The Banjo- Changes, Travels and Traditions in the 19th Century- (Part 4)

The 5-string banjo started to take prominence in minstrel shows along with the fiddle, bones, and tambourine. And because of the popularity of the minstrel show, banjo playing became widely popular among the white European working class and poor people both urban and rural. These European whites now became the fans, makers and manufacturers of the banjo. Banjos began to be built by fine instrument makers, factory scaled manufacturers, as well as working people and farmers who worked with home-made materials. Gradually, the drum head style of banjo began to replace the gourd banjos. The new drum head, or "tack-head" banjo had a circular body made from a thin wooden stave bent to form a hoop, which was often characterized as a "cheese-box" rim. At first, the 5-string banjo's synthetic drum skin head was attached to the wooden rim with metal tacks, giving it the name "tack- head" banjo. By the mid-1840s, the head was affixed to the rim with modern drum fixtures, a metal hoop held in place by bracket tension hooks and tightening screws. On through the 1880s, the prevalent style of banjo neck continued to be fretless. However, as early as the 1850s, a few makers began to experiment with the use of frets on their instruments' fingerboards in an effort to make the banjo more guitar-like. This fretted banjo gained popularity over time, becoming the most popular going into the 20th century, because it made playing more complex sounds and songs easier. Along with these new techniques came other changes in the look and production of banjos during and after the minstrel craze.


A man on the minstrel circuit named Joel Walker Sweeney is often incorrectly given credit for the appearance of the 5th drone string in this period. As mentioned before (Part 1), the banjo’s drone string is a characteristic that can be traced back to the western African region around Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, and the griot tradition found in these countries for hundreds of years. Instead, if anything, it is more likely that Sweeney added an additional thick bass melody string, the 4th string on the 5-string banjo. This would parallel the development of the banjo elsewhere, for example in England, where the tendency was to add more of the long strings, with upwards of seven strings being common. Sweeney, who was immensely popular, was partly responsible for the rapid spread of the banjo and contracted with a drum maker in Baltimore, William Boucher, to start producing banjos for public sales. Other makers, like Jacobs of New York, or Morrell who moved his shop to San Francisco during the Gold Rush, helped to supply the growing demand for the instrument in the mid-1840s, as the minstrel shows traveled westward to entertain the gold diggers.

Simultaneously, major changes to the banjo were happening elsewhere. Having had much success in America, the minstrel performers of the 1830's, 40's and 50's traveled over to Europe and the British Isles. As the popularity of the banjo spread there, novel approaches to the instrument were developed. By the early 20th Century, these changes had taken hold both in Europe and in America. The most important invention was the use of metal strings and a plectrum, or pick. The new banjos were made with the same neck length, but with only four strings. This came to be known as the Plectrum Banjo. With the use of a pick on metal strings, the banjo was now able to fit into different styles of music, and the fifth string was not as needed in these different forms of music. The Plectrum Banjo gained great popularity among American Jazz players and Vaudeville entertainers in the early 20th Century.
Another spin-off of the plectrum banjo was developed in the early 20th Century. This was known as the Tenor Banjo. The need for this instrument arose from the plectrum players who desired an instrument that catered more to the styles played at the time in Ireland and England. As a result, the length of the neck was shortened and the tuning was altered to something akin to the fiddle.

Also, as the Civil War rolled around, some musicians- probably influenced by the guitar- turned away from the old, African based clawhammer style of playing and started finger-picking the banjo. Players such as Frank Converse started publishing instructional books in this new style and it gained great popularity rather quickly. Of course, the people isolated in the Appalachian Mountains and parts of the rural south were not privy to this new technique and information, and as a result, these areas kept and maintained the old African style of playing represented in clawhammer or frailing techniques.

Because the rise of blackface minstrelsy coincided with the rise of virulent racism in the United States, black banjo players in the eastern and southern valleys, as well as the northern cities, would have been aware of the racial stereotyping and low comedy that connected the slave with the banjo. Mostly because of this, the 5 string banjo started to fall out of favor for accompaniment to the music played in these black communities. By the turn of the 20th century, the guitar became an easily accessible instrument and took over the banjo’s former role for music in most of these areas. This coincided with a move towards more blues rooted music in these communities (a topic worth pages on its own), but in mainstream American music as well, the 5- string banjo music was heard less and less.
The black, 5- string banjo tradition kept it’s influence in some farming communities of the south and the mountain areas of the Appalachia range, mostly because of the isolation of these areas. Here, the fads and culture of the coast and cities of the east and north were a world away, so this banjo tradition was passed on and maintained by both black and white cultures. This heritage, after disappearing from popular American music for quite a while, would eventually become popular again in the mid 20th century.