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Well of souls : uncovering the banjo's hidden history
Gaddy, Kristina R.2024
Book
In a remarkable story unfolding across more than two hundred years and places as far apart as the Caribbean, the American colonies, Suriname, England, and the Netherlands, Kristina R. Gaddy uncovers the banjo's key role in Black spirituality, ritual, and rebellion. Gaddy follows the instrument from the seventeenth century -- when enslaved people of African descent created it out of gourds and calabashes -- to the beginning of Blackface Minstrelsy and the instrument's appropriation by white Americans. Investigating the few remaining early banjos; portrayals of the instrument in art; and accounts found in diaries, letters, and works by white Europeans and Americans, she reveals a landscape of African American music, dance, and religion from which the banjo was born.
Main title:
Well of souls : uncovering the banjo's hidden history / Kristina R. Gaddy.
Author:
Gaddy, Kristina R., author
Imprint:
New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2024.©2022
Collation:
xvii, 284 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm.
Notes:
Originally published: New York : W.W. Norton, 2022.Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
9781324074489 (paperback)
Dewey class:
787.8809
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
2689450