Well of Souls - Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History

In an extraordinary story unfolding across two hundred years, Kristina Gaddy uncovers the banjo's key role in Black spirituality, ritual and rebellion. Through meticulous research in diaries, letters, archives and art, she traces the banjo's beginnings from the seventeenth century, when enslaved people of African descent created it from gourds or calabashes and wood. Gaddy shows how the enslaved carried this unique instrument as they were transported and sold by slaveowners throughout the Americas, to Suriname, the Caribbean and the colonies that became US states, including Louisiana, South Carolina, Maryland and New York.

African Americans came together at rituals where the banjo played an essential part. White governments, rightfully afraid that the gatherings could instigate revolt, outlawed them without success. In the mid-nineteenth century, Blackface minstrels appropriated the instrument for their bands, spawning a craze. Eventually the banjo became part of jazz, bluegrass and country, its deepest history forgotten.

About the author

Kristina R. Gaddy is the author of Flowers in the Gutter: The True Story of the Edelweiss Pirates, Teenagers Who Resisted the Nazis. She has received the Parsons Fund Award, a Logan Nonfiction Program fellowship, and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Rubys Artist Grant. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and Atlas Obscura, among other publications. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Summary

An illuminating history of the banjo, revealing its origins at the crossroads of slavery, religion and music

Product details

• Authors: Kristina R. Gaddy, Rhiannon Giddens
• Assisted by: Rhiannon Giddens (Foreword)
• Publisher: Norton
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 04.11.2022
• EAN: 9780393866803
• ISBN: 978-0-393-86680-3
• No. of pages: 304
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 239 mm x 26 mm
• Weight: 540 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music > General, dictionaries; MUSIC / History & Criticism, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Folk & Traditional, Social and cultural history, Folk & traditional music, Music reviews & criticism, Music reviews and criticism, Folk, Folkloric styles, Traditional and folk music, Relating to African American / Black American people