-American banjo players are picking it up more, but around like the 1900s, right, the music industry starts to come to full effect. The music industry is very, very interesting. Because like I said, the music industry is operating under these notions of, you know, colonial rule, imperial rule, right? These ideas of race and class and how things should be according to racial structures, according to class structures that were created by...those in power, those in charge, right? And so the music industry was operating on that standard. And they were recording early on in the 1800s, late 1800s, like 1880s, 1890s, they're recording on like those waxed kind of records, you know what I'm talking about? The early, very, very early recording software, we'll call it software. And they were making records for all over, for like Russian viewers, for...

for listeners and for Indian listeners and so on and so forth. So they were making all this music. So they were trying to get a feel of how to really do a music industry. And they thought they found their niche where they could just kind of divide people according to what they believe they wanted to listen to. So Indian people obviously want to listen to Indian music. As an example, Russian people want to listen to Russian people, Russian music. You know, that was kind of their gist. That was their idea. And again, it's like this imperial kind of thinking, this colonial thinking that like people only want to listen to one specific thing that we curate for them. And in some ways, yes, that's true. Sure. People want to listen to music maybe that people like them make, right? That makes sense. But around the 1920s, where the music industry really starts to kick off, a lot of African Americans have put down the banjo. And they had put down the banjo because of those, that century or so of minstrelsy right? Where you have these demeaning stereotypes, this demeaning image of the African American through the banjo as this kind of dimwitted buffoon, as this criminal almost. mean, even in the what is it? When was Birth of the Nation? Like 1916, 1917, right? The first film ever debuted at the White House. And so you have this history and, know, African, you know, African people, but, you know, African American people see this. And why would you want to be associated with that?

Something around the top here, yes, I think. many put down the banjo because one, it didn't make sense to play it anymore because, you know, there's this long history of oppression and just trauma with the banjo. Even if your grandfather played it, your father played it before you, your uncles and everyone around you played the banjo. It's not worth it at this point. And also because at the same time when the music industry was developing, the people who were allowed to play the banjo and make, you know, record music were white people, not black people.

So you have this segregation immediately enforced around this time that, well, this is hillbilly music and only white people play hillbilly music. But for black people, we want them to play jazz. We them to play like blues and, you know, these other forms of music not associated with ragtime, things like that, right? Not associated with white people, so to speak. That's essentially what happened. You have these two things kind of...happening at the same time where black people see the banjo as a hindrance. And again, the segregation then goes on where you have hillbilly music and race music. And black people are allowed to play race music. White people are allowed to play hillbilly music. White people can cross over. Most of the time they didn't. In fact, some white artists would sue studios if they tried to put them on a race music album because they did not want to be associated with black people. So you have all this going on at the same time. You have these, again, like I talked about at the very beginning, these these structures of race and class that are embedded very early on in the music industry and how the music industry ought to operate according to, you know, how those in power believe things should operate, right? Because you also have eugenics going on at this time too in the US, which is, you know, a history that we also don't really recognize.

Travis

Yeah, well, it's very interesting to the history of the banjo and how it is this artifact that's really bear witness to the history of racism and institutional racism and all these different aspects of American history. I'm curious, what role do you think the banjo could play in any form of reconciliation?

Patrick

Yeah, so I think first and foremost, there's an acknowledgement that has to come about. I think that in order to move on from anything or to kind of reconcile, I suppose is the better word, not move on because, you know, it's hard to really move on for that. But to reconcile is to acknowledge that this past exists, to acknowledge that this history is there, that these things happen. And I think a lot of people don't know that history. A lot of people don't know what happened. And maybe they don't want to, but also it's because these stories aren't told and it's not uncommon. It's not an uncommon thing with an American history that, you know, stories that paint the American dream as something other than, you know, rose colored, rose tinted, right, is usually censored, whether it be in West Virginia. And you think of the Blair Mountain, right? And you think of the Battle of Blair Mountain, you think of the mine wars. A lot of that is kind of unknown, right? And the history of unions and the bloodshed that has gone on in this country is often overlooked and completely ignored. The same thing is within the banjos. If we don't acknowledge that this history, if we continue with this perception that the banjo is this white instrument and that African-Americans had no role to play at all in it, then there's no real chance for reconciliation. There's no real chance for solidarity. My whole goal with this dissertation is and my project and my work is to provide an understanding that this history does happen and it has happened, it's continuing to happen. And by bringing attention to it and telling these stories that we can kind of move towards a better, I guess, a better form of solidarity, a better understanding of like, in fact, the banjo is the unification of all people in one way or another because of this mix that had gone on. Right. Despite all the trouble, all the turmoil, all the horrific racism, the horrific violence that has come from menstrual see that has come from slavery, there is still something beautiful about that camaraderie that also occurred where you have people playing together. You have people speaking together, learning from one another and talking. And you have all that history in between. like there's something about that unity. Right. And it's always that unity that that that gets separated, that gets kind of lost in the history. So it's about bringing that together and talking about, well, your interests are the same as those in which you see as the other, right? It's us versus them. It's always that kind of mentality. Well, in fact, you know, that them, the them that you're pointing to is actually, you know, they have your interest in mind. They actually want the same things that you want. And the banjo is a way to kind of like bring that back and kind of tell these stories again. Really, that history is, I don't have enough time to really speak through it all. But I think that's a good way to kind of think through it is bringing awareness to those histories and those echoes, right? The banjo echoes from early on making their way to modern day music and kind of tracing that and thinking about, you know, your own path, your own struggles, but also the ways in which like, you know, the people that you're supposedly against or that are your enemy are in fact your closest allies in all things.

Travis

Do you have a favorite banjo player?

Patrick

Favorite banjo player? That's, I mean, Bayla Fleck is probably the greatest banjo player at this point. he's, he's phenomenal. I don't know if you know who Bayla Fleck is, but he was here at the mosque. I would say he's up there. who was the guy for the punch brothers, the lead of the punch brother or one of the banjo players in the punch brothers? think it's Thomas Pickney. let me make sure that might be just a, a theorist that I'm thinking of actually.

Travis

Think between Rhianna Gibens and Bale Fleck, you just eliminated all the people I know that are famous banjo players. So other than Steve Martin.

Patrick

Yes, Steve Martin's fun too. Nolan Pickleney. He's a fantastic fan. I think the Punch Brothers is doing some incredible stuff with Bluegrass by kind of bringing it into mainstream a bit more and changing the sound. Also, John Hartford, he's probably one of my favorites just because he's kind of the father of Newgrass.

And a really, really fantastic player. died in 2000, I believe, of like lymphoma, which is really sad because he's one of the greats. I mean, you have the early players too. have Odo Thompson and Joe Thompson and his cousin. They were fantastic. You have people from my hometown, like Fuzz Harrison. You have, you know, is it Dink? It's named Dink Roberts, I think is his name. Let me make sure, because I want to give him props.

Yeah, Dink Roberts, probably the preeminent banjo player, the black banjo player, black banjo traditions, Dink Roberts. There's several albums out there now about, I think it's Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina, the Piedmont. And so that's a great album to check out. can kind of, you get to hear all of them, all the great like early banjo players that were never picked out by the music industry.

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Travis

And thanks to Patrick for helping us better understand the history of the banjo. If you or someone you know would make for a great curious conversation, email me at traviskw at vt.edu. I'm Travis Williams and this has been for Shania Tech's Curious Conversations.

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