Americas Instrument: The Banjo In The Nineteenth-Century; Author: Gura, Philip F.; Joint Author: Bollman, James F.; Hardback; Book

Author: Gura, Philip F.; Joint Author: Bollman, James F.
Hardback; Book; 97 Colour and 156 B&w Illustrations, Notes, Biblio
400 pages
Published: September 1999
The University of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807824844

This handsome, richly illustrated history traces the transformation of the banjo from primitive folk instrument to sophisticated musical machine and, in the process, offers a unique view ofthe music business in nineteenth-century America.Philip Gura and James Bollman chart the evolution of America's instrument, the five-stringed banjo, from its origins in the gourd instruments ofenslaved Africans brought to the New World in the seventeenth century through its rise to the very pinnacle of American popular culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout, they show howbanjo craftsmen and manufacturers developed, built, and marketed their products to an American public immersed in the production and consumption of popular music.With over 250 illustrations -- inclThis illustrated history traces the transformation of the banjo from primitive folk instrument to sophisticated musical machine and, in the process, offers a view of the music business in 19th-century America.