The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy

by Bob Carlin

Joel Walker Sweeney was, in essence, the Elvis Presley of the 1840s. A professional banjo player, Sweeney introduced mainstream America to a music (and musical instrument) which had its roots in the transplanted black culture of the southern slave. Sweeney, an Irish-American born midway between Richmond and Lynchburg, Virginia, sampled African American music at a young age. He then added more traditional southern sounds to the music he heard, in essence creating a new musical form. The only avenue available to a professional banjo player was that of traveling minstrelsy shows and it was this route which Sweeney used to bring his music to the attention of the public. Beginning with the banjo's introduction to America and Great Britain, the book examines early banjo music and covers the evolution of American minstrelsy (i.e., black face) and the opportunities it provided for artists such as Sweeney. Correcting previous fallacies and misconceptions (such as Sweeney's supposed development of the five-string banjo), the work discusses Sweeney's roots, his music and his contribution to the physical development of the instrument. An appendix contains a performance chronology. The work is also indexed.

Genres: Music, History, Biography

203 pages, Paperback

First published February 21, 2007

Reviews

[Lewis Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bob Carlin's book on the beginnings of the banjo not only covers the instrument's history, but also how it was influenced and proliferated by minstrelsy. The book gives details about Sweeney's actual role in the five-string banjo's development and whether or not other versions of the string instrument predated Sweeney. In fact, there is good information here about how the banjo's origins are in Africa. Plenty of documents and illustrations from Sweeney's area dot the work, giving a nice frame for the larger story of the banjo. Anyone interested in the instrument so tied to folk music and the Appalachian region and in the bizarre yet popular performance of minstrelsy should certainly check out Carlin's book.

[Sean Hirschten · Rating 2 out of 5]

From my blog: http://thefrailer.blogspot.com/2013/0...

This is one of those books I'm glad I read, but wouldn't recommend. It's got some interesting information, but is deadly dull. The author is Bob Carlin, best known (to me at any rate) as a banjo player, instructor, and performer. Before I go on, I should also say that he is an amazing banjo player! I listen to his music every single day (though only the instrumental tunes - I find his voice not to my taste). He does a medley of the Beatles' Norwegian Wood with Waiting for Nancy that is absolutely great. His playing with other musicians is understated and perfect, letting the fiddle shine while pushing the sound forward. But as a historian, he has too much in common with someone making a grocery list.

Joel Walker Sweeney was a white man from Appomattox County, Virginia who, in the 1830s, brought the banjo (formerly an exclusively folk instrument played mostly by blacks and perhaps a few southern whites) onto the American stage. He didn't invent the instrument, and he probably did nothing to technically innovate its construction, but he did introduce it to the world. He did so by blacking his face with burnt cork and ham grease and pretending to be a black man. There is a LOT to say about the phenomenon of blackface minstrelsy, and many historians have done so. Carlin says almost nothing. We get little analysis regarding why white Americans - and people in Britain and Australia - thought it was a good idea to black up and play Negroes for broad humor. Instead, we get excruciating detail regarding Joe Sweeney's itinerary; the cities he played in, the theaters and their addresses, what the newspapers said about his shows, the night he took his "benefit" (apparently the night upon which he got all the gate receipts).

In Carlin's defense, Joe Sweeney died in 1860 at only fifty years of age, and before anyone thought it worthwhile to ask him about his life. He left few documents - such as letters, diaries, etc. - that would give historians a window into his mind. So all Carlin had to go on for Sweeney specifically were those newspaper accounts and handbills for shows. But the result is deadly dull, and left me unsatisfied as to how and why this whole blackface minstrelsy thing got started.

The one good chapter in the book discusses Sweeney and the "invention" of the five-string banjo. For a long time, those who wanted to claim the banjo as an "American" - read, white - instrument claimed that Sweeney took a crude slave instrument, and added the short fifth, or drone, string. This claim is patently false. There are numerous African ancestors/cousins of the banjo that have drone strings (often more than one), and the idea that an Anglo-American would take a folk instrument and add a drone string - which is almost unheard of in other Anglo-American musical instruments - makes no sense. Carlin discusses this, as well as the likely construction of Sweeney's banjos, who might have made them (probably not Sweeney) and the construction and sale of banjos before and after Sweeney popularized the instrument. It's a great chapter. If you get the book, skip the rest and read that one only.