BANJO À CINQ CORDES

Inventaire sommaire des ARCHIVES ET BANJOS PROVENANT DE LA

COLLECTION DE PETE STANLEY (Londres, 1937-2020)

Avec la collaboration de Saro Hewitt fille du musicien-luthier-collectionneur

Gérard De Smaele Le 3 octobre 2023

Illustration de la page de titre : La collection in situ d’une partie de la collection de Pete Stanley à Londres. Photos : Gérard De Smaele, 2019.

Texte et photos : Gérard De Smaele, 2019, 2023 Layout : Jean Leroy Octobre 2023

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Table des matières

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Les banjos anglais se sont parfois fort écartés des critères esthétiques américains, comme cet étrange zither banjo à cinq cordes qui devrait dater du début du 20° siècle. Collection Pete Stanley. Photo : G. De Smaele.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 1

Pete Stanley

THE BRITISH BLUEGBASS MUSIC ASSOCIATION presents do BILL KEITHF ERIC WEISSBERG SR JIM ROONEY XKENNY KOSEK :£ L'ACTU E

Tuesday 4 August| , Cebric 8 MARY <9 100 CLUB. <Tuorose 2” 100 Oxford Street se London W1 <= ticket: £6.00 83

Pete Stanley était reconnu par ses pairs. Ici, auprès de deux des plus illustres banjoïstes des USA : Bill Keith (1938-2015), l’auteur de la méthode de Earl Scruggs (1924-2012) et Eric Weissberg (1939- 2020), l'interprète du thème du film Deliverance! (John Boorman, 1972).

Actif depuis 1942, mais d’abord connu sous d’autres noms, le 100 Club est depuis 1964 une salle de concert emblématique de la ville de Londres. Les plus grands noms de la scène du jazz, du rock, de la musique punk... s’y sont produits.

Suite à une prestation au 100 Club en avril 1986, un article sur les patriarches du British Bluegrass a été publié aux USA. Mike Fenton. “Pete Stanley and Brian Golbey: Roots of British Bluegrass.” Bluegrass Unlimited, July 1994, pp. 34-37.

1 Pour cette musique, qui fit le tour de la planète, c’est Bill Keith qui avait initialement été choisi. Celui-ci étant en tour- née en Europe, le producteur s'était alors tourné vers Eric Weissberg, qui s'était auparavant illustré dans un impres- sionnant LP de bluegrass : New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass, avec Marshall Brickman (1963).

2 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

DINGINE FROM TRE FLOUR

-The story.of an almost-forgotten revolution, told by the participants themselves. AVernacular Spectacular! Jarvis Cocker

Forewori dy Richard HaWley

æ

Pete Stanley fut une personnalité omniprésente de la scène ‘folk’ britanique. Voir : J.P. Bean Singing from the Floor: À History of British Folk Clubs. London: Faber & Faber, 2014. 448 p

Selon Saro Hewitt, bien que n'ayant pas fait partie du documentaire de D.A. Pennebaker (Dont Look Back*, 1967), Pete Stanley avait cependant bien rencontré Bob Dylan à Londres. *voir : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=73437

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 3

fs

ep F1 L

| a

#4

Pochette du premier LP de Pete Stanley et de Wizz Jones. Columbia Records, 1966.

Cette édition ‘historique’ est le premier enregistrement significatif du bluegrass banjo par des

musiciens anglais. Paru à seulement 1000 exemplaires il devint vite un rare ‘collectible’”, et sera réédité un peu plus tard en Italie sous le label Joker.

En 2000, le CD More Than Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass and other Fine Stuff, sortira sous le label

Rollercoaster Records, un disque augmenté de plusieurs titres : deux plages enregistrées en 1965, ainsi que six autres provenant de la session de 1966.

more tbao sisteen tous of bluegrass and other fine stuff mono

Or <

ROLLER

= | COAÎTER

JRECOROS

https://www.voutube.com/watch?v=jtKymM29YLM&t-622s

4 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

‘Blackface Minstrel Troupe’, Angleterre, années 1900. Prêt pour l'exposition ‘Banjo !” au MiM, 2003-2004. Collection Pete Stanley.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 5

F3 1903 - The Oldest Fretted Instrument Magazine In The World - 2020 F3

BANJO MANDOLIN GUITAR No 897 Spring 2020 £5.00

: Pete Stanleÿ

Music in this issue Mandolin: Flottes Mädel (Vorpahl); Tenor Banjo: Free For All (A.J. Weiïdt); Guitar: Only A Stone's- Throw From Heaven; Mandolin: Kentucky Mandolin; Banjo: Rickett's Hornpipe; Plectrum Guitar: Teaching the Angels To Sew; Ukulele: Ginger Nut; Clawhammer Banjo: Jenny Lind Polka A CLIFFORD ESSEX PUBLICATION - THE QUALITY MAGAZINE FOR MUSICIANS

Pete Stanley en couverture du B.M.G. Magazine (Spring 2020). Photo de presse montant deux banjos de sa fabrication : un banjo de bluegrass de conception actuelle et le fac-simile d’un W. Boucher des années 1840-50. Pete Stanley — sans lien avec les Stanley Brothers - fut en Angleterre un pionnier du bluegrass et plus tard un explorateur de l’histoire du minstrel banjo style.

1

1903

From a Bath Chair Richard Ineson

BMG Tape Club (Hawaïian Guitar Section): John Marsden By the Way

David Wade

Roots and Rhythms Anthony Lis

Bluegrass mandolin

John Baldry

Ukulele Gershwin, CD review

Kay Martinez

Plec. Guitar Technique 19 Mike Chapman

Banjo Snobbery

Ron Hinkle

Bluegrass Banjo 36

David Cotton

Music Supplement

Flottes Mädel (Mandolin)

R. Vorpahl

Free For All (Tenor banjo) A.J.Weidt (arr. B.Somerville) Only A Stone’s-Throw From Heaven (Plec or Fingerstyle guitar)

Arr. Bert Bassett

With À Banjo On My Knee Alan Middleton

Tenor banjo technique

Bill Somerville

Fun With The Ukulele Louise Bowdon

CE-Makers and Importers of Guitars

Allan Brace

Cover feature: Pete Stanley Gérard de Smaele

Reuben Reubens

CD Reviews

‘Discus’

Clawhammer banjo

Ken Perlman

Hellys 2020

Si Hunter

The Banjo Story: 32

A.P. Sharpe

Digital BMG subscribers

renew here: https://bit.ly/2SZj6H5

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6 + Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Sands Mcress the Sea

PUBLISHED IN MARCH, JUNE, SEPTEMBER and DECEMBER BY CLIFFORD ESSEX MUSIC CO. LTD. 7 ROSE WALK, WICKEN GREEN, FAKENHAM, NORFOLK, NR21 7QG Tel - 01485 529323 Edited by David Cotton

david@bmgmag.com The Editor does not necessarily agree with the opinions expressed by his contributors. All items offered for inclusion in the next issue must arrive at the address above by 2nd May. Copy for publication should be submitted either on Word, as an email attachment, or typewritten. No responsibility will be accepted for errors in publication if submitted material is handwritten. All articles and music in BMG are the copyright of the authors unless otherwise stated, and no material may be copied in any form, or for any purpose without prior permission from the owner. Application for permission must be made in the first instance to the Editor of BMG

No. 897 Spring 2020

We have a very full issue to herald the arrival of the new decade, with 21 pages of news, tuition, stories, history and information and nine pages of music. Thank you to all our regular contributions for their great contributions.

It is with sadness that we report the deaths of two fascinating characters from the BMG community—Pete Stanley and Reuben Reubens. Pete and I were near neighbours in London in the late 1970s and I had the pleasure of playing a number of gigs with him at the Almeida Theatre in London where, for some time, he had a resident spot. A little known fact about Pete is that he played with Bryan Ferry on ‘7 Forget More Than You'’ll Ever Know’. Pete was truly a pioneer of bluegrass in the UK. His daughter, Saro, told me that the memorial concert to be held in May will be by invitation and that many of Pete’s former musical colleagues, including Wizz Jones, Roger Knowles and Brian Golbey, will be attending. Reuben Reubens was an inveterate collector and amongst his many collections were more than 800 pre-1900 banjos, including some real rarities. You can see tributes to Pete and Reuben on page 24. We offer our sincere condolences to both their families.

Our music supplement features a treat for tenor banjoists, Free For AU: A Syncopated Scrap, which comes from Bill Somerville’s extensive collection of tenor banjo music. Also included are KR. Vorpahl’s mandolin solo, Flottes Mädel and a lovely piece for plectrum or fingerstyle guitar arranged by Bert Bassett. Maurice Hipkiss will be back with a brand new piece for steel guitar in the Summer issue.

2020

Finally, remember to follow us on Facebook (https:// www.facebook.com/cliffordessex) and on Twitter (https://

twitter.com/cliffordessex) and to recruit some new readers to the magazine. We’re depending on you!

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 7

ÿ |MaylI thank all of ŒN |my many banjo sé Hand kindred

\R m/instrument EE 2 friends for their kind and good wishes for my enjoyment of the Festive Season, so rapidly fading from my mind as the harsh winds and rain of winter lash against the windows of my Derbyshire home. Thank you also to those who were good enough to remember my

birthday on the &8th January, a

birthday which I share with

Elvis Presley who, unlike me,

shook the musical world so long

ago now.

First, I have the sad duty to

announce the passing of one of

the most individual and

entertaining banjoists whom it has been my pleasure to meet in the last fifty or more years, Pete Stanley.

Pete was a pioneer of the frailing and bluegrass banjo techniques in the UK and remained a master of both styles and was also an inspirational banjoist to players of the banjo in all styles over many years.

My first recollection of Pete Stanley was seeing his picture on the front cover of B.M.G.

B.M.G.

FROM A BATH CHAIR

magazine in January 1963. He was playing with the Mangurian brothers, Dave and Rob, in those days, the trio going under the name of The Tennessee Three.

I had been playing the banjo in the classic style for about two years at this time and I was intrigued by the sound of Earl Scruggs who was featured on the TV programme The Beverly Hillbillies.

11:23 LE = À I tried to copy what Scruggs was doing but with little success. Pete Stanley was by this time already becoming a well-known Bluegrass banjo player. I floundered along until I bought Pete Seeger's pivotal banjo instruction book, How to Play the 5-String Banjo', which I still have in my collection. This book showed me and millions of others the basic bluegrass moves and added another string to my bow.

Spring 2020 by Richard Ineson

I saw Pete perform at various music festivals and other venues over the years and often had a chat with him about things banjorial. He partnered various well known bluegrassers in his time — Wizz Jones, Roger Knowles, Brian Golbey and others. He also made several records amongst which was one which I still have: 76 tons of Bluegrass, and he made numerous appearances on radio and TV.

Pete also made and repaired musical instruments and like many musicians liked to take on authority’ occasionally.

He decorated the outside walls of his house with metal hub caps which had been shaken from cars going over the ‘speed humps' outside his house at too high a speed. His local council told him to remove them, which, after some protest, he did, but left those on the side of his house in place.

Pete Stanley, a good man, an inspiration and a wonderful banjo player and performer, 1940-2020.

8 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

24 B.M.G. Spring 2020

On the cover: Pete Stanley, 1937-2020 A tribute from Gérard de Smaele

On January 2nd, we learned of the death of Pete Stanley. He had Parkinson's and dementia and since my visit to him in June 2019, his health had continued to deteriorate. Pete was not only considered among the best five-string banjo players in Britain, but was also a historian and luthier. He dedicated his lifetime to the banjo. After being taught by Peggy Seeger, he later became an adept at both the clawhammer and bluegrass style; unusually, he M played bluegrass banjo with his fingernails, without using fingerpicks. Since the 1960s, he has played all over London, 8 England and throughout Europe, performing with Wizz Jones, Rodger Knowles, and Brian Golbey among others. He became a popular figure on the UK folk and country music scene, punctuated by numerous appearances on the BBC. His! instrument of choice was also English—the Clifford Esse se: RAA ‘Concert Grand”, of which he owned three fine specimens. Pete’s doorstep. (Photo: G. De Smaele) In addition to his teaching, Pete enrolled at the London College of Furniture on a musical instrument course. There he learned how to build musical instruments and after that became a renowned banjo maker. Very curious about the history of the instrument, he made several copies of minstrel banjos, one of which (a Sweeney-style) was exhibited at the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels in 2003-2004. He also kept at home a large collection of old English banjos: a bunch of 7 strings, but also several ‘Tunbridge Ware” dating from the middle of the 19th century.

In later years Pete also travelled to the United States and performed his unique style to American audiences. I still remember with emotion the energy and the good mood of a concert given in Brussels at the end of the 1970s. Pete was a strong character. He loved London and spent his whole life there, never owning a car, but tirelessly collecting hubcaps from those who passed by his door too quickly!

He leaves behind him more than ‘Sixteen Tons of Bluegrass’ and two children: Saro and Glenn.

A commemorative concert will be held this year, on the 16th of May, at Cecil Sharp House, London.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtKymM29YLM

Reuben Reubens—banjo collector extraordinaire

We also heard recently of the death at 80 of one of the world’s greatest musical instrument collectors, Reuben Reubens. Reuben collected over 800 pre-1900 banjos and his collection included some incredibly rare pieces. The BBC made a short, affectionate film about Ruben, describing him as a ‘terrible banjo player but a top-notch banjo collector. You can see the film at: http://bit.ly/2va9LW1. There is also a nice tribute to Reuben in the Antiques Trader Gazette http://bit.ly/2P3Ari0.

Reuben was always an inveterate collector. At six he collected keys, coins and old shoes. He later moved to pistols, electric motors (300 when he sold them.) Ultimately, much of the collection was sold to another collector, Akira Tsumura. He went on to collect cookers made between the 1840s and 1900. He sold this collection for a loss at Christie’s auction rooms in London. The Independent newspaper featured his collection in September 1992: http://shorturl.at/bvxKW. Is has been suggested that Tsumura ran into tax

WhalingMuseum (Sharon, Massachussets) which has a unique scrimshaw- decorated whalebone banjo.

Reuben is often cited as ‘Ruben’ and there is no truth to the rumour that he was really called Ruben Greene (the name of a stallholder in Portobello Road market, London, in the mid-70s). Ruben Greene is still alive and well. | Another story is that Reuben was, for some time, a bus conductor and would ” stop the bus when he spied a banjo in a junk shop window en route!

Reuben Reubens We offer our sincere condolences to Reuben’s son and daughter.

he sil

Remarque : article également paru dans la revue Banjo Newsletter, avril 2020. Remarque : Une photo de Reuben Greene (on trouvera aussi Ruben Rubens et autres variantes), se trouve aussi dans Banjo à cinq cordes : Histoire et informations à propos de la documentation. Musée Instrumental, 1984. Je l'avais rencontré à Londres vers 1980, lors de la préparation de l'ouvrage.’

2 Voir les photos du célèbre collectionneur anglais, offertes au MiM en 2011-2012.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 9

The Oldest Established and Most Widely-read Fretted Instrument Magazine in the World

BANJO MANDOLIN GUITAR

Vol. LX. No. 693 JANUARY 1963 One Shilling and Threepence

PLECTRUM GUITAR SOLO : ‘A Meditation"” HAWAÏIAN GUITAR SOLO : ‘ Beautiful Waimea!’ SPANISH GUITAR SOLOS : ‘“ Minuet’’ (Barrett) and “ Air?’ (Anos) BANJO SOLO : “AII Set”

e SIXTIETH YEAR e

BM.G

10 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

The Monthly Magazine devoted to the interests of the

Banjo, Mandolin, Published on the 1st of each month at

20 EARLHAM STREET, LONDON, W.C.2, ENGLAND

Telephone—Temple Bar 2810 Telegrams—“Triomphe, Westcent, London.”

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The Editor does not necessarily agree with (or always understand) the opinions expressed by his contributors

Guitar and Kindred Instruments

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All items submitted for the next issue must arrive at this office BEFORE the 10th of the month.

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Vol. LX. No. 693

JANUARY 1963

One Shilling and Threepence

The Tennessee Three

ETE STANLEY (banjo), Rob

Mangurian (mandolin) and Dave Mangurian (guitar) —with a bass player used for backing-—-are fast becoming one of the top Country and Western Groups in Great Britain. They have appeared at numerous clubs in and around London and at U.S. Air Force bases throughout the country and have just cut their first L.P. record.

Dave and Rob Mangurian worked in an aircraft factory last year to earn enough to come to Europe. They left the States last February; bought a small van in Paris to carry their instruments and luggage, and toured 15,000 miles on the Continent until August. They arrived in London on August Bank Holiday.

A week later, Pete Stanley (who learned his banjo picking in London folk clubs and from every “Bluegrass” record he could lay his hands on) returned home after playing a tour of American military bases in Germany and a vacation in Italy. A few days later he met the Mangurian brothers in a London folk club and the three of them decided to form a “Bluegrass” group. After practising for a day they did a guest appearance at the Trouba- dour Club. When someone asked what they called themselves Dave, the only one in the group who has ever been to Tennessee. said: “We’re the Tennessee Three.” The name has stuck.

Since that time they have appeared at various folk clubs in and around

Your Editor ....

and all who make “ B.M.G."” possible every month, wish

EACH & EVERY READER A HAPPY & PROSPEROUS

+ 1963

London and as far afield as Reading

and Portsmouth. They have appeared at folk concerts and played intermis- sions at a George Webb Jazzshow. They are a regular feature at the King & Queen, Foley Street, London, on Friday nights.

Recently the Tennessee Three have

CONTENTS Music in this issue:—

PLECTRUM GUITAR SOLO: ‘‘A Meditation ” SPANISH GUITAR SOLO: ‘*Minuet” (Barrett) and

“Air” (Anon) HAWAÏIIAN GUITAR SOLO: ‘‘ Beautiful Waimea”” BANJO SOLO: ‘‘ AI Set”

Banjo Technique by Cyril Phillips Blue Brakeman by Glyn Hughes B. M. & G Tape Club .» “B.M.G."” Crossword Puzzle “B.M.G.” Diplomas sie

By the way

Club Notes . Correspondence

Directory of B. M. & G. Clubs, ete Federation News ..

Finger Exercises .. 6 ss Fives Court ! y J. MeNaughton De . From a Bath Chair by R. Tarrant Bailey . . dit Good for Evil by Mrs, E. Morritt , Tr s Guitar Technique by James O'Brien .. Harmony for Guitarists by Jack Duarte Hawaiiana by Edward Kirkman

Israel Visit by Ivor Mairants

Learning with Lucas by Jack Whitfeld” Non-Players Please by Robert White . 75 Years of Banjo by Alfred Lane .. de … 131 Small Adverts É

Take Your Pick by R-y Burnham Taming the Tenor by Paul Ludgate 0 Tape Recording by Jeffrey Pocock se

Teachers and their Addresses ! 19 & 130 The Guitar on Wax by “Discus” 32 The ‘Spanish’ Minstrel's Tour by Ernest J. Tyrrell

The Tennessee Three ae 109 aus that Spider by Ron Higginson sa $ se SL

Wes Montgomery æ LS Durs e ve .. 118 You Ask Us . RE .. 135

played at a number of U.S. Air Force bases in this country, including an appearance in “Britain’s Grand Ole Opry” held on November 17th at Chicksands N.C.O. Club where five of Britain’s top C. & W. groups were brought together for one gigantic show.

Last month they were booked for an appearance in the B.B.C.'s “Country Club” broadcast.

{srael Visit

By IvOoR MAIRANTS

URING my recent holiday in

Israel I was asked to take part in a Jam Session which was recorded at Z.O.A. House, Tel Aviv (in front of a tremendously enthusiastic audience) for later transmission over ‘KOL ISRAEL’ radio, the National Radio station of Israel situated in Jerusalem.

The man in charge—reed player, composer and teacher Mel Keller—told me the guitar is so popular in Israel that anybody able to play a dozen chords sets himself up as a teacher. He, himself, is an ardent lover of the guitar and when I visited his flat he proudly showed me his concert guitar.

A large group of folk players, singers and ?ctors did two performances at the Accadia Hotel, Hertzlia, near Tel Aviv (where I was staying) and, of course, the guitar played a big part in their show.

The situation as far as instruments are concerned is Door because they do not have the foreien currency for im- ported guitars of any but the poorest

Voir : https://classic-banjo.ning.com/page/bmg-magazines

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 11

LOCAL MUSEC FROM QUE THERE SUMMER 209 Me 425

“From Jack to King” Folk Roots, issue 425, Summer 2019. Fondé en 1979, fRoots (initialement Folk Roots)

CSSENTLALS FROM THE WORLO OF FOLX RROÔTS MUSIC 1180 était un influent magazine anglais de world music. Sa publication prit fin en 2019. Son dernier numéro parut peu avant le décès de Pete Stanley, survenu en janvier 2020.

En bas, à gauche : Pete Stanley et Wizz Jones, années 1960 ; à droite : Derroll Adams, June et Jack Elliott, Paris, années 1950.

LALLLLIN

40

Fe x À ersary issue ni? 1979 - 2019 1" {

Top: Wizz at Bracknell Folk 4 197% hoto: Brian Newton)

Left: Pete Stanley & Wizz Jones, 19605. ht: Derroll Adarns, Ramblin' Jack Elliott & friendBaris 19505

12 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Introduction

Depuis le milieu du 19° siècle, le banjo à cinq cordes - d’abord introduit en Irlande par Joel Sweeney(Appomatox VA, 1810-1860) en 1842° - est resté très présent en Angleterre, sur une voie plus ou moins parallèle à celle les Etats-Unis, mais tout en cultivant des spécificités propres : comme les banjos à six (5+1) et sept (6+1) cordes, voire plus“, ainsi que le zither banjo” dont la chanterelle passe dans un fin tunnel aménagé dans le manche’, dissimulant une caractéristique essentielle du banjo’. On notera également une esthétique typiquement anglaise (notamment dans la découpe du cheviller). Au Royaume Unis, le banjo fut successivement utilisé dans le cadre du ‘minstrel show”, du ‘classic style’, et plus récemment, depuis la fin des années 1950, dans celui de la musique accompagnant le folk revival et du bluegrass®. Marchands spécialisés (tels Clifford Essex et John Alvey Turner...), fabricants réputés (tels que les Weaver, Temlett, Dallas, Windsor, Young..….), éditeurs de musique, firmes de disques, producteurs de spectacles, sont là pour témoigner de la longue tradition du banjo anglais. Plusieurs compositeurs (Morley, Cammeyer, Grimshaw...®?) et interprètes feront aussi partie des meilleurs re- présentants du style classique, qui a perduré au-delà de l'engouement pour ce style de jeu aux USA.

En dehors des Etats-Unis, l'Angleterre restera Le pays où le banjo à cinq cordes fut le plus apprécié. Dans le sillage du ‘Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar Movement’, du S.S. Stewart Banjo and Guitar Journal (1882) et du Cadenza (1893), les magazines The Banjo World et le B.M.G. furent respectivement fon- dés à Londres en 1893 et en 1903. En dépit d’une interruption de 1976 à 2009, le B.M.G. est le plus ancien périodique spécialisé, toujours édité en 2020!°. D’autres revues importantes, telles que Keynotes

3 Nous manquons de preuves pour pouvoir affirmer que le banjo avait déjà été observé en Angleterre avant cette date, voire bien avant, mais de toute évidence c’est manifestement Sweeney — ainsi que d’autres minstrels américains qui imi- taient son jeu - qui sera le personnage le plus influent, celui qui déclenchera l'intérêt pour l'instrument en Angleterre.

4 D'après Henri Bouasse (Acoustique, cordes et membranes. Paris : Delagrave, 1926, pp. 358-359) on retrouvait aussi de pareils instruments en France : «Ai-je besoin de dire le succès actuel du banjo ? On en voit dans toutes les vitrines des marchands de musique, de grands, de petits, avec vis pour régler la tension de la peau. C’est un délice ! » https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3371226g?rk=300430;4 En France, le banjo est aussi présent dans l’œuvre graphique de Jules Chérêt (1836-1932) et du créateur Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940). À ses temps perdu, ce dernier a construit plusieurs banjos. C’est bien le père du sculpteur Rembrandt Bugatti (1884-1916) et du constructeur automobile Ettore Bugatti (1881-1947). Voir aussi cette méthode : Salvatore Leonardy. Méthode théorique et pratique pour banjo ou zither-banjo à cinq cordes. Paris: S. Léonardy, 3° édition, 1914.

5 Un très beau ‘Vibrante Royal’ de Cammeyer est conservé au MiM : https://www.carmentis.be/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultLightboxView/result.t2.collection lightbox.$TspTitleLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfeldValue&sp=0&sp=0&sp=3&sp=Slighthbox_ 3x4&sp=0& sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=1

6 Winans Robert, Kaufman Elias. “Minstrel and Classic Banjo: American and English Connections.” American Music, vol. XIT/1, Spring 1994, pp. 1-30.

Stern Lewis. “British Banjos: À View from America.” The Banjoist Broadsheet, n° 193, 2006, pp. 1-2; “A Preliminary Typology.” n° 194, pp. 1-3 ; “Originality and Innovation”, n° 196, pp. 1-2.

De loin, on peut facilement le confondre avec un banjo guitare.

Du temps du maccarthysme, mais aussi pour diverses autres raisons, des personnalités américaines telles que Peggy Seeger, Alan Lomax, Tom Paley, Ralph Rinzler, Derroll Adams... - que nos interlocuteurs devraient tous connaître -, ont trouvé refuge en Angleterre, marquant de leur empreinte le british folk revival.

Quelques remarquables interprètes britanniques contemporain (William Ball, Derek Lillywhite, Rob McKillop, Chris Sands...), quelques historiens (tel David Wade), ainsi que le site https://classic-banjo.ning.com/, etc... entretiennent le souvenir d’un plus lointain passé.

9 Voir mes autres dossiers : Don 2011-2012 (2018), Collection audio (2019), Banjo classique (2020). http://www.desmaele5str.be/dossiers Archives

10 En 2022, suite au décès de Clem Vickery - le dernier repreneur de la Clifford Essex Company -, la publication du B.M.G. Magazine a été mise à l’arrêt. Depuis lors, l’avenir de la firme se trouve en suspens.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 13

(1897), The Mandolin and Guitar News (1897) y verront aussi le jour, et constituent pour nous une source précieuse d'informations.

Il ne faudra donc pas s'étonner si l'Angleterre recèle quelques grandes collections privées, comme celles de Pete Stanley à Londres et de Keith Wilson à Leeds. L'ancienne collection de Reuben Greene (Reuben Reubens, voir p. 7), acquise dans son intégralité par le collectionneur Akira Tsumura, s’est envolée vers le Japon et repose maintenant bien loin de nous, au musée des instruments de musique de Hamamatsu. Elle serait certainement bien mieux à sa place en Angleterre.

Sa vie durant, Pete Stanley fut musicien, professeur de banjo, luthier et collectionneur. Il aura vécu avec, pour et par le banjo à cinq cordes, laissant derrière lui une collection de près de 150 instruments, mais aussi une documentation constituée de livres, de revues, des documents graphiques, des disques, de partitions anciennes. En 2003-2004, il nous fit l'honneur de contribuer à l'exposition ‘Banjo !” au MiM.

PE D : s A Ê 3 à

Une partie de la collection de banjos était remisée dans l'atelier du sous-sol. Photo : G. De Smaele, 2019.

14 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

En 1981, j'avais pu assister à un concert donné par Pete Stanley au folk club ‘Le Laboureur’ à Bruxelles. Il y était venu accompagné de Bryan Golbey, membre de la ‘British Archive of Country Music’. http://country-music-archive.com

CONCERTS FOLK ROGRAXMXME

30.01.81 PETZ ST/NLEY & BRIAN G ZÆ: un duo fantastique, (G.8.) Bluegrass,0ld-time, bsnjo, violon,guitare

18.02.81 PAT KILERIDE : Musique traditionnelle irl:ndaise, (IRL.) Guitare, cittern, chant. Faisait partie du zroune Battlefield

25.02.81 DAVID JUALEY : Guitariste soliste,virtuose de la (U.S.A) guitere dans un style qui n'avpar- tient qu'a lui.

04.03.81 TUCKER ZIMMERMAN : Guitariste et chanteur folk "(7.S.A) contemporain. Guitare 12 cordes. Toute le snésie Celifornienne,

18.03.81 ALLAN TA R_ # Guitare, chant. (G.2,.) Musique traditionnelle et j contemporaine anglaise.

01.04.81 DE SNAAR : Ce n'est pas un nbisson... (B.) Trio bien connu de musiciens,chanteurs sympathiques et fantaisistes. Accordéon clarinette,violon, guitare..

«AU LABOUREUR* folk-café

832 CH.D'ALSEMBERG 1180 BRUXELLES ENTRE LE GLOBE ET CALEVOET. TEL 02/377 73.75

Collection GDS.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 15

En 2003, peu avant le montage de l'exposition du MiM, n'ayant pu obtenir en temps utile le prêt d’un ‘minstrel banjo’ préparé par George Wünderlich (dont l'atelier était situé à Frederick, Maryland), et ayant dû abandonner l’idée de solliciter James Hartel, je me suis rendu à Londres chez Pete Stanley". Il nous a par la suite aimablement prêté quelques documents, ainsi que deux banjos : un rarissime modèle ancien (cat. Expo MiM, n° 19, p. 34), ainsi qu'un modèle de sa propre fabrication (cat. Expo MiM, n° 18, p. 33), reflet du retour actuel et de l'intérêt pour ce style de jeu”?.

En juin 2019, après avoir participé à un cours de banjo classique donné par Chris Sands à Knuston, UK”, j'étais repassé quelques jours par Londres. Le hasard fit que je réserve sans m'en rendre compte une chambre à la Torriano Avenue (Kentish Town, London), rue où je m'étais déjà rendu en 2003 pour rendre visite à Pete Stanley. De passage en Brompton, j'ai facilement pu reconnaître sa maison, aisément identifiable à son décor très particulier, constitué d’une collection de chapeaux de roues pro- venant de véhicules ayant roulé trop vite sur une anfractuosité présente dans la chaussée. Après avoir sonné, sa fille Saro m'ouvrit et m'invita à entrer saluer son père et à revenir partager le repas du soir. Pete était très affaibli, mais une bonne conversation aura quand même pu avoir lieu entre nous. Saro me confia que son père souffrait depuis plusieurs années de la maladie de Parkinson, et qu’elle s’inquiétait de ce qui allait advenir de la collection qu'il avait assemblée. En décembre, après qu'il fut hospitalisé, elle me proposa de venir dresser un premier inventaire des instruments. J'ai aussi profité de cette pré- sence à Londres pour débattre du problème avec Philip Alexander, l'actuel propriétaire de la vénérable maison John Alvey Turner.

Pete Stanley est décédé en janvier 2020". L'année suivante, après la revente de la maison de son père, Saro Hewitt a transféré toute la collection dans un garde meuble situé plus près de chez elle, à Exeter dans le Devon. Nous sommes restés en contact et finalement j'y suis reparti en février 2023 et finale- ment en juin de la même année, pour réexaminer de plus près sa collection de documents, d’éphémères, d'archives.

Etant donné la substance de la collection, pensant devoir privilégier l'Angleterre, et après avoir pris divers contacts à Londres avec le Victoria & Albert Museum et le musée Horniman, la plus grande partie de la collection fut offerte au Musée des instruments de musique de Bruxelles, livrée le 24 juillet 2023. D'autre part, les archives directement liées à l’activité musicale de Pete Stanley à Londres et en Angleterre devraient prochainement trouver place à la Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, hébergée à la Cecil Sharp House, siège de l’English Folk and Dance Society.

Quant aux instruments, quatre d’entre eux sont arrivés au MiM, ainsi que trois autres destinés au Musée de la musique à la Philharmonie de Paris.

Un inventaire complet et détaillé devrait être établi plus tard par les trois institutions citées ci-dessus, et devrait dès lors être consultable sur leurs sites respectifs.

G. De Smaele Fauroeulx, avril 2023 www.desmaele5str.be

11 L’adresse de ce dernier m'avait été remise peu avant par Bernie et Jacques ‘Jack Thooft, des amis de Pete Stanley. Ce couple avait tenu — dès les années 1970 - le ‘Glimlach”, un important folk club situé près de Bruxelles, lieu de passage de nombreux groupes américains, Pete Stanley, s’y était lui aussi produit. Jacques Thooft est décédé en 2022.

12 Voir l'historique de la renaissance du minstrel banjo : Peter Szego. “Searching for the Roots of the Banjo-Part 1 & 2.” Old Time Herald, vol. X/4, April-May 2006, pp. 14-23; vol. X/5, June- July 2006, pp. 10-20. Voir aussi : Gérard De Smaele. “The Banjo Gathering, Bristol, VA, 2018”. Banjo Newsletter. January 2019. https://banjonews.com/2019-01/the_banjo_gathering_ by_gerard_de_smaele.html

13 Stage organisé par la British B.M.G Federation : http://www.banjomandolinguitar.org/index.htm

14 Le concert d'hommage prévu à la Cecil Sharp House de Londres, fut balayé par la pandémie déclarée en mars 2020 par OMS.

16 + Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Façade et entrée de la maison de Pete Stanley, Torriano Avenue, à Londres. Pete n’a jamais possédé de voiture ! Celle-ci appartient en fait à sa fille Saro venue prendre soin de lui.

Photo : G. De Smaele, juin 2019.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 17

Aperçu du volume occupé par la sélection d'instruments et d’archives. Stockés à Exeter, chef-lieu du comté de Devon. Photo : G. De Smaele, février 2023.

18 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

La collection de Pete Stanley

Remarques sur l’état de la collection

Pete Stanley est né à Londres en 1937. Les 10 dernières années de sa vie ont été marquées par une détériora- tion progressive de sa santé. Sa vie sociale s’en est ainsi vue réduite considérablement. Durant cette période, ses instruments - principalement ceux remisés dans son atelier du sous-sol - ont été exposés à de mauvaises conditions de conservation. Ils devraient pour le moins nécessiter un soigneux nettoyage. Pete Stanley n’a par ailleurs pas anticipé son départ. Aucun document concernant la provenance et l'expertise de sa collection ne nous sont parvenus”. Les souvenirs de sa fille Saro sont essentiellement d’un autre ordre et relèvent plus du domaine de sa vie quotidienne et familiale.

Néanmoins, en dépit de ces considérations, et même si un gros travail d'identification reste encore à faire, il est à remarquer que la collection de banjos de Pete Stanley, considérée dans son ensemble, constitue une rare opportunité de pouvoir étudier l’évolution du ‘british banjo’ de la seconde partie du 19° siècle.

Rappelons-nous aussi que Pete Stanley était luthier. Au fil des ans, on lui a apporté nombre de banjos à régler et à réparer. Pour les instruments incomplets, nous pourrions éventuellement disposer d’un grand choix d’an- tiques pièces détachées. Celles-ci seraient bien entendu à utiliser avec la plus grande circonspection, en veillant à respecter les règles de la conservation-restauration : un instrument incomplet ou en piteux état pouvant à l’occasion en dire plus long qu’une pièce en parfaite condition.

En ce qui concerne les documents, archives et œuvres sur papier, je n’y ai pas constaté de problèmes parti- culiers, qui seraient liés à des dégâts causés par l'humidité, la sécheresse excessive, la lumière, les micro-or- ganismes, les insectes. Il est normal que les papiers à pâte de bois soient fragiles, jaunis et acidifiés. Comme traitement minimal, ils demandent tout simplement à être conservés dans un bon environnement, dans des conteneurs et des chemises non acides. On doit aussi éliminer toutes les pochettes en plastique PVC, non com- patibles avec la conservation à long terme des matériaux libraires. Quant aux œuvres encadrées, elles devraient être débarrassées de leurs cartons acides. C’est un travail de conservation à long terme, en principe assuré dans n'importe quel musée ou bibliothèque publique.

TE LÈRNCL ER

Description sommaire des instruments

Nous sommes en présence de près de 150 banjos, de la même veine que ceux amassés par Reuben Greene (une collection qui n’a elle non plus été documentée par ce collectionneur!*). L'ensemble est représentatif de la pro- duction anglaise de la seconde moitié du 19° siècle au début du 20° siècle. Ce sont des instruments datables à partir des années 1860 : des banjos typiquement anglais (5, 6, 7, voire 8 cordes), des zither banjos, ainsi que des modèles plus classiques, plus courants. On compte notamment huit ‘Tunbridge ware’, eux aussi typiquement anglais. Comme annoncé ci-dessus, l’état de ces instruments s'avère inégal.

En décembre 2019 il ne m'avait pas été possible d'examiner tous les instruments, notamment ceux remisés

dans l'atelier du sous-sol. En février 2023 d’autres instruments sont venus s'ajouter à la première sélection

présentée ci-dessous : on relèvera les noms de Windsor, Turner, Dallas, Dobson, ainsi que de nombreux autres

banjos anonymes.

À de très rares exceptions près, tous ces banjos possèdent une chanterelle plus courte que les autres cordes. Les photos ne concernent que cette liste.

[disponibles séparément]

15 Mis à part un courrier avec le musée Horniman pour l’identification d’un ‘Tunbrige ware”’.

16 C’est notamment le cas de son ‘Whalebone banjo’ finalement conservé au Whaling Museum de New Bedford, dans le Connecticut, pour lequel nous manquons de sources de première main.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 19

À gauche : Banjo fretless anglais à sept cordes (6+1). À droite :Tunbridge Ware Minstrel banjo à huit cordes (6+2), A. Davis, ca. 1860.

20 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Collection Pete Stanley — Sélection 1

ELIGIBLE INSTRUMENTS: S.I = of prime interest; S.II = very interesting; S.ITI = interesting

N° Cordes | Style Original Condition I II |III parts

O1. 1 6+2 British minstrel | +++ +++ X Tunbridge ware

02. |2 4+1 Zither banjo LAURE Rs X Rare zither

03. 13 6+1 Britsh 7-str +++ ++ X Fretless, violin pegs

04. 19 6+1 British 7-str ++ ++ X | Flush frets

05. 12 6+1 British 7-str ++ ++ X Guitar peghead

06. |15 o+1 British 6-str HT ES X W. Brooks - Lyon & Healy

07. |17 6+1 British 7-str +++ +++ X | Ajax (Mattheuw ?)

08. |20 4+1 Regular +++ +++ X Interesting early flush frets

09. |21 4+1 Regular HT LES X Violin pegs

10. 22 4+1 ++ ++ X Wallis & Son + Interesting Buck- bee stamp

11. |23 4+1 British 5-str +++ ++ X Windsor - Whirle - tunneled 5" -

12. 125 4+1 Piccolo +++ +++ X Early piccolo

13. |26 4 Banjolele +++ +++ X John Grey

14. |27 4 Banjolele + X Keech - zither type - no rim

15. |29 4+1 Regular TE ET X Windsor - Popular

16. 31 4+1 Regular +++ Er X Dallas

17,132 4+1 Regular RS ÉE+ X | Violin pegs

18. | 33 4+1 Regular/zither |+ ++ X |Norim

19. |34 4+1 Piccolo ++ +++ X Weaver - new pegs, tailpiece

21: |935 4+1 Regular-fretless | +++ +++ X Dallas - Concert

22. |36 4+1 Regular-retless | +++ +++ X No pesgs - no tailpiece

23. |37 4+1 British minstrel | +++ ++ X No pesgs - no tailpiece

24. |38 6+1 British 7-str +++ +++ X Wallis & Sons - Violin pegs - JHB stamp - flush frets

25. | 39 4+1 Minstrel fac- X | Pete Stanley FS - tacked head

simile

26. |40 6+1 British 7-str ++ ++ X No pegs - no tailpiece - flush frets

27. |41 6+1 British 7-str +++ +++ X Nice all original and decorated

28. |42 4+1 Minstrel fac- X | Pete Stanley - Boucher style

simile

29. |43 5+1 British 6-str +++ +++ X Prowse - top tension - resonator

30. |44 4+1 Regular +++ +++ X Top tension - flush frets - violin pegs

31. |45 6+1 British 7-str +++ +++ X Nice 7-str - original -flush frets

32. |46 5+1 British 6-str + +++ X Tunbridge ware neck + shell - push in pegs

33. |47 6+1 British 7-str +++ +++ X Violin pegs - flush frets

34. |48 6+1 British 7-str +++ +++ X Interesting resonator + top ten-

sion banjo

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 21

22 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Description sommaire des archives de Pete Stanley

Cet ensemble peut se répartir en trois grandes parties :

Les archives personnelles de l'artiste, qui retracent non seulement le parcours de sa vie privée et sa carrière musicale, mais qui montrent aussi l'importance du banjo à cinq cordes dans le contexte du folk revival en Angleterre : depuis la fin des années 1950 et ses premiers contacts avec Peggy Seeger (New York, °1935), fille du musicologue Charles Seeger (1888-1979) et de la compositrice Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953), sœur des incontournables banjoïstes Pete (1919-2014) et Mike Seeger (1933-2009).

Il est à remarquer que ce folk revival eut d'énormes répercussions sur l’évolution de la scène musicale anglaise : le skiffle puis la musique pop et rock. Dans ce contexte, les périodiques musi- caux spécialisés tels que le B.M.G. Magazine, Old Time News, The Banjoiïst Broadsheet, Spin. illustrent bien leur époque et ont aussi toute leur importance.

En plus de ces revues, et de titres plus anciens de la presse spécialisée, nous sommes en présence de toute une série de livres qui se retrouvent souvent sur les étagères des banjoïstes actuels : les méthodes courantes, les ouvrages classiques traitant de l’histoire du banjo comme ceux de Dena Epstein, Phil Gura, Cece Conway, Robert Winans, Akira Tsumura.…

Bien que fort intéressants et utiles, ces livres sont la plupart du temps disponibles dans le com- merce. Bien que l’on puisse facilement les retrouver sur les sites habituels de ventes sur internet, ils ont tout du moins le mérite d’être présents et à disposition.

Pete Stanley n'était pas connu pour être un banjoïste dit ‘classique’. Il a cependant rassemblé une quantité appréciable de partitions anciennes relatives à ce style de jeu : des music sheets de la maison Clifford Essex et de chez John Alvey Turner, ainsi que les méthodes anciennes de Bra- dbury, Morley, Grimshaw, Nassau-Kennedy, Ellis, Cammeyer…

Il est à remarquer que la plupart de ces éditions musicales sont de nos jours en accès libre sur internet : voir les plus de 2000 titres de partitions remis au MiM au format PDF (Collection Phil Spear). Si on y ajoute ce qui est disponible sur le site ‘classichbanjo.ning, à la bibliothèque de l'American Banjo Fraternity et autres bibliothèques américaines, nous sommes déjà très bien servis. Les documents originaux collectionnés par Pete Stanley conservent quand même encore tout leur propre intérêt. Certaines partitions sont illustrées et l’ensemble n’occasionnerait pas un encombrement excessif.

D'autre part, Pete Stanley n’a eu de cesse de collectionner des cartes postales anciennes, des pho- tos, des figurines en carton léger, des illustrations anciennes mettant en scène les Afro-Améri- cains et le banjo. Cette partie importante de sa collection reste en grande partie à identifier, mais présente un intérêt manifeste. Ce sont là quelques centaines de documents.

Pour finir, on trouvera une belle quantité de partitions illustrées ayant pour thème la scène du minstrel show en Angleterre. Le minstrel show montre une représentation très caricaturale des ‘black people” au 19° siècle. C’est finalement étroitement lié au passé colonial des nations euro- péennes, mais aussi en lien direct avec l'actualité du jour, le mouvement ‘Black Lives Matter’, qui au Etats-Unis a ravivé l'actuel intérêt pour le ‘black banjo’.

Rappelons que les collections officielles négligent encore trop souvent le banjo. En ce qui concerne le ‘minstrel banjo’, celle de l'Université Hopkins, à Baltimore (visitée en novembre 2022), est une heureuse exception.

17 Remarque pour le MiM : beaucoup de ces livres se trouvent d’ailleurs dans ma bibliothèque personnelle. Voir la liste remise au Musée en 2020. Voir aussi À Five-String Banjo Sourcebook (Paris : L'Harmattan, 2019).

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 23

Les trois séjours passés dans la collection de Pete Stanley (Londres, en décembre 2019 et Exeter, en février et juin 2023), ne m'ont pas laissé assez de temps que pour tout examiner dans le détail. Si ceci n'est qu'une première approche, les photos réalisées sur place devraient déjà donner la possibilité de se faire une bonne idée générale du contenu de la collection. Un réel inventaire est en attente.

‘Blackface musician’ jouant sur un banjo à sept cordes (6+1). La Gaité. Troupe Price : ‘Le roi de l'or. Paris : Atelier Nadar, fin 19° siècle. Tirage de démonstration. Site Gallica de la BnF.

24 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Documentation

- La revue B.M.G. Magazine fut fondée en 1903 et montre combien le banjo a occupé une place de choix en Angleterre. Une copie en pdf de la presque totalité de la publication est disponible au MiM, et provient essentiellement de ce site :

https://classic-banjo.ning.com/page/bmg-magazines

- Cecelia Conway. African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia. À Study of Folk Traditions. Knoxville TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1995, 394 p.

- Simon Featherstone. “The Blackface Atlantic: Interpreting British Minstrelsy.” Journal of Victorian Culture, 3/2, 1998, pp. 234-251.

- Leo G. Mazow et al. Picturing the Banjo. Pennsylvania State University, 2005, 179 p.

- Hans Nathan. Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelstry, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1962.

- Michael Pickering. Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain. Routledge, 2008, 270 p.

- Edw. LeRoy Rice. Monarchs of Minstrelstry: From “Daddy” Rice to Date, New York, Kenney Publishing Company, 1911.

- Alfred PerrySharpe.“Banjo Makers.” B.M.G. vol. LXIX/791, March 1971,pp.210-212;LXIX/792, April 1971, p. 230 ; LXIX/793, May 1971, pp. 269-270 ; LXIX/796, August 1971, pp. 353-355. [le B.M. G. est disponible en ligne. Voir ci-dessus]

-__Lew Stern. “The Story of ‘The Banjo Story’: A. P. Sharpe and Banjo Historiography,” Banjo Hang- out, 28 May 2010. http://www.banjohangout.org/article/9

- _Lew Stern. “British Banjos: A View From America.” The Banjoist Broadsheet, n° 193, 2006, pp. 1-2 ; “A Preliminary Typology.” n° 194, pp. 1-3 ; “Originality and Innovation”, n° 196, pp. 1-2. - voir annexe.

- Akira Tsumura. One Thousand and One Banjos, The Tsumura Collection. Tokyo, New York, London: Kodansha International, 1993, 904 p.

[les deux livres de Tsumura montrent des banjos provenant de la collection Reuben, d’autres banjos anglais, des partitions illustrées du minstrel style, des éphémères…

https://www.vintagebanjomaker.com

- Akira Tsumura. Banjos, The Tsumura Collection. Tokyo, New York, San Francisco: Kodansha International LTD, 1984, 168 p.

- Robert Winans et Elias Kaufman “Minstrel and Classic Banjo: American and British Connec- tions. “ American Music. Spring, 1994, Vol. 12, 1, s. 1-30.

http://grimshaworigin.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/WinansAndKaufman1994.pdf.

- Parallèlement au B.M.G. Magazine, la revue The Banjoist Broadsheet a publié nombre d'articles de qualité sur le banjo en Angleterre. Sans oublier de citer The Five-Stringer, l'organe de l’Ameri- can Banjo Fraternity, dont Elias et Madeleine Kaufman furent les éditeurs durant des décennies. Tous les numéros du 5-Stringer sont entrés à la bibliothèque du MiM de Bruxelles.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 25

Voir aussi ces deux méthodes qui traitent du banjo à six, sept et même 9 cordes :

W.E. Ballantine. Ballantine’s Complete School of Tuition for the Banjo, 5, 6 & 7 strings. London: W.E. Ballantine.

W.E. Ballantine. Cameron'’s Banjo Tutor: How to Play the Banjo Without a Teacher [sic]. For Banjos with 5, 6 and 7 Strings. Glasgow: John Cameron.

Joe Daniels. Cuningham Boosey's Universal Tutor. The Banjo... for Banjos with 5, 6, 7 and 9 Strings. Cuningham Boosey & Co.

26 + Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Suivant le modèle américain, le ‘minstrel show’ s’est longtemps imposé comme une forme de spectacle fort populaire en Angleterre. Une très grande quantité de représentations de musiciens noirs jouant du banjo a été rassemblée par Pete Stanley : partitions musicales, images, figurine etc.

En plus des instruments, cet ensemble constitue l’originalité de sa collection. Il est de nos jours en lien direct avec l'actualité sociétale, comme le mouvenent ‘Black Lives Matter et les remises en question du passé colonial

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 27

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28 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

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Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 29

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80 + Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

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Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 31

THE BLACK & WHITE MINSTREL SHOW mono

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WAITE MinStrel Show

FEATURING TONY MERCER, DAI FRANCIS & JOHN BOULTER

Ce spectacle, diffusé par la BBC jusque dans les années 1970, témoigne s’il en faut de la persistance du ‘blackface minstrel show’ en Angleterre.

[ce disque est un exemple qui n'appartient pas à la collection de Pete Stanley]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Black and White Minstrel_ Show

82 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

THE BANJoIsTs’ BROADSHEET No. 194 FOR FEBRUARY 2006 PAGE 1

British Banjos

A View From America by Lewis M. Stern, Arlington, VA

HIS ARTICLE REPRESENTS a digested version of a portion of my paper, “British

Banjos in the Late 19th Century: An À Priori Stab At The Facts,” Presented to the Banjo Collectors Gathering, Panel on British Banjos, 8-11 December 2005, Arlington, VA.

It is worth summarizing the findings of Robert Winans and Elias Kaufman’s 1994 article on American and English banjo cross references. Several key points emerged from that systematic look at minstrel and classical banjo in the US and Britain:

The American Minstrel show was probably the first example of a genuinely American musical phenomenon influencing the English musical scene.

British banjo players emerged under heavy American influence in the late 1840s and early 1850s. That influence was manifested in the way the earliest banjo tutors copied American texts. Britain’s character became imprinted on this emerging tradition in the closer association between banjo and comedy in the minstrel shows: the trend toward extra bass and thumb strings in the 18605; the British preference for less elaborately decorated, inlaid and engraved instruments; the evolution of standard pitch

for the banjo and the emergence of a national preference for C notation as distinct from the enduring American system of writing banjo music in À notation; and the development of the zither banjo, a closed back it rumen with wire first, second and fifth strings.

In the 18805, in both America and the UK, the banjo was used more and more as a solo instru- ment in strictly musical settings, especially as guitar style playing and virtuoso thimble style became popular and led to orchestral usage of the banjo, the emergence of banjo clubs, and innovative banjo methods including plectrum playing. In the 1890s, British banjo playing evolved in a more independent direction from blackface minstrelsy with the emergence of banjo-centred groups of four performers in Pierrot costume whose repertoire included banjo duets, solos, song accompaniments, piano accompaniment, and comedy.

Through the late 1890s, American manufactured banjos were preferred to British made banjos, and American banjo compositions dominated British concert programs.'

It is instructive to look at exactly how Europeans, the British especially, describe this period in their musical tradition, and how they picture the banjo’s relationship to the music that evolved during the second half of the 19th century. The conventional wisdom expressed in European and British writing is that the banjo was imported

to Britain (and Ireland, and France) in the mid-1800s when minstrel shows, such as Joel Sweeney’s group the Virginia Minstrels, toured Europe. Those stage shows are given credit for engendering enough of an interest to support the spawning of home grown stage acts in the later part of the 19th century.? Certainly, by the 1850s musicians such as Joseph Cave were forming amateur minstrel troupes in Britain. At least one British argument suggests that by 1870, minstrel style music shifted away from the caricature and composition of its introductory period, tending away from comic dialogue, circus outfits, and repertoire that melded original African music, Irish ballads, Germanic folk songs, and Italian opera, and toward compositions that were more intricate, classical and orchestral in format.‘ In a

! The Winans and Kaufmann articles offers trenchant observations on the interplay of American and British banjo influence in the 1900-1950 period, but that is beyond the scope of this presentation. See Winans and Elias Kaufmann, “Minstrel and Classic Banjo: American and English Connections,” American Music, Spring 1994, pp. 20-24.

? Mick Moloney. “The Banjo: A Short History,” http://www.stangstones.com/banjo.html, 1/6/2005.

? “The Art and Times of the Zither Banjo” http://www.zither-banjo.org.uk/pages/oakleyobit.htm 1/112005.

# Gerard De Smaele, “Le Banjo du Minstrel Show, 1830-1870? in Banjo Attitudes, prepared for the Museum of Musical instruments in Brussels, 2002. Dr. Kaufman believes that the English Minstrel show did not evolve to become that different from the American Minstrel show. Both retained some of

the “plantation” aspects, and both took a trajectory that

began to resemble what would ultimately become vaudeville, occasionally with some operatic and theatrical aspects thrown in. Kaufman observes that the major minstrel show in England for the last 20 plus years of the 19th Century was The Moore and Burgess Minstrel show. Pony Moore and other American minstrels constantly went over to perform, and a lot of Brits came over to the US. to perform as well. After about 1850 or so bottles or bassoons, cellos, trumpets, xylophones were just as likely to be utilized in the shows as banjos.

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THE BANJoIsTs’ BROADSHEET No. 194 FOR FEBRUARY 2006 PAGE 2

1925 article on Alfred Cammeyer, Bernard Sheaff refer to the banjo’s “lowly position” as

an “adjunct to the Nigger Minstrel Troupe,” and a “property of the low comedian on the music halls,” suggesting that it was only in the first quarter of the 20th century, when composers such as Cammeyer wrote music especially for the banjo, that the instrument was elevated above its origins.”

My own sense is that there are several variables that should be factored into discussion of the development and evolution of British banjo music in the latter half of the 19th century. To begin with, in my view, Britain, in the late 19th century, did not see itself as copying or following the lead of the US.

The troubadour tradition established the frame work for a string-lased ensemble music with a strong farcical, comedic character. In a recent private communication, Winans acknowledged the possibility that minstrelsy in Britain fit in neatly with a pre-existing “troubadour” tradition. In fact, late 19th and early 20th century British wandering black-face musicians at seaside resorts, along with Clifford Essex’ development of the Pierrot format, would seem to point in

that direction. Winans noted that the idea of this connection is an interesting one that has not been sufficiently explored, though he was quick to add that during the years 1880 to 1900, the British banjo world was still playing a great deal of attention to the American banjo world.

William Temlett opened a workshop for making banjos in 1846, and his first banjos appear to have been “smooth arm” six and seven string instruments, suggesting that though he may have taken his inspiration from Americans banjos, or at least anticipated the market that would he created by their influence, his anesthetic was not entirely engendered by the American banjo’s influence. Hopefully, research such as my current effort to write the biography of Joseph Daniels, British banjo maker and musician in the minstrel tradition, and the head of a large family of musical entertainers in 19th century London, will help shed light on some of these issues.

$ Bernard Sheaff, “Alfred Cammeyer, His Work for the Banjo; Keynotes, Volume 1, April 1925.

--==Notes and Jottings==--

Midlands Fretted Orchestra

Meetings Thursday fortnightly. The good Shepherd Hall, Slack Lane, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham (off College Rd behind St Andrew’s church)

The Orchestra caters for all ages, all levels of ability and all fretted instruments. For more info, contact Danielle Saxon Reeves, tel 01 381 89 39 87 or email

ANJO TIMES is issued bimonthly by David Price and Natalie. A forum for

views, letters correspondence and articles on banjo music and musicians, historical notes, events, free advertisements, instructional hints. Annual subscription £10.00 UK, £12.00 EU, £13.00 USA / Australia. Wayside Publications, Wayside, Epping Green, Essex, CM16 6PU. Email: dvprice@tiscali.co.uk

Ragtime Century

for the 5-string banjo

A layflat, spirally bound, book containing 100 rags by Joplin and other arranged for 5-string banjo by David Miles and Jack Holliday. In musical notation with fingering and position markings. Arrangements follow piano

copy. £25.00

Mastering the Classical Banjo

A comprehensive tutor by David Miles. Nearly 200 pages of instruction, graded exercises and music to take the beginner to the most advanced stages of playing. Also section dealing with self accompaniment for the troubadour. £25.00 Bouquet of Classics for Banjo

120 pieces from the repertoire of the lute, guitar, and other sources, arranged for S-string banjo by David Miles. £28.00

Morley Mania

83 of Joe Morley’s banjo solos for £20. 52 second banjo parts for use with above fix £13, £32 if ordered together. Both with bound back.

POP Goes the Banjo

Popular songs from 1860 1960. Musical notation fingering, position marking, plus chord symbols. Half the songs are from the 20th century. Each book contains 100 songs. Where appropriate 2 versions are shown “straight” and “swingy”. All are written out with chord symbols, as well as fingering and position markings. Spiral bound.

34 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

THE BaANJoisTs’ BROADSHEET No. 194 FOR MARCH 2006 PAGE 1

British Banjos

A View From America by Lewis M. Stern, Arlington, VA

This article represents a digested version of a portion of my paper, “British Banjos in the Late 19th Century: An À Priori Stab At The Facts,” Presented to the Banjo Collectors Gathering, Panel on British Banjos, 8-11 December 2005, Arlington, VA.

Robert Winans and Elias Kaufman’s 1994 article on American and English banjo cross references. Several key points emerged

from that systematic look at minstrel and classical banjo in the US and Britain: The American Minstrel show was probably the first example of a genuinely American musical phenomenon influencing the English musical scene.

British banjo players emerged under heavy American influence in the late 1840s and early 1850s. That influence was manifested in the way the earliest banjo tutors copied American texts.

Britain’s character became imprinted on this emerging tradition in the closer association between banjo and comedy in the minstrel shows: the trend toward extra bass and thumb strings in the 18605; the British preference for less elaborately decorated, inlaid and engraved instruments; the evolution of standard pitch for the banjo and the emergence of a national preference for C notation as distinct from the enduring American system of writing banjo music in À notation; and the development of the zither banjo, a closed back it rumen with wire first, second and fifth strings.

In the 18805, in both America and the UK, the banjo was used more and more as a solo instrument in strictly musical settings, especially as guitar style playing and virtuoso thimble style became popular and led to orchestral usage of the banjo, the emergence of banjo clubs, and innovative banjo methods including plectrum playing.

In the 18905, British banjo playing evolved in a more independent direction from blackface minstrelsy with the emergence of banjo- centred groups of four performers in Pierrot costume whose repertoire included banjo

I: IS WORTH SUMMARIZING the findings of

duets, solos, song accompaniments, piano accompaniment, and comedy.

Through the late 1890s, American manufactured banjos were preferred to British made banjos, and American banjo compositions dominated British concert programs.'

It is instructive to look at exactly how Europeans, the British especially, describe this period in their musical tradition, and how they picture the banjo’s relationship to the music that evolved during the second half of the 19th century.

The conventional wisdom expressed in European and British writing is that the banjo was imported to Britain (and Ireland, and France) in the mid-1800s when minstrel shows, such as Joel Sweeney’s group the Virginia Minstrels, toured Europe. Those stage shows are given credit for engendering enough of an interest to support the spawning of home grown stage acts in the later part of the 19th century.? Certainly, by the 1850s musicians such as Joseph Cave were forming amateur minstrel troupes in Britain. At least one British argument suggests that by 1870, minstrel style music shifted away from the caricature and composition of its introductory period, tending away from comic dialogue, circus outfits, and repertoire that melded

original African music, Irish ballads, Germanic folk songs, and Italian opera, and toward compositions that were more intricate, classical and orchestral in format.“ In a 1925

! The Winans and Kaufmann articles offers trenchant observations on the interplay of American and British banjo influence in the 1900-1950 period, but that is beyond the scope of this presentation. See Winans and Elias Kaufmann. “Minstrel and Classic Banjo: American and English Connections,” American Music, Spring 1994,

pp. 20-24.

? Mick Moloney. “The Banjo: A Short History,” http://www.stangstones.com/banjo.html, 1/6/2005.

* “The Art and Times of the Zither Banjo” http://www.zither-banjo.org.uk/pages/oakleyobit.htm 1/112005.

# Gerard De Smaele, “Le Banjo du Minstrel Show,

1830- 1870.” in Banjo Attitudes, prepared for the

Museum of Musical instruments in Brussels, 2002. Dr. Kaufman believes that the English Minstrel show did

not evolve to become that different from the American Minstrel show. Both retained some of the “plantation” aspects, and both took a trajectory that began to

resemble what would ultimately become vaudeville, occasionally with some operatic and theatrical aspects thrown

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 35

THE BANJoisTs’ BROADSHEET No. 194 FOR MARCH 2006 PAGE 2

article on Alfred Cammeyer, Bernard Sheaff refers to the banjo’s “lowly position” as an “adjunct to the Nigger Minstrel Troupe,” and a “property of the low comedian on the music halls,” suggesting that it was only in the first quarter of the 20th century, when composers such as Cammeyer wrote music especially for the banjo, that the instrument was elevated above its origins.°

My own sense is that there are several variables that should be factored into discuss- ion of the development and evolution of British banjo music in the latter half of the 19th century. To begin with, in my view, Britain, in the late 19th century, did not see itself as copying or following the lead of the US.

The troubadour tradition established the frame-work for a string-based ensemble music with a strong farcical, comedic character.

In a recent private communication, Winans acknowledged the possibility that minstrelsy in Britain fit in neatly with a pre-existing “troubadour” tradition. In fact, late 19th and early 20th century British wandering black-

face musicians at seaside resorts, along with Clifford Essex’ development of the Pierrot format, would seem to point in that direction. Winans noted that the idea of this connection is an interesting one that has not been sufficiently explored, though he was quick to add that during the years 1880 to 1900, the British banjo world was still paying a great deal of attention to the American banjo world. William Temlett opened a workshop for making banjos in 1846, and his first banjos appear to have been “smooth arm” six and seven string instruments, suggesting that though he may have taken his inspiration from American banjos, or at least anticipated the market that would be created by their influence, his aesthetic was not entirely

in. Kaufman observes that the major minstrel show in England

for the last 20 plus years of the 19th Century was The Moore and Burgess Minstrel show. Pony Moore and other American minstrels constantly went over to perform, and a lot of Brits came over to the US. to perform as well. After about 1850 or so bottles or bassoons, cellos, trumpets, xylophones were just as likely to be utilized in the shows as banjos.

* Bernard Sheaff, “Alfred Cammeyer, His Work for the Banjo; Keynotes, Volume 1, April 1925.

engendered by the American banjo’s influence.

Hopefully, research such as my current effort to write the biography of Joseph Daniels, British banjo maker and musician in the minstrel tradition, and the head of a large family of musical entertainers in 19th century London, will help shed light on some of these issues.

Banjo Boxing The Emergence of a New

Collecting Interest Lewis M. Stern

HAVE LONG BEEN captivated by the extent to L full immersion collectors have

one or more collateral collection interests: banjo statuary, catalogues, vintage photographs, calling cards, banjo lawn jockeys, tailpieces, banjo jewelry, and so forth. Many of those subsidiary collecting interests are as expensive as the main focus of attention, and the trafficking in these items can be just as competitive and intense. I believe I have discovered a new subsidiary collecting interest, and identified the next high profile banjo-related collectible: banjo boxes, those stout card-board containers delivered by FedEx and Postal Service employees to our front porches that are the portal to this group’s main collecting interest, the cocoon that con- ceals the butterfly, the delivery system long neglected as an art form itself. Boxing, as we should call it, is an acquired skill, long the domain of dealers, but increas- eingly a folk form as more and more people delve into eBay inspired banjo capitalists, selling their grand-father’s attic-dwelling instrument, and wrapping and posting their own banjos to keep overhead down. As is the case with any aspect of banjo collecting, there are long running disputes. canonical arguments, over methods for packing banjos. A body of literature has developed that helps preserve these disputes. The adherents sustain the level of debate in the electronic pages of BANJO-L, reviving with almost predictable periodicity the core disputes of that argument: UPS, FedEx, or USPS? Scotch or packing tape? Crumpled newspapers or peanuts? Paper or plastic? Detuned strings and

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collapsed bridge or full setup? Bubblewrap or Styrofoam blocks?

It is precisely this debate that helps structure a typology of banjo boxes, although it is less the methodology than the overall aesthetic product that establishes this aspect of banjoing as an independent art form.

I see three types of banjo boxes, categorized according to packing principles and practice. First, a method I call Block Packing.

Angular, top-tensioned and packed using large brick-like Styrofoam squares as the foundation of the system, the approach is unique and individual, rather than local, in character and reflecting regional resources and commercial packing practices. It does incorporate the use of peanuts, a widespread practice, but it

utilizes a clever and artful combination of colors and shapes that is again an individual signature.

Second, a packing style best described as Neo Gothic Anarchy. Anarchy Packing is extremely individualistic in the area of the address line and box markings, especially handling instructions. However, it tends to be very conventional in box choice, and very traditional in the selection of internal cushion- ing. À unique contribution to this art form may very well be the use of all local resources in packing and bracing technology, a recipe

that sometimes incorporates odd and suspect items.

The third model I call Faux Boxing. It

represents an imitation of elements of the classics

that is boxy in shape, bereft

of individual signature and imagination, and is often characterized by a less than elegant “bigger is better” approach that yields a non- descript caricature of the highest forms of this art, it is less collectible and lacks utilitarian value in that it is not recyclable without time- consuming modifications.f

$ At least one box collecting colleague raises an interesting point in making the case that every box he has employed to convey banjos previously came front a banjo retailer (with an 85% probability). My colleague has never begun the cycle of use with an original box. That has led to some speculation that banjo boxes are neither created nor destroyed, and that Mr. John Bernunzio, Srnakula International or Elderly Instruments is at the vortex of some major collecting force, the originator of all cardboard encasements for banjos, and conceivably for other stringed instruments. I intend to explore this

This collecting, niche has already begun to produce a number of competing Schools of Thought. One with which many subscribers should become familiar traces its origin to

the Collected Thoughts of Julian Vincent, an experimentalist as well as a collector to whom the appearance of instruments is less relevant than the question of whether they make the right sound. On that basis, Mr. Vincent has speculated about the functional aspects of these boxes, with the goal of determining how well each of these types of packing protected the instruments, and the variables that help determine whether one box is more relevant

to efforts to swaddle and protect classical, bluegrass or clawhammer banjos. He is in the throes of a theoretical breakthrough (literally breaking) that will hip guide us toward a

Grand Theory of Banjo Boxing, focusing on variables determining the height from which instruments must be dropped to break individ- ual parts, suggesting that the Grand Theory will argue that the parts exceed the value of

the whole

This is a new area of collecting. It may take time to develop. It will probably remain an acquired taste for the immediate future. Banjo boxes are not likely to develop into a specialty anytime soon. We will probably not see eBay auctions featuring boxes, though it is possible that an interest in small artefacts of the banjo packing process will attract attention in that electronic market place. The emergence of collectible replicas and miniatures may help propel interest in this art form.

But at some point in the future, we will see articles in Banjo Newsletter, perhaps a dedicated quarterly insert championed by a joint bluegrass- old time union of interests, because this is truly a collecting interest where crossover is possible. We could sees dedicated vendors at festivals, and we may see sales of truly unique specimens and other farsighted banjo focused enterprises.

And we will set the emergence of a new generation of high stakes collectors focused on preserving this folk form stockpiling examples, systematically cornering the market, and eventually producing a lavishly illustrated book that will legitimize this specialized collecting interest.

theme in a forthcoming article, embroidering earlier discussions of the theory of banjo relativity.

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THE BANJoisTs’ BROADSHEET No. 195 FOR JUNE 2006 PAGE 1

BRITISH BANJOS II

À Preliminary Typology

by Lewis M. Stern, Arlington, VA This article represents a digested version of a portion of my paper, “British Banjos in the Late 19th Century: An À Priori Stab At The Facts,” presented to the Banjo Collectors Gathering, Panel on British Banjos, 8-11 December 2005, Arlington, VA.

P SHARPE WROTE a series of original Aie for BMG Magazine about British

makers and dealers in the 1970s. Terry Holland created the Internet site with which many of us are familiar, that summarizes Sharpe’s writings; he continues to update the site. This attempt to create a typology of British banjo makers and dealers owes a great deal to Sharpe’s work, and to Holland’s continued efforts.! Between 1840 and the early 19005, over 90% of Britain’s banjo makers and banjo dealers conducted their business in London or its environs. Ît is possible that this was a function of the geographic realities of industrialization: modernization of the capital city made it most convenient and efficient to conduct small factory work, marketing and distribution in London. It could also be a function of the fact that London newspapers that carried the advertisements of active musical instrument manufacturers and distributors were a critical primary source for Sharpe, and what remains to be undertaken is a systematic survey of provincial newspapers. Nearly 90% of the British banjo makers and dealers discussed in Sharpe’s compilation for whom we have information regarding the start dates or active period of their businesses were operating in the 1870-1890 time frame. Only 8% of the British makers and distributors began their enterprises in the years from 1820 to 1860, and only one in the data set derived from A.P. Sharpe’s compilation functioned in the 1820- 1830 timeframe. Over 95% of the makers and dealers included in this data set who were

! See “British Banjo Makers,” http://www.locksley.com/vintage/brit-4. htm. According to a British collector, Sharpe’s collected writings became part of his estate following his death. According to a knowledgeable British luthier, there must be sufficient material to support the publication of a book in those collected writings, but because of differences within the family it is doubtful that this will ever happen.

operating their businesses outside of London were active during the 1880-1900 timeframe.

Of the 34 dealers and makers regarding whom we have information indicating the longevity of their enterprises, 9% functioned for 60 years or more, and 32% were operational for fewer than 20 years. On the average, these interests functioned for about 33 years. Many, of course, were indi- viduals who worked as independent builders, and many more were artists or teachers who peddled banjos built by known makers under their own names.

YEARS NUMBER PERCENT ACTIVE 20 or less 11 32

30 9 26

40 7 20

50 4 Il

60 3 9

In fact, 16 of the names on this list of British banjo makers derived from Sharpe’s research were dealers or teachers who had arrangements with either independent luthiers or factories that produced banjos with tailored markings on the instrument representing the names of dealers, teachers or other businesses. Seventy percent of those dealers/teachers/musicians had relation- ships with more than one maker. Five makers accounted for the majority of relationships with dealers, and of those John E. Dallas and Windsor appeared to produce instruments for the largest number of dealers, musicians, teachers or distributors.

MAKER No OF DEALERS,

MUSICIANS. TEACHERS, DISTRIBUTORS FOR WHOM MAKER WORKED

Temlett 5

Abbott 4

Windsor 6

Matthews 3

Dallas 5

During this period of industrialization, the forms of enterprises were mutating and evolving along with the modernization of production. So there is a certain amount of movement from small, inde-

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THE BANJoisTs’ BROADSHEET No. 195 FOR JUNE 2006 PAGE 2

pendent builders operating alone or in partnership with one or several associates, to companies organized as factory businesses, to diversified arrangements that included dealership relation- ships and production lines for more than one musical instrument. The Sharpe data were not collected in a fashion that would allow that evolution to be recognised, but we can see, in the period from 1850 to 1900, the way artisans were outnumbered by luthiers organized as primary builders, who were outnumbered by builders, who were outnumbered by dealers. Clever relationships and business associations emerged between teachers and performers and instrument makers, and there was a certain amount of move- ment from the category of independent builder to factor/business owner, as well as the partnering of banjo makers and entrepreneurs.

DEALERS MAKERS (businessmen, teachers) Van Allen J.G. Abbott Barnes and Abbou/Temlett/Windsor/ Mullins Matthews Beavon Matthews/Houghton Joe Brewster JE. Dallas

JE. Dallas Phimbridge/Brewster/Greenop Joseph Daniels | J.E. Dallas A.W. Deane Windsor/Abbott

A.N. Ebblewhite

Windsor/Wilmhurst/Matthews

Keith Prowse

Dallas/Temlett/Houghton

J. Newell

Windsor

John Piroux Windsor/Riley

W.H. Pumbridge | J.E. Dallas

Chartes Spratt/Temlett

Roylance

Charles Skinner | W.E. Temlett/J.G. Abbott Alfred Smith Parslow/Tilley

John Alvey Albott/Temlctt/Windsor/ Turner Wilmsburst/Dallas/Cammeyer

The data originally compiled by Sharpe, and the narratives about each maker embellished by Rolland, are not sufficiently organized or rigor- ous to permit us to form anything more than an impression of these trends. Suffice it to say that between 1850 and 1900, independent luthiers, banjo makers, teachers and performing artists, and entrepreneurs established business relation- ships, and individual players in the market were mobile enough to form companies, focus on

banjos (while competitors produced a diversified inventory of musical instruments), and peddle their names and reputations as well as their talent and inventiveness.

In other words, while it is not at all clear from his original text, Karl Marx may very well have had the banjo manufacturing industry in mind when he dissected capitalism and markets in England!

Bath Banjo Festival August 6 2006 Little Theatre, Bath

ES — THAT’S RIGHT. THE BBF. Already Vi is a plan for its reconstitution.

Martin Jennings-Wright is the Manager of The Little Theatre in Bath. It’s a 180-seater put up in the 1920s with a stage, and shows films. It has lovely acoustics. And best of all it’s right in the middle of Bath. Martin wanted to come to the Banjo Festival last year but had to visit his brother — who also plays the banjo. So he decided to come to the Festival this year — only to find that it had been cancelled. Not to be daunted, our Hero wrote to me and asked what was happening, and then asked if I be interested in organising a concert at the Little Theatre as an experiment. So this is what’s happening. This year, as something which could be organised quickly, we are putting on a concert with Leon Hunt (highly progressive bluegrass) in a 4-piece band. The concert will be before and after a film High Lonesome — the story of Bluegrass music. Apologies to all other banjo players who want to bear some of their sort of music, but this really is a small try-out, with the hope and expectation that it will be bigger next year! The Little Theatre is down a cul-de-sac off the main pedestrian area of Bath, and so is in the middle of an array of small cafes and pubs. But the Little Theatre is also licensed to sell alcohol, so we shall be having seats and tables outside in the street. Come along from about lunch time on the day (Sunday August 6th) and sit around and chat and play. The evening concert and film will cost about £6-7 (not sure yet), and we’Il be able to have a session afterwards. The plan is to reformulate the BBF next year as a two-day event, perhaps even as part of the Bath Music Festival! Apparently the new Festivals organiser is much more open-minded that the last one, as she has added a street carnival and a jazz session to the range of entertainments. Watch this space for further announcements!

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THE BANJoisTs’ BROADSHEET No. 196 FOR JULY 2006 PAGE 1

BRITISH BANJOS III

Originality and Innovation

by Lewis M. Stern, Arlington, VA This article represents a digested version of a portion of my paper, “British Banjos in the Late 19th Century: An À Priori Stab At The Facts,” presented to the Banjo Collectors Gathering, Panel on British Banjos, 8-11 December 2005, Arlington, VA.

RITISH PATENTS FOR BANJO innovations B express originality and ingenuity. To a

certain extent, British twists to banjo design may have been derived from or inspired by American inventions, such as Henry Dobson’s silver chime donut tone ring, but in the hands of British banjo makers these ideas seem to have been taken to extremes, and adapted to suit British performance requirements. If we acknowledge that the room for experiment and innovation 1s limited by the character and shape of the object itself — a rim, a vibrating head, a neck, and mechanisms for tensioning strings — then it looks to be that the British may have found clever ways for expressing artistry and achieving unique sound projection within that narrow form. I have been able to sort through some British banjo patents and specifications, talk briefly with British patent librarians, explore the subject with British collectors, and l’d like to offer some observations, first about British patents, and then about British banjo specifications between 1850 and 1900.' The patents that I have looked at were applied for between 1885 and 1899. About half of those dating from the 1890s are attempts to improve the sound and construction of musical instruments in general, using the banjo as a test case for these innovations. Those that are banjo-specific tend to oCus on engineering innovations aiming to eliminate parts such as the tension hoop or hooks and nuts, or minimizing the contact between various parts to improve the transmission of sound waves. Of the 17 patent holders

! The National Archives, the Catalogue: Research Guides, Inventions: Patents and Specifications - Domestic Records Information 3. http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives. gov.uk.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/rdleafflett.asp?sle afleturl; The UK Patent Office, “Patents: The 18th and 19th Centuries,” http://www.patent.gov.uk/patent/whatis; “Dates on Very Early British Patents,” http://home.projet.net/nejcov/ch48.html

mentioned in Sharpe’s data, seven focus on zither banjos. Four focus on pegs, tailpieces or perch poles, and one was concerned with two-piece neck construction. Six held patents for rim construction, including designs that eliminated hooks, employed annular flanges and bezels in tension hoop configurations, or used materials such as aluminium to construct hoops. One of those patents is for a trumpet mouthpiece tone ring. That potent holder is noted in the revised online compilation as the first English patent, dated 1884 (Kemp).° Four of the individuals included in Sharpe’s data hold two patents, all of those for zither-related innovations.

Americans registered banjo patents in Britain in the 18905, through chartered patent agents or directly. For example, Neil Merrill of Wisconsin and Arthur William Jones of Pennsylvania patented a banjo whose neck did not pass through the rim, and whose head was “removable.”* Horace Ozias Kellogg of New York, a “banjoist”? patented a banjo whose “frame” was supported within the head by bracket bands.“

British banjos differed from their American cousins in several ways. British banjos may have profited from the earlier industrialization of production in England. Cleaner, clever mass production methods appear to have been brought to bear in the manufacture of British banjos. Things that first struck me as British preferences — such as side position markers, necks and peg heads composed of multiple layers of thin wood, veneer fingerboards — may have been an early adaptation of factory mass production processes to construct banjos efficiently and cost effect- ively.* The use of pewter inlay on the heel end of

? A quick review of Patents for Inventions, Abridgements of Specifications Relating to Music and Musical

instruments. A.D. 1694-1866, edited by R. Woodcroft, which contains abridgements of all 740 English patents issued before 1867, suggests that William Pain took out the earliest banjo patent. I thank Tony Bingham for this observation.

* Number 8963, 30 May 1896. 4 Number 20,448, 11 December 1897.

* In fact, the English sense that their own contribution to musical instrument development was innovation and ad- vances in manufacture is driven home by recent research on the manner is which the British focused on

experimenting with technologies in metal tension rods and separate tensioning in drum making during the 1830-1850

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fingerboards is a good example. On thin veneer fingerboards, such as those on George Matthews banjos, the pewter was machine-cut into the bottom half of a board that was joined at a machine-fitted “S” seam at the halfway point in the neck, in such a tight fit that the veneers had the look and feel of a one piece fingerboard. Another example is the inventively shaped metal hoops designed to project or echo sound, involv- ing cast or die construction, incorporating resonator-like structures and tone ring equiv- alents in the design. These were favoured by Spratt, Daniels, Temlett, Hewett and Kemp, for example.

British banjo makers favoured side position markers, the use of maple to break up the dense, dark look of a mahogany neck, a generally thinner taper toward the peg head, more geo- metric inlay designs on fingerboards, and peg heads shaped more eccentrically than those that evolved in the American banjo making commun- ity toward the end of the 19th century.

British banjos were designed to accommodate

6 and 7 strings. There was a very early use of channels built into the necks that allowed the fifth string peg to move from the side of the banjo to the peg head, providing an obstacle free neck.° The British solved banjo challenges, both construction issues and setup problems, in fairly clever ways. Two good examples are Thomas Hewett’s use of a metal end plate to place metal to metal at the rim/neck junction, eliminating that pesky cut; and Harry Spratt’s elimination of tension hoop and screws through the use of a metal hoop with an annular groove in which tightening bolts were seated. These examples suggest that the goal of many British improve- ments may have been to simplify design and thus make production easier, though my special interest — British tone chamber innovations — is at least one indication that British banjo inventors were also intent on sound quality and projection. The key point is that the British did not fuss much with tailpieces, hardware (hooks, shoes, nuts), or neck design. Hardware was designed in

period. See Jayson Dobney “Transitions in Americas Snare

Drums.” Conference on Musical Instruments, Co-hosted by the Galpin Society and the American Musical Instru- ment Society. Edinburgh University, London. England, 3-9 August 2003.

$ Dr. Kaufman observes that the almost universally accepted rationale given for the 6 and 7 string banjos is to help accompany singing.

a utilitarian manner, and if tailpieces were distinguished it was because of spring attach- ments or unique practical alterations to design, not the art and aesthetics. British necks tended to be cut in essentially one basic pattern by several makers — Hewett, Temlett, and Daniels, for example.

British peg heads were shaped to accommodate five to six tuning pegs, yielding banjos that could be wired up with six to seven strings. My sense is that peg bead shapes were intended to be func- tional, and consequently aesthetics took a back seat to functionality. In British banjos during the latter part of the 19th century there was little of the elegant combination of points, curves and angles that represented the American preferences in peg head design. Spratt, Kemp and Templett peg heads can be positively grotesque when taken against the artfulness of Stewart and Fairbanks designs, and the British equivalent of the generic peg head lacks the simplicity and the strong contour of the figure eight or the paddle peg head that became the universal shape for the most basic of American banjo designs.

I am not in a position to generalize about finger- board inlay. I have not seen a large enough sample to be able to draw conclusions regarding British design preferences. I will say that I have seen highly stylized inlay on Temletts, tasteful and clever, that worked off angular, symmetric shapes and used multi-hued inlay to achieve pleasing effects. I have also seen some odd markings on fretted British banjos, including instruments on which both the first and the second frets, and the ninth and tenth frets, were market.

Finally, it appears to me that Temlett, Matthews and Sprats, for example, seemed to like their side markers and tended to mark every fret, often with pearl disks in graduated sizes, diminishing in diameter towards the nut.

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BRITISH BANJOS IV Joseph Daniels: À Musical Family’s History by Lewis M. Stern, Arlington, VA

made by Joseph Daniels, born Joseph

Toledano, a professional musician and member of a well known family troupe. Daniels taught banjo, mandolin and guitar as well as stage dancing at his home in London, which served as his studio in the 1870s. Later, Joseph began to advertise himself as a musical instrument maker, and in 1887 he took out a patent for a metal “sound pan” and a tailpiece distinguished by its adjustable hinge and tension spring mechanisms. The architecture of the heel is dramatic, with an arch cut into the area between the heel cap and the fingerboard, and the fingerboard extending to meet the hoop of the metal casing. I especially like the decorated hole in the heel end of the fingerboard cut to afford accessibility to the sound pan screw that cuts into the perch pole through the top of the metal resonator. The peg head is cut in nice gentle curves and the finger- board and the peg head face have some thickness, nicely accentuated by a thin strip of maple that runs from stem to stem, dividing the ebony top from the mahogany bottom of the neck, a feature repeated in the heel cap configuration. The banjo bears six strings, with the fifth coursing through a channel under the fingerboard. I'have seen photographs of one Daniels with a conventional short fifth string side peg. Pamela Springer’s webpage, Pamela’s Music Company, featured a five-string version, with the subterran- ean channel for the fifth string. Daniels clearly made several versions of the banjo. The peg head is structured differently in the ones with which I am familiar. Interestingly, the five string with the side mounted fifth string peg had a peg head shape that matched the structure of a wooden top tension banjo “signed” by Daniels. That banjo, now in my collection, has a flange attached to a steam beat hoop through which the top tensioning screws pass without piercing the walls of the hoop. The bezel and flange are one-half inch square in section. The banjo is fretless, with

T HE DEFIANCE BANJO in my collection was

! Number 14,162, 18 October 1887.

boxwood flush fret markers, and brass pins driven into the side of the neck resembling the banjo Braille on my Kemp.

One photo of a banjo made by Joseph for his youngest son Alfred shows a slotted bead model with guitar tuners. That banjo’s neck was contoured for a side mounted fifth string peg, but appears to have been set up in zither banjo or guitar fashion, with the drone string running the length of the neck. The photo was probably taken in 1890-91, when Alfred was about ten years old. That banjo belongs to Alfred’s granddaughter, Ms. Angela Heiss.

Some Defiance models carry Daniels’ patent on the face of the tension hoop where the rim meets the southern end of the neck. The rim on mine is imprinted with an address, 112 Leadenhall Street. The earlier wooden flange model in Richard Evans’ collection, marked 1874, bears an earlier address, “Bishopsgate Within,” which means it was south of the Roman wall that surrounded the original square mile of the City of London. According to the great granddaughter of Joseph Daniels, Angela Heiss, her grandfather Alfred, the youngest son of Joseph Daniels, was born in 1884 and christened David Alfred. He became known as “Clown Dano” and “Alf Daniels” in a minstrel troupe, according to a distant cousin whose great grandfather was Joseph Clifton, son of Frank Clifton, also known as Ralus, a slack rope per- former in another minstrel troupe.? Angela Heiss owns a Defiance that was played on stage by Alfred. The family has also preserved sheet music composed by Joseph Daniels for the banjo. Joseph performed with a banjo that had a silver medallion fixed to the peg head. The medallion was presented to him by the Prince of Wales. Joseph died on 12 March 1915 at the age of 73. This was a truly musical family that was steeped in the minstrel tradition. Joseph wrote tunes, such as “My Happy Little Home,” a probably reference to his Leadenhall house that was actually two buildings joined together to accommodate fifteen children, and dubbed “The Muse” in honour of its role as a studio that attracted London’s literati;

? http:/www.zyword.com/jamesbohun/index.htm Email from Angela Heiss, 20 May 2005.

* Telephone conversation with Angela Heise., 24 July 2005

# http://www.zyword.com/jamesbohun/index.htm

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Alfred recalled Charles Dickens reading his work at the home. Joseph, according to Ms. Heiss, appears to have taught all his children to play the banjo, and may have made banjos for all of them. For the smaller children he made scaled down models, one of which may still be held by the family in England. Ms. Reiss recalls that the family had a table built with a compartment topped by a glass door, to show off the banjo, though she has not been able to verify its current whereabouts.°

Joseph was a Sephardic Jew. His family name, Toledano, suggests Portuguese origin. The family 1s fond of recounting that the navigator aboard Christopher Columbus” flagship was a Toledano. Joseph’s father, Israel, emigrated to England, where he made a living as a performer. Joseph married Clara Martinez, also a Sephardic Jew. Family lore has it that Israel was called to entertain at the Tattoo Hall manor of Lord Edgerton, in Chester. There he was smitten by the daughter of the Lord, Sara, with whom he cloped. Sara, who converted to Judaism, was disowned by her noble family.

The family practiced their religion, though Joseph eventually adopted the name Daniels, ostensibly as a stage name, though more likely as a means of acculturating in mid-19th century England. Family lore has it that Joseph was once commanded to perform for Queen Victoria, and made his excuse on the basis of his tradition of not working on the Sabbath, though in reality a hangover had left him in no condition to perform.‘

Joseph and Clara’s fifteen children each named their first-born either Joseph or Clara, a practice that complicated the earliest efforts by Angela Heiss and James Bohun to assemble a genealogy.’

5 Telephone conversation with Angela Heise, 24 July 2005.

$ Telephone conversation with Angela Heise, 24 July 2005.

7 This naming tradition was in keeping with Sephardic practices. While Ashkenazi Jews do not name newborn children after living relatives, Sephardim often name the newborn after the grandparents, even if they are still alive. The first son and daughter are traditionally named after the paternal grandparents, and the maternal grandparents are honored by turning the next children after that line. After that, the tradition imposes no naming obligations. See http://www nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/sephardic, “Jews and Judaism.”

This was a flamboyant family, thoroughly musical and immersed in the entertainment profession. At least one family member estab- lished a business renting costumes to performers. Though there was a gaggle of Daniels, they never performed as a Troupe led by Joseph; they alway sperformed individually. Several children were albino, and family lore suggests that the family referred to “White Daniels” and “Black Daniels,” or those whose genes gave expression to the olive complexion and dark hair of the Mediterranean roots of the family.*At some point the family’s act incorporated at least one person with dwarf- ism Who appears to have had a close and friendly relationship with Alfred, and was recalled fondly in stories during Alfred’s later years. “Little Tich,” as he was known, did not perform in Alfred Daniels’ acts, but they performed at the same theatres with a different ensemble. Alfred and “Tich” knew and respected one another (and both belonged to the Masonic Vaudeville Lodge). Alfred Daniels came to the U.S. around 1944.

By that time, be had been retired as a performing musician for many years. Surviving playbills suggest that his last public performance may have been in 1913. He died in 1965. Alfred is remembered as a consummate performer. He kept meticulous records of the tunes on his play list, recording the words in a black book that remains in the family. He eschewed picks, and performed using a three-finger style. His granddaughter credits him with arranging the William Tell Overture for banjo, and with playing wonderful music well into his eighties. Alfred was also a storyteller, and a magician, skills he deployed on stage during his run as a troupe member. He was never recorded, commercially or privately, and his sound did not survive, except as a family memory of fine parlour music.

I am working with the family to compile a history of this talented group, focusing on Joseph and Alfred for the moment. If any Banjoists Broadsheet subscribers can offer leads regarding this family and their music, sightings of Daniels banjos, or other information that might guide me to first hand recollections of the British Banjo some in the late 19th century, 1 would be grateful.

# Telephone conversation with Angela Heiss, 24 July 2005.

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THE BANJoisTs’ BROADSHEET No. 198 FOR OCTOBER 2006 PAGE 1

The British Collecting Scene

A Preliminary Stab at the Facts by Lewis M. Stern, Arlington, VA

very basic economic reasons: they are cheaper, fewer, and indisputably less inter- esting to the majority of American banjo collect- ors, meaning that I had a virtually clear and open field uncluttered by the high rollers who dominate the American banjo market. American collectors did not know British banjos, and did not place any collecting value on them. British collectors did know these instruments, but hardly considered them worthy of attention. This is best demonstrated by quoting A.P. Sharpe himself, who stated:

EL BRITISH BANJOS as my quarry for

Monstrosities that have lain hidden in attics or junk shops for many years are being unearthed, dusted off and abortive attempts made to make them playable. Many of these old attic discoveries and junk shop “finds” are virtually useless as musical instruments. Most are the crude large and deep hoop tack-head “tubs” of the minstrel era whilst some are even six- and seven-string unfretted instruments over eighty years old that were never intended for anything more ambitious than an elementary vamping accompaniment so a “coon song.” Neither are worth spending any money on.

(See À Complete Guide to the instruments of the Banjo Family, London: Clifford Essex Music Company, Ltd., no date, p. 5. This booklet was probably published during the early 1970.)

Indeed, it appears that the banjo in Britain gets less respect in British museums than the instru- ment is accorded in American exhibits. For example, in the 65 page long catalogue of holdings of the Ashmolean, the Oxford University affiliated Museum of Art and Archeology, Britain’s oldest public museum, there is but one reference to a banjo as a part of a collection, and that is a nondescript reference

to “a banjo” in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection of musical instruments,

instructively subordinate to the Museum'’s Department of Furniture. (http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/) What little interest I have detected in British banjos by British collectors seems concentrated on later high end banjos that hold their own in playing contexts with name brand American banjos, such as the Clifford Essex that Pete Stanley plays.

Some British collectors look to American banjos as their focus largely because there are more of them, and abundant supply makes for a better collecting focus. However, it may also be that British banjos have yet to crawl out of attics and estate sales. Indeed, eBay UK remains domin- ated by American banjos, both modern and vintage.

British collectors seem to agree: British banjos have been underrated and overlooked until comparatively recently. Pamela Springer has what she describes as a modest collection of English banjos, but has not focused on develop- ing a specialized knowledge of them. Richard Evans, a comparatively new collector, has not neglected British banjos but certainly is more focused on amassing an American collection. He is attuned to the way variations on Dobson’s theme of a wood bracket hand and tension hoop occur with some frequency in early English banjos, such as Daniels banjos from the mid- 1870s. Pat Doyle purchased Bob Thornburg’s collection of Van Eps banjos a couple of decades ago. He did not keep that collection intact. Some, like Doyle and Andy Perkins, have reputations as banjo historians. Many collectors and dealers defer to Perkins on issues of banjo history. And there is some effort to capture the music of British practitioners Gordon Dando assembled a video featuring the finger style playing of Bill Ball and Tarrant Bailey, Jr.

British collectors, and our own powerhouses including Jim Bollman and Peter Szego, speak about Rueben Greene’s amassed banjo fortune with respect and reverence. Ruben Greene later took the name of Ruben Rubens.

Ruben accumulated the old banjos he could find — even what everyone else considered junk. Dr. Eli Kaufman, who visited him several times years ago, said that he was entirely concerned with the object and the fact of personal possession. He did not play the banjo and almost none of the over 800 instruments he had

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were set up to play, except for a few that he received strung. When he did string instruments for display he often used black heavy thread. It was hard for other collectors in the earliest days of British banjo collecting to compete with Rubens, who had wide connections in the antique world, a head start, and the financial wherewithal.

Rubens had very little interest in anything other than acquiring instruments. He kept no records and never asked questions. The most egregious example of his unsystematic collecting practices is the whale bone banjo. He obtained that banjo from a man in an old sailors home and did not keep his name, attempt to find out where and when the old saïlor acquired the banjo, the ships he served on, and so forth. In Dr. Kaufman’s assessment, Rubens had absolutely no savvy about banjo scholarship.

At the time the “Red Book” was published, Akira Tsumura did not own many minstrel banjos, so he pictured a great many from the collection of Rubens. Ruben had the largest collection of old minstrel and Victorian banjos in the world prior to Tsumura taking over that title. Ruben was a second generation antiques dealer living in Camberwell, who amassed the collection of primarily English and secondarily continental minstrel era banjos. Peter Szego said that be was a brilliant collector. He did have some non-English instruments in his inventory. Sometime in the 1980s, Ruben approached Tsumura about buying the collection. Tsumura did so, lock, stock and barrel. According to Guenter Amends, after the sale Rubens abandoned all interest in banjos. He did not play banjo or any other instrument, and made his living as a bus driver.

A large number of the banjos that Tsumura acquired in the purchase were unrestored, and Tsumura went to great lengths to have them rebuilt. Some he did not, and they were eventually parcelled out in sales. John Bernunzio acquired some, and some of those ended up in far-flung U.S. collections. Norm Peterson owns a Temlett seven string, a Lyon and Healy seven string, a Windsor fretless and some others with which he will not part. Several of the pieces in the Rubens collection were not sold to Tsumura, including the scrimshaw masterpiece that found a home in the Kendall Whaling Museum, a Dixie can

mountain banjo, a Teed and a long neck which ended up in the Country Music Hall of Fame Collection and arc included as illustrations in Gruhn’s guitar book.

Ruben and his father lived in what Peter Szego described as an extraordinarily overgrown Regency villa with no furniture in the grand but grimy rooms on the ground level. Those were filled with banjos, leaning three deep against every wall including that of the stairwell. Amendt noted that Ruben’s father used to answer the front door for visitors with a large Parrot perched on his shoulder. In Peter Szego’s words, Ruben’s father was a retired seaman who looked as if he had been typecast for Treasure Island.

In conclusion, it is important to note that this is a parlour study of banjos, though not necessarily a study of parlour banjos exclusively. It was conducted in the privacy of my home, without the inconvenience of having to travel to Britain to talk to actual British people (except via the internet).

Indeed, over 40% of the banjos in my collection were obtained in deals with American sellers. The remaining banjos in my British inventory were obtained in transactions with British dealers or collectors, half of those through the internet. But we are talking about only seven banjos, which is not a statistically reliable sample!

No field work was conducted in the course of assembling this overview, and unlike my other research work, I did not have to venture into refugee camps, conduct hostile interrogations, or employ subterfuge to obtain the necessary documents and data. 1 did, once, attempt to conclude a transaction with a rousing “jolly good,” only to be charged additional fees for that excess.

In other words, this is a preliminary effort I would be delighted to hear from the subscribers on this, and any other banjo related topics.

--==Notes and Jottings==--

A few days ago I visited the American Museum near Bath. Laura Brown showed me around, pointing out places where we banjo players would be welcome (free lunch, buy your own drinks) on the day after the Festival (July 8 2007). 1 was seduced. l’m sure you will be.

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l’ve been tracking some history recently for Lew Stern, and have uncovered information which was apparently common knowledge but nobody liked to say. Jo MacNaghten, who edited BMG for a time, was gradually emptying the Clifford Essex shop, selling everything

he could lay his hands on for as much as possible. This mostly meant to rich Americans. So if you want the bound copies of BMG back to the year dot, or the MS of Sharpe’s book The Banjo Story (with pictures) you now have to contact Lowell Schreyer, who has the lot! There is a second copy of the MS which is being published in Pat Doyle’s magazine, but large parts of it are opinion and the information is very dated. Apparently it was assembled from newspaper cuttings rather than primary sources of any sort. This was Sharpe’s general method, and it’s apparent in his book on the Spanish guitar, which has little literary structure being mostly short paragraphs of one sentence each. Fairly obviously constructed from press cuttings.

MacNaghten also claimed that be was selling the copyright when he exported all this stuff to the USA, and I remember seeing music in American publications with the by-line that it was published with the permission of MacNaghten. No copyright ever belonged to MacNaghten. Kevin Keogh (who owned Clifford Essex) reckoned the copyright of The Banjo Story belonged to the CE Company because it was largely written in Company time and probably with company finances, but if it belonged to anyone it was to AP Sharpe, and then to his widow. They are all dead. In which case there is no copyright holder. MacNaghten may well have sold stuff to Schreyer, saying that he was selling him the copyright as well. It was not his to sell.

Enquiry of Schreyer to see whether 1t’s possible to access any of the archive, and in particular the pictures that came with The Banjo Story, has yielded a blank refusal. Apparently Schreyer is working up the material into a book. But Pat Doyle’s publication of large pans of the text (but only a copy of the typescript and without the all-important pictures) must have spiked that particular gun.

Another informant tells me that Bill Ball had his first heart attack brought on because he was having to carry such heavy boxes of 78 rpm

records and books through American customs. He was accompanying MacNaghten at the time. The only “good” thing about all this is that the bound copies of BMG did not, as many people thought, end up in the rain on the pavement outside CE when the shop was closed down. But they are as inaccessible now as if they had been trashed. The other amusing point is that

Pat Doyle effectively snatched the Van Eps archive from under the noses of the Americans, who were pretty wild about it. He then broke up the collection, selling a number of the instruments at very fair prices. So it’s not all a one-way street!

Paul Evans, a producer with BBC Wales specialising in music programmes, has persuaded Radio 4 to have a half-hour programme on the banjo early next year. More news in the next BB.

46 e Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley

Deux exemples parmi l’importante l’iconographie de la collection

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AMATEUR PERFORMANCE OF THE DELAWARE MINSTRELS AT BETHNAL GREEN WORKHOUSE

‘An amateur performance of the Delaware Minstrels at Bethnal Green Workhouse. Original Publication: lllustrated London News, February 1867.

Présentation des archives et banjos provenant de la collection de Pete Stanley + 47

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“So English, You Know!”. George du Maurier (Paris, 1834 - Hampstead 1896). London, in Punch, 1891. Collection Pete Stanley, London, 2019. Photo : G. De Smaele.