Cecelia Conway’s book African Banjo Echoes in the Appalachians may be summarized by simply reading the title, but such a brief summary would not do justice to the breadth of its research, the power of the analysis, and the depth of the caring that makes this one of the most important books on the folk musical traditions of the American South to emerge in the past several years. Like any good book on folklore, Conway’s work is based on her relationship with several African American banjo players in the North Carolina Piedmont whom she came to know in the early 1970s while studying folklore at Chapel Hill. The introduction gives an overview of this tradition before focusing on one particular, and particularly influential, player, Will Baldwin of Chatham County. Chapters 1 and 2 examine the "early written history of the banjo" and its role in the creation of minstrelsy. It is in Chapter 3, however, that Conway turns toward the most interesting and unique material in her study, making a very strong case that African American banjo players from the Piedmont transmitted banjos and banjo playing styles directly to white musicians in the mountains. This contradicts the widely-held view advanced by Robert Winans, Alan Lomax, and others, that mountain whites learned from minstrels. Working with fairly limited evidence, Conway deftly shows that for several reasons, this is most likely not the case. The banjo itself as an object of material culture and its evolving form is the subject of the fourth chapter, and here Conway suggests a revision to folklorist Henry Glassie’s three considerations for classifying a material culture object as folk or non-folk. Finally, Conway turns to the repertoire of Dink Roberts, a musician in Alamance County. First, she shows that the banjo song constitutes a distinct musical genre governed by its own African American aesthetic standards. This marks a turning point from past scholarship which saw these loosely narrative songs as a degenerate form of the ballads common in white tradition. Next, one of these banjo songs, "Garfield," is discussed at length in Chapter 7. Any book some 20 years in the making will see a number of changes in its subject, and the Epilogue is a touching account of the deaths of all the banjo players discussed in the book, a reminder of just how easy it would have been for this largely overlooked topic to have slipped away forever, leaving us ignorant of the specifics of the important contribution African Americans made to banjo music. One of the sub-themes running throughout the book, and some of Conway’s other work, is the importance of the master/apprentice relationship in the transmission of musical traditions. This is evident in the study of Will Baldwin, which supports her later contention that minstrels, and later mountain whites, learned directly from African American Piedmont musicians. By emphasizing interpersonal relationships, Conway sheds much-needed light on the process of transmission, too long reduced to mere osmosis in folkloristics, and also places herself as researcher in the role of apprentice to these masters. As with most good works on folklore, we are constantly reminded of the relationship between folklorist and informant as well as those between informants. African Banjo Echoes in the Appalachians is a book which sets out to do a lot, and does it all well. It runs the gamut from historical context of a tradition, portraits of individual artists, repertoire and genre studies, and material culture study. African Banjo Echoes in the Appalachians, focusing on North Carolina, is not the only or the last word on African American banjo music, but it is a ground-breaking study and a thoroughly enjoyable read. - Bruce E. Baker (Goose Creek, SC)

One of the keys for the continued success of Mel Bay publications is their enlistment of top-quality musicians to put books together. Traditions is comprised of note-for-note transcriptions of the tunes on Maggie Sansone’s two albums, Hammered Dulcimer Traditions and Hammer Dulcimer and Guitar. The arrangements are by Sansone, and the transcriptions and notes are by Geoff and Maureen Wysham. The book contains 36 tunes from Scotland, Ireland, England, America and Quebec. They are at a variety of levels, ranging right through from beginner pieces ("Shandon Bells") to advanced pieces ("Bridget Cruise"). All of the tunes are generally well-known, save for a couple of exceptions, and are presented in standard notation (along with guitar chords). There is also a couple of pages of information about Sansone, the hammered dulcimer, and the tunes themselves. - Ivan Emke (Corner Brook, NF, Canada)

Each year, Mark O’Connor’s annual fiddle camp just outside Nashville draws students from all over the world. With this video, students need venture only as far as the nearest VCR to learn or revisit the basics of country fiddle from one the acknowledged masters. The tape puts students in a center seat in O’Connor’s "Back to Basics" class, where three tunes are taken apart phrase-by-phrase. Students young and old alike will find the instruction clear, encouraging and entertaining. - Nick Crews (Rochester, NY)

This is a sample from the current issue of Dirty Linen
The Dirty Linen Pages are all copyright ©1996 by Dirty Linen, Ltd, Baltimore, MD

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