The All-American Musical Instrument

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

If you were asked to name the quintessential American musical instrument, think banjo. Think of hillbillies enlivening a bluegrass festival or a country folk revival, or the sad background strumming of a PBS video Civil War documentary.  My personal memories include Appalachian backwoods dueling banjos in the classic movie “Deliverance,” and the musical mischief of the Spike Jones band back in the 1950s.  Ask Alexa to play banjo music and fast-tempo country sounds will be launched.  

Historical roots are found in West Africa, and to a later extent in European traditions. The earliest models arrived on 18^th century slave ships often landing in the Caribbean.  Music historians describe primitive types as gourds covered with animal skins and necks made of sticks without any frets.  Modern banjos have four or five steel strings. The older types have a fifth short string called a drone or thumb string which is used to play rhythmic upbeats to accompany the main melody.  

Recently I took a close look at a banjo inherited by my brother-in-law Jim Horky. It is built on a circular frame consisting of a resonator and neck.  The essential element is a hollow rim covered with a membrane.  The resonator amplifies the sound. Many diverse types of wood are used in construction, ranging from maple and walnut to mahogany. Different woods yield brighter or richer sounds.

What intrigues me about the one my brother-in-law inherited is that the entire rim is lined with heavy and sturdy metal. This was added to protect the life of the instrument.  Apparently it needed to be rugged. Along with a mandolin and guitar, the instruments were bequeathed to my brother-in-law by his uncle Gerhard Martis, a multi-talented musician from Nebraska.

Gerhard (1897-1956) was a worldwide musical traveler who played in big and small bands in the 1930s and 40s.  I was told that Phil Harris, a very popular band leader of the era, rewarded Gerhard with a nice plot of land near Hollywood Boulevard, but it went into arrears because he could not be bothered to pay taxes on it.

Gerhard was a handsome fellow who could play about any stringed instrument in an orchestra. A photo suggests that one of his gigs involved the SS Niagara as it cruised from Sidney, Australia to New Jersey. My brother-in-law inherited Gerhard’s banjo partly because he, too, is musically talented. It pleases both of us to think that what Gerhard Martis left behind is American musical history to our ears.