If there’s any instrument in the quiver of American music that can simultaneously summon heartbreak, salvation and joy, it just might be the banjo. Its earliest origins lie deep within the Black American experience. And that’s where Angela Wellman came to find it. 

John Tyree (1914-?) performs a rendition of the traditional Scots-Irish ballad-turned American banjo standard “The Cuckoo Bird” (Sometimes known as “Coo Coo Bird”, or simply “Coo Coo” or “Cuckoo”). The song in its American form has little relation to the original Scots-Irish ballad and has considerable influence from African American traditions.

Clarence Tross (1884-1977) performs his rendition of the blackface minstrel tune “Miss Lucy Neal”, acapella. 

Rufus Kasey plays a short excerpt of his rendition of the traditional banjo standard “Ruben’s” (or Rueben’s) Train on a 5-string resonator banjo for ethnomusicologist Kip Lornell at his home in Bedford County, Virginia on June 22nd, 1984.

Bernard Diedhiou is a Jola akonting player from the Kognout region of Casamance, who lives with his family in Saly, Senegal. Here we meet with him in the neighbouring town of Somone, where he played songs for us both solo and along with his group “Kadjamour”.