The Banjo Factory

Fretless Gourd Banjos & Tambourines: Your economical choice for reproduction 19th century fretless banjos!

Why I make Banjos

For me it is all about connections. Understanding where humanity has travelled sheds light on the present and points the way forward. When making banjos, I feel the connection of history. I feel that I am helping in my own small way to connect others with the roots of a rich musical heritage.

The banjo is an inextricable part of folk music. The roots of American folk music are legion, yet the synthesis of cultural disparities in this art form is typical of how the “melting pot” synthesizes and transforms disparate cultures into something uniquely American. The banjo is both the voice of an ancient African hunter-gatherer and the voice of the urban American performer of the industrial age. It is the voice of the slave and the voice of the master.

With today’s revival of “roots” music the banjo is experiencing a rebirth. Putting aside steel strings, amplifiers and electronic enhancements, people are discovering the simple pleasures of natural acoustic sound. Across time and space, the fretless gourd banjo echoes the human experience singing a different song to each generation that is at once both unique and yet familiar. As we pluck its strings we become part of an unending human chain. The gourd banjo sings to us at a visceral level connecting us to those who have gone before and creating a bridge to those who are yet to come.

John Salicco

A Short History

Gourd or fretless banjos have their beginnings in the mid to late 18^th Century. Before that, there existed gourd and bladder instruments far into African antiquity. The Akonting, Buchundu, Busunde, Koliko, Kokoli, Temba, Kaburu, Gurmi,Komo and Wase are all ancestral string instruments that survive in Africa to this day. From the 16^th Century Caribbean sugar plantations to the cotton fields of antebellum America, these gourd instruments developed into what we now call the banjo.

From the beginning, the common form consisted of a rawhide covered gourd, a simple fretless neck and a short drone string accompanied by one or more, longer melody strings. Until the 1830’s, four strings made up the usual configuration, but in the late 30’s or early1840’s a fifth melody string was added by white performers to afford greater musical range to the instrument.

What began as a simple folk instrument used to create a background rhythm for story telling and relaxation in the evenings after a backbreaking day of labor for the “masters”, now became an increasing precise and sophisticated musical instrument used to accompany professional performers. The popularity of the American Minstrel Show then helped elevate the banjo into a stylish parlor instrument of Victorian white society.

By the end of the Civil War, the banjo had become almost entirely a white instrument generally shunned by the blacks, largely because of its association with slavery and the demeaning themes of minstrel shows. Shortly afterwards frets were added and the banjo for a time even did a stint in the orchestra pit. The banjo never made a come back among the African Americans and to this day most regrettably, what began as a black instrument is still predominantly an instrument of the white culture.