Banjar Banjo
Though the machine gun ring of the Banjo is the signature sound of Mountain Music, it could not have more paculiur origins.
Musicologists trace its roots to ancient Africa and instruments using a gourd for the body and a neck with a string attached. The name Banjo may be derivative of Mbanza, from the Kimbunto language. Thomas Jefferson wrote of a slave instrument called the Banjar.
In a four-string configuration, it was a staple of music throughout and after the Civil War. But as such, it was sowing the seeds of its own demise.
During reconstruction, minstrel show stereotypes were soundly rejected by the emerging black middle class. The Banjo all but disappeared and the Guitar took its place.
But another strain of American music adopted the Banjo, now with five strings. Called at turns “Hillbilly” and “Old-Timey,” it was the music of the high and lonesome eastern mountains. And when the legendary Earl Scruggs found a unique rapid-fire way to pick the strings, it recreated the style that came to be called “Bluegrass.”
