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Historical Highway MarkersAfrican American BanjoistsM-37
West Africans developed the forerunners of the modern banjo. Free and enslaved Africans in the Americas later made similar stringed instruments, typically of animal hides, gourds, wood, and gut or horsehair. Black musicians who lived near here, whose identities are now unknown, taught the banjo to Joel Walker Sweeney (ca. 1810-1860), a local white musician who brought international fame to the banjo and himself. The banjo, in modified form, became a mainstay of American popular culture by the end of the 19th century. By drawing on their musical traditions, this region's African American banjoists shaped the diverse world of American music.
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References/Bibliographic Citation: David D. Wooldridge, “’The Sweeneys are Indeed a Wonder!!’: The Banjo from Africa to Appomattox,” Lynch’s Ferry (Spring/Summer 2012). Bob Carlin, The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002). Phillip F. Gura and James F. Bollman, America’s Instrument: The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999). Laurent DuBois, The Banjo: America’s African Instrument (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2016). “The Banjo in Virginia: An Exhibit Produced by the Blue Ridge Institute & Museum, Ferrum College” Sarah Meredith, “With a Banjo on Her Knee: Gender, Race, Class, and the American Classical Banjo Tradition, 1880-1915,” (Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 2003). |