South Africa music reviews

On April 7 2005 a new thing will happen. From all over the US, from Africa, and from Europe, black banjo players, black fiddlers, black drummers, black dancers, black guitar players, players of these instruments African ancestors and cousins, and scholars and others who want to preserve and extend the music will gather at Appalachian State University in Boone NC for the first, but not last, Black Banjo Then and Now Gathering. Young and baby boomer Black banjo players and fiddlers will join remaining elders from Virginia and North Carolina playing the music that is on this record. This music will be revived, and expanded.

Over the years before the commercial recording industry and most folklorists tended to overlook Black string band music and focused either on Black religious music or guitar and piano blues. Often, the commercial recording companies would only release Black fiddling or string band music even by stars like Lonnie Johnson or the Mississippi Sheiks under phony names as white string band music.

These recordings are the little tiny tip of the iceberg of great Black old time music from Virginia recorded mainly from the 1930s until the 1960s. We have old time five string banjo players, tenor banjoists, guitarists of several types, even accordinian making blues, dance music, story songs, and music to dance to. This music come from Africa into America is played on African instruments like the banjo, or the fiddle which Blacks in this country picked up even before the banjo became popular because it resembled African bowed instruments many of the slaves knew.

This music is at the root of what white old time music became, and was also at the root of what became the blues, and even the dance music of Jazz. This is a delightful record. The only regret is that each performer here recorded for one or two songs we want for an entire album or two.

Tony Thomas