Banjo
“The thing about the banjo is, when you first hear it, it strikes many people as 'What's that?' There's something very compelling about it to certain people; that's the way I was; that's the way a lot of banjo players and people who love the banjo are.”
- Steve Martin
The backbone of any old-time or bluegrass band is the banjo - a stringed instrument that traces its roots back to many similar West African instruments such as the plucked spike lute. It took on its current form in the Caribbean during the first century of the transatlantic slave trade and was played exclusively by Africans in America during colonial times and the early United States. In the early 1800’s white musicians performing as black minstrels began popularizing the banjo among the white middle class who then purchased instruments and learned to play themselves. The banjo rose to Southern prominence in the latter half of the 1800s and became a mainstay in old-time music.
Steve Martin, Earl Scruggs and local favorite, Charles Wood, appear on the David Letterman Show.
The pairing of fiddle and banjo in string bands, which might also include guitar, mandolin, harmonica, or other instruments, became the primary source of music for square dances and step dances in southern Appalachia. Fiddle tunes, minstrel songs and ballads from the old country were all incorporated into new music featuring the banjo. New songs were also created for the banjo which involved tuning while playing. Old-time songs were typically played in the African-rooted downstroke style, referred to as “clawhammer” style. But, bluegrass became defined by the 3-finger up-picking style of Earl Scruggs when he replaced David “Stringbean” Akeman in Bill Monroe’s band the Blue Grass Boys in 1945. Today, musicians who incorporate his “rolling” patterns are said to be playing the “Scruggs” style.
An example of the “Scruggs” style played by the man himself.