Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History PDF Download

Author: George Robert
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
ISBN: 1604946679
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Eddie Peabody is at the peak of his musical career, known to his many fans as the King of the Banjo. But after entertaining White House guests in the Rose Garden, he is summoned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and asked to rejoin the armed forces. Secretly commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve, he continues performing in theaters across the country while training for his reconnaissance mission in Germany. Eddie photographs a newly constructed German U-boat, verifying the American government's suspicions. His mission complete, he troupes on to Berlin with the theater group. Unbeknown to the Allies, however, German intelligence has found a photograph of Eddie in his uniform. The head of the German state invites him to play at a private party for the chancellor and his entourage. Will this be Eddie's final performance? George Robert is the second son of Eddie and Ragna Peabody. Whenever he heard his mother yell out "George Robert " he knew he was in trouble.

Author: Marty Godbey
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252093534
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
In this first biography of legendary banjoist J. D. Crowe, Marty Godbey charts the life and career of one of bluegrass's most important innovators. Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Crowe picked up the banjo when he was thirteen years old, inspired by a Flatt & Scruggs performance at the Kentucky Barn Dance. Godbey relates the long, distinguished career that followed, as Crowe performed and recorded both solo and as part of such varied ensembles as Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys, the all-acoustic Kentucky Mountain Boys, and the revolutionary New South, who created an adventurously eclectic brand of bluegrass by merging rock and country music influences with traditional forms. Over the decades, this highly influential group launched the careers of many other fresh talents such as Keith Whitley, Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, and Doyle Lawson. With a selective discography and drawing from more than twenty interviews with Crowe and dozens more with the players who know him best, Crowe on the Banjo: The Music Life of J. D. Crowe is the definitive music biography of a true bluegrass original.

Author: Laurent Dubois
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674968832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The banjo has been called by many names over its history, but they all refer to the same sound—strings humming over skin—that has eased souls and electrified crowds for centuries. The Banjo invites us to hear that sound afresh in a biography of one of America’s iconic folk instruments. Attuned to a rich heritage spanning continents and cultures, Laurent Dubois traces the banjo from humble origins, revealing how it became one of the great stars of American musical life. In the seventeenth century, enslaved people in the Caribbean and North America drew on their memories of varied African musical traditions to construct instruments from carved-out gourds covered with animal skin. Providing a much-needed sense of rootedness, solidarity, and consolation, banjo picking became an essential part of black plantation life. White musicians took up the banjo in the nineteenth century, when it became the foundation of the minstrel show and began to be produced industrially on a large scale. Even as this instrument found its way into rural white communities, however, the banjo remained central to African American musical performance. Twentieth-century musicians incorporated the instrument into styles ranging from ragtime and jazz to Dixieland, bluegrass, reggae, and pop. Versatile and enduring, the banjo combines rhythm and melody into a single unmistakable sound that resonates with strength and purpose. From the earliest days of American history, the banjo’s sound has allowed folk musicians to create community and joy even while protesting oppression and injustice.

Author: Joseph E. Spann
Publisher: Centerstream Publications
ISBN: 1574242679
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
(Reference). Centerstream presents this detailed look at the inner workings of the famous musical instrument manufacturer of Kalamazoo, Michigan before World War II. For the first time, Gibson fans can learn about the employees who built the instruments, exactly where the raw materials came from, the identity of parts vendors, and how the production was carried out. The book explains Gibson's pre-World War II factory order number and serial number systems, and corrects longstanding chronological errors. Previously unknown information about every aspect of the operation is covered in-depth. Noted historian Joe Spann gathered firsthand info from pre-war employees, and had access to major Gibson document collections around the world. Long time Gibson experts, as well as casual collectors, will find this volume an indispensable addition to their reference shelf.

Author: Wayne Erbsen
Publisher: Native Ground Books & Music
ISBN: 1883206677
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
Beginning banjo lessons have never been more fun! Written for the absolute beginner, this FUN book is guaranteed to help you learn to play bluegrass banjo (How many books come with a personal guarantee by the author?). · Teaches the plain, naked melody to 23 easy bluegrass favorites without the rolls already incorporated into the tune. · Wayne shows simple ways to embellish each melody using easy rolls. · With Wayne’s unique method, you’ll learn to think for yourself! · Learn how to play a song in different ways, rather than memorizing ONE way. · Includes a link to download 99 instructional audio tracks off our website! You WILL learn to play: Bile ‘Em Cabbage Down, Blue Ridge Mountain Blues, Columbus Stockade Blues, Down the Road, Groundhog, Little Maggie, Long Journey Home, Lynchburg Town, Man of Constant Sorrow, My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Nine Pound Hammer, Palms of Victory, Pass Me Not, Poor Ellen Smith, Pretty Polly, Put My Little Shoes Away, Red River Valley, Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Shall We Gather at the River, Wabash Cannonball, When I Lay My Burden Down, When the Saints Go Marching In.

Author: Camilla Chance
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
ISBN: 1742537022
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Life should be looked upon as a sacred thing, to be handled carefully. If something terrible happens, you stop for a while and have a think, and then you work around the next big problem coming up. Like water around a rock. And you still help people when you can, even your worst enemy. Some lives, like that of Banjo Clarke, are so special they touch countless others without trying. Banjo was born in the early 1920s in the Framlingham Forest near Warrnambool, Victoria, and by the time he passed away he was known and loved by thousands for his wisdom and kindness. He carried a swag during the Great Depression, fought with Jimmy Sharman's famous boxing troupe, built roads for the army in World War II, and had 67 great-grandchildren. Despite the great hardships he faced in his life, Banjo was renowned for espousing love and forgiveness, sustained by his deep connection to his land, his ancient culture and its spiritual beliefs. His conviction that these could prove the saving of the world was his motivation for telling his story.

Author: Art Rosenbaum
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Banjo
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Art Rosenbaum is one of America's foremost performers and teachers of traditional five-string banjo playing. He has a long-time interest in the myriad old-time tunings that give breadth and richness to mountain and old-time banjo picking, and has learned first-hand from old-timers in the South and Midwest. Pete Seeger (whose pioneering book How to Play the Five-String Banjo gave Art his start in the 1950s) praised the inclusion of 23 tunings in Art's 1968 Oak Publications book Old-Time Mountain Banjo. This book and 2-DVD set doubles (plus one!) that number of tunings. Art groups the tunings into families and shows how they can be used, with various picking styles, in playing banjo tunes and string band music and in song accompaniment. Experienced players will broaden their knowledge of unusual and interesting tunings and styles, and novice players can get started with common tunings for easy pieces like Cripple Creek and Shout Lulu, the first tunes many old-timers learned.

Author: Pete Seeger
Publisher: Omnibus Press
ISBN: 9780825600241
Category : Banjo
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the basic manual for banjo players at any level. Covers all the fundamentals of strumming, hammering-on, and pulling-off. Includes folk and traditional songs all with melody line, lyrics, and banjo accompaniment, and solos in standard notation and tablature.

Author: John Dowling
Publisher: Faber Edition
ISBN: 9780571538249
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Contemporary Banjo Player is a unique new tutor from world-renowned banjo player John Dowling. It covers not only the basics of Bluegrass banjo, but also teaches you how to expand and develop your playing and diversify into other musical styles. - Suitable for players of every level. - Packed with Photos, techniques, exercises and full songs to learn. - Covers all the basics from rolls to hammer ons, slides, percussive playing, finger picking guitar style, and so much more!. - The accompanying CD contains demonstration tracks to aide progression.

Author: Kristina R. Gaddy
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393866815
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of the Year Named one of the Most Memorable Music Books of the Year by No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music “Compelling.… [R]eveals [an instrument] intimately rooted in the African diaspora and capable of expressing flights of sorrow and joy.” —David Yezzi, Wall Street Journal An illuminating history of the banjo, revealing its origins at the crossroads of slavery, religion, and music. In an extraordinary story unfolding across two hundred years, Kristina Gaddy uncovers the banjo’s key role in Black spirituality, ritual, and rebellion. Through meticulous research in diaries, letters, archives, and art, she traces the banjo’s beginnings from the seventeenth century, when enslaved people of African descent created it from gourds or calabashes and wood. Gaddy shows how the enslaved carried this unique instrument as they were transported and sold by slaveowners throughout the Americas, to Suriname, the Caribbean, and the colonies that became U.S. states, including Louisiana, South Carolina, Maryland, and New York. African Americans came together at rituals where the banjo played an essential part. White governments, rightfully afraid that the gatherings could instigate revolt, outlawed them without success. In the mid-nineteenth century, Blackface minstrels appropriated the instrument for their bands, spawning a craze. Eventually the banjo became part of jazz, bluegrass, and country, its deepest history forgotten.