Minstrel Banjo Style

Artist: Various Artists Label: Rounder Select Category: Music Average customer rating: Media: Audio CD Number Of Discs: 1 UPC: 011661032125 EAN: 0011661032125 ASIN: B0000002M7 Release Date: 1994-10-25

Listmania:

1. Minstrelsy in America

Tracks:

1. Whoop Jamboree - Joe Ayers
2. Essence Of Old Virginny - Joe Ayers
3. Sylphides Mazurka - Joe Ayers
4. Peeping Through De Cellar Door - Joe Ayers
5. Medley: Bully For All/St. Patrick's Day (Irish Jigs) - Joe Ayers
6. Whoop Jamboree Reprise - Joe Ayers
7. Medley: Hobson's Jig/Briggs Corn Shucking Jig - Clarke Buehling
8. White Cat, Black Cat - Clarke Buehling
9. Medley: Green Corn/Oh, What's De Matter, Suse Ann? - Clarke Buehling
10. Anthony Street Reel - Clarke Buehling
11. Clare De Kitchen - Clarke Buehling
12. Medley: Whelpley's Jig/Buckey's Jig - Bob Winans
13. Medley: Johnny Boker/Matt Peel's Walk Around - Bob Winans
14. Medley: Phil Issac's Jig/Raccoon Jig - Bob Winans
15. Medley: Briggs Jig/Briggs Reel - Bob Winans
16. Medley: Harper's Jig/Kentucky Juba - Bob Flesher
17. Jim Along Josie - Bob Flesher
18. Medley: Rumsey's Jig/Modoc Reel - Bob Flesher
19. Oh, I'se So Wicked - Bob Flesher
20. Medley: Alabama Joe/Alabama Walk Around - Bob Flesher
21. Medley: Phil Rice's Excelsior Jig/John Diamond Walk Around - Bob Carlin
22. Richmond Am A Hard Road To Travel - Bob Carlin
23. Medley: Devil's Dream/Darkey Money Musk/Mrs. McLeod's Reel - Bob Carlin
24. Slave Narrative/Juba - Tony Trischka
25. Medley: Operatic Jig/Roast Beef - Tony Trischka
26. Yankee Doodle - Tony Trischka
27. New Your March - Tony Trischka
28. Medley: Git Up In De Mornin/ Sebastopol Breakdown - Tony Trischka

Similar Items:

1. The Early Minstrel Show
2. Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia
3. A History of the Minstrel Show
4. Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and their World (Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama)
5. Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture (Music in American Life)

Customer Reviews:

Let the banjer ring.......2004-02-07

First of all, I will say that I had the opposite reaction to the inclusion of the lyrics/burlesque tunes. All too often in America, history is white-washed. Minstrelsy is something that most of White America is no longer aware of. If by chance an unaware person does stumble upon this cd (or others like it), to not include the uglier tunes would be to change history and present a false picture of reality to that person. There is already the white tendency to think hey, slavery and Jim Crow weren't THAT bad. To stamp the name "minstrel" on a cd and then omit all the ugly lyrics and stereotypes that were at the very heart of minstrelsy would be one more way for White America to be misled by itself. It'd be like teaching America's middle and upper-class children American History while giving them little or no understanding of the evolving, brutal history of race relations in this country. Woops! We already do that. The truth of American history is that it's an ugly, painful history. No one learns anything by having all the uglier moments forgotten, deleted, or politically-corrected out of the collective consciousness of the ruling class.

I've long been of the opinion that there are too few "story" tunes on this cd, but being that the title and emphasis is specifically on the banjo playing styles, I understand why there are only a few of these songs represented. Lyrically, there are absolutely more hate-filled minstrel tunes out there than those presented here, but you can still come away from this cd with a bit of an understanding of the mockery and buffoonery that was a cornerstone of minstrelsy. Oh I'se So Wicked is lyrically the heaviest tune of this disc, what with the slave character being beaten but stating that she deserves it because "I'se so very wicked". White America should remember that for us white people, minstrelsy was the most long-lasting form of mass-entertainment this country has yet seen.

This is a great disc, filled with excellent tunes and banjo playing. The recording quality is very high and the various tones of these great old and replica banjos are a joy to hear. When you hear the full-bodied, resonant tones of the old gourd and hoop-styles banjos, you (or at least I) can't help but wonder why so many people moved to the Gibson Mastertone sound. Aside from in the hands of Dock Boggs and a handful of others, the Mastertone sound is thoroughly inferior to the gourd and hoop tones. That African resonance is gone from the Mastertone sound, while it is in full bloom on the gourd and hoop replicas.

And now, the Larch..........2001-04-17

I don't know, frankly, but I'm glad I did. While it doesn't tell a story the way it's genre-mate, the soundtrack to Ken Burn's Civil War, did, it does set a time and a place effectively.

The few vocal tracks are a little hard to stomach. I understand the history of the music just fine, but I still think the aural picture of modern day white men singing in this manner is more akin to performing in blackface than they may realize. There is no intent to mock or insult in this recording, but there is still something a bit odd about a 21st Century white man from a gentrified area of Virginia singing "I thought she was g'wanna kiss me when she took and pulled my nose" in some...uh...rural accent.

Call me picky.

Still, I like the CD. Recording it is important, listening to it is enjoyable.

A must for traditional music lovers.......1998-07-31

Music CD:

1. Stormbringer! ~ John Martyn
2. Close Your Eyes ~ Josephine Cameron
3. No. 2 Live Dinner ~ Jr. Robert Earl Keen
4. Monuments ~ Kate Campbell
5. The Classics ~ Richie Havens
6. Something Special ~ Shaw Brothers
7. Inside Out ~ John Martyn
8. Mining The Soul ~ Rita MacNeil, The Men of the Deep
9. Forever & Always ~ Priscilla Herdman
10. A Juggler on His Blades ~ Eddie from Ohio

Music CD

Music CD

Music CD

Cruel Sister ~ Pentangle

Eye of the Storm ~ David Olney

Power Games ~ Jaguar

2 Deep 2 Peep/Straight Jacket ~ Maniac

Djama ~ Alpha Yaya Diallo

Skyway ~ Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures

Sabor Tropical ~ Marqua Y Su Combo

Damatte Atashi Ni Tsuitekoi ~ Raw-Rec

Titanic Tunes: Sing-A-Long in Steerage ~ Ian Whitcomb & Musical Murrays

Reload ~ Snitzer & McCoy