Earliest Banjo and Folk Music Recordings ･ﾟ✧

The banjo was invented in the Americas. Slaves constructed instruments similar to ones left behind in West Africa, and, for centuries, the banjo was associated with Southern Black populations. Playing the banjo traditionally involved a strumming method called clawhammer. In this style, banjo playing spread through the South to both Black and white Americans.

It was in the 1830s, though, that minstrel music brought greater public attention to the instrument, leading to its widespread adoption by whites and Northerners and, in turn, leading to the creation of the classical banjo style that attempted to incorporate European influences into its performance.

At the end of the Nineteenth Century and start of the Twentieth during the earliest era of commercial acoustic music, sound spectrum recording limitations made some instruments more favorable to capture than others. In this, the banjo was advantageous. Banjo performers like Vess Ossman [Columbia A228] became popular and were widely recorded.

Akin to his contemporaries, Ossman played a plectrum banjo style used for pop and ragtime material. This was neither an African-based clawhammer playing style nor material adjacent to old-time country music. Even when traditional American songs were released through popular singers like Vernon Dalhart, it was in a distinctly pop patina.