Black Banjo Songsters of N Carolina & Virginia
This is more than just another excellently researched, heavily-annotated, and well-recorded Smithsonian Folkways disc of archival old-time sound. Like recordings of fife and drum music, this collection documents a rich African American musical tradition that was all but lost by the 1970s. The textbooks tell us that the banjo was brought to America by enslaved Africans, but the majority of musicians who've recorded with that instrument are white.  While many of these modal, story-based folk songs will be familiar--"Coo Coo," "John Henry," "Shortnin' Bread"--there's an edge to these versions that's firmly rooted in the blues.Black Banjo Songstersis an essential compilation of claw-hammer-style banjo playing and deep, Appalachian singing. It happens to redress a historical wrong, but it's also a grand recording of deep, raw folk.--Mike McGonigal