The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-01-10

LAST OF THE BANJO KINGS.
Men Who Have Made the African In
u strur,ent Favorite and Musical.

The recent death of Edward G. Dob
son broke the last link in chain OF
famous American banjo players which
had stretched across about so years.
Although Dobson was only 81, his fame
as a baniost dated back TO the '1Os,
when proficiency with the African
harp" was still much in demand by
the theatre-going public. More than
that. he made greater advances in the
art of playing the banjo than any 9th
er white man.
The banjo is by birth and affection
the tuneful child of the negro. Its
very name is either the Africans cor
ruptions Of various European deriva-
tons from she Greek "pandoura" or q
variant OF "bania," which may itself
have been Of African origin. 1t IS, as
Thomas jefferson said, an instrument
"proper to the blacks, which they.
brought hitler from Africa and which
Is the original of the guitar. The white
man met the banjo and became its de-
voted admircr, Probably Joe Sweeney,
the first American minstrel famous as
banjo player, learned his art from
slave, Dan Emmett, who wrote Dixie,
was a good one with the banjo, but not
as great a Earl Pierce, who thrummed
the strings with the Christy trope at
472 Broadway and later, in 1857, went
to England with Wambold to tickle
the ears OF the Londoners, who had
enioyed banjo music since the inva-
sion BY the Ethiopian Serenaders in
1916. Emmett was good player, how
ever, as any old timer who remembers
him at the Chatham theatre viii tes-
tify.
Other noted performers OF the pc.
riod, dozen years before the Clvil
war, were Frank Stanton, who played
in Charley Whites Melodeon; Dave
Lull, the humpbacked man who had
won his fame in the Eagle street the
atre in Buffalo in 1912. and who was
with Billy Birch in the Virginia Ser
enaders; Bill RAY, who was lost with
the steamer Evening Star when II
foundered on its way from New York
10 New Orleans in 1866; Bill Donaldson,
the great left handad player; Jim
Wambold Fred Dixie and "Pupsey'
Keenan,. who called for his banjo IN the
last hour OF his life and died hug
ging it.
II Later came host of good players, OF
whom Sam Devere is best remembered.
Sam was one OF the Civil war deyel-
opments. and SO good was he that Gen.
Grant took him out OF the ranks TO
use him for detail by day and enter
tainment by night when the Union
commander was at City Point, Va, in
lsM. Sam banged the banjo and
Grant banged Petersburg. After the
war the country was full of minstrel
companies with capable banioists. Not
one of these burnt cork performers,
however, was in the same class with the
Negro Horace Weston. This was Tor
mer slave. fat man who would play
the banjo eight hours day for his
employer and then go away and play
1t eight hours more for his own diver
sion.
Dobson, who was lad of IL years
when he first entered minstrelsy with
Birch. Wambold and Bacllus. saw the
immeasurable superiority of Weston
over the burnt cork men It was not
only that Weston was playing the in
strument of his race and that he in
herted the genius Of the African tor
music: he handled the banjo different
IN from the white men. He stroked the
strings. instead OF picking them, and
used the thimble Dobson and his
brother studied the methods of Hor-
ace Weston, and thus il happened
through his own love of the banjo and
the advantage OF knowing the negro
oxrart that EIv.orl Dchsna came 10
be and to remain mtil his death the
greatest player and teacher in his line.
Ills success was not limited TO this
side of the water, for in the sos. he
went to England where the methods Of
the early American Ministries had pre-
vailed since the English first saw a
banjo in lS46, and showed the ad.
vance in technique which the art owed
to Weston's heredity and his own tai
ent.-New York Sun