EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: CONTEMPORARY STRING BANDS AND THE BLACK ROOTS MUSIC REVIVAL A thesis submitted to the College of the Arts of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Maya O. Brown August 2018 Thesis written by Maya O. Brown B.A., Music, University of Mount Union, 2015 M.A., Ethnomusicology, Kent State University, 2018 Approved by _____________________________________ Jennifer Johnstone, Ph.D., Advisor _____________________________________ Jane K. Dressler, D.M.A., Interim Director, School of Music _____________________________________ John Crawford-Spinelli, Ed.D., Dean, College of the Arts BROWN, MAYA, M.A., AUGUST 2018 EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: CONTEMPORARY STRING BANDS AND THE BLACK ROOTS MUSIC REVIVAL (115 PP.) Director of Thesis: Jennifer Johnstone This thesis examines the ways in which contemporary black string band musicians are redefining and reclaiming black musical identity. Specifically, I draw on performance analysis and interviews with former and current members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops to explore the ways in which black string band musicians navigate predominantly white performances spaces, and I suggest that their participation in such contexts speaks to a larger issue of a black roots music revival that was inspired by the Black Banjo Gatherings of 2005 and 2010. To situate this phenomenon as an important occurrence in American music scholarship, and using a survey conducted with 148 undergraduate students, I further problematize the established canon of American music historiography by highlighting issues of tokenism, the intentional neglect of black entertainers, particularly black minstrel performers and musicians of the nineteenth century, and I reveal the effects of such bias on the general understanding of American music history. I conclude by showing that the black roots music revival is in essence a celebration of the enduring spirit of black music despite the perverse effect of white supremacy on African American life; it is a movement that acknowledges black culture’s indefatigability for survival and liberation. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. viii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................1 Statement of Research Problem ...............................................................................3 Methodology ............................................................................................................3 Theoretical Paradigm ...............................................................................................5 Black String Bands in Black Music Historiography ..............................................12 Goals and Significance ..........................................................................................17 II. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE.............................20 The Banjo ...............................................................................................................21 The Fiddle .............................................................................................................28 Slave Entertainment ...............................................................................................30 Blackface in Perspective ........................................................................................34 African American Blackface Minstrelsy ...............................................................40 The Decline of the Black String Band ...................................................................44 III. BLACK ROOTS MUSIC REVIVAL ..........................................................................50 The Black Banjo Gathering of 2005 ......................................................................52 The Black Banjo Gathering of 2010 ......................................................................62 Critical Reflections ................................................................................................65 Ethnographic Analysis ...............................................................................65 Theoretical Analysis ..................................................................................70 IV. SURVEY AND ANALYSIS .......................................................................................78 Method ...................................................................................................................81 Results ....................................................................................................................82 Demographic Information ..........................................................................82 American Music History ............................................................................84 Audio Clip Recognition .............................................................................95 Blackface Minstrelsy .................................................................................98 Analysis................................................................................................................105 V. CONCLUSION AND OTHER REMARKS...............................................................107 APPENDIX ......................................................................................................................112 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................114 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Laemouahuma Daniel Jatta, a Jola musician from Gambia, playing a folk akonting..................................................................................................................25 2. Sir Hans Sloane’s drawings of two gourd lutes and a harp in his 1707 book, “A Voyage to the Islands of Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica.” .........................................................................................................27 3. Nigerian musician, Masa dan Gado Saminaka, playing the Housa goge ..............29 4. Four “For Sale” slave advertisements, followed by three “Run Away” slave advertisements, in newspapers from the colonial period ..............................30 5. Henry Latrobe’s drawing of the gourd lute he saw being played in Congo Square ....................................................................................................................31 6. A plantation frolic on Christmas Eve .....................................................................34 7. Four Dan Emmett on the sheet music cover of, “Dandy Jim from Caroline,” published around 1844 ...........................................................................................39 8. Photo of blackface minstrel banjoist Horace Weston ............................................43 9. Depiction of a black jazz banjoist on the cover of an Okeh Race Records Catalogue ...............................................................................................................48 10. Jam Session at The 2005 Black Banjo Gathering ..................................................57 11. Members of Sankofa Strings ..................................................................................58 12. Members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and their mentor, Joe Thompson .......60 13. Current member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Hubby Jenkins ......................63 14. Tin-Type Photograph of participants at the 2010 Black Banjo Gathering Reunion mentioned by Dom Flemons ...................................................................64 15. Dom Flemons and Brian Farrow performing at the 2017 Canal Jam ....................66 vi Figure Page 16. Desk with the rather small framed photos of the black musicians featured in the repertoire performed by Rhiannon Giddens and others at Cincinnati Music Hall ..............................................................................................................70 17. #FREEMRBARRON t-shirt created by angry student ..........................................79 18. Graph illustrating the racial demographics of participants ....................................81 19. Graph illustrating the participant musical experience ...........................................82 20. Word clouds of music majors’ responses to the question “Describe the music European Americans were making in the 19th and early 20th centuries.” ..............85 21. Word clouds of non-music majors’ responses to the question “Describe the music European Americans were making in the 19th and early 20th centuries.” ..............................................................................................................85 22. Word clouds of music majors’ responses to the question “Describe the music African Americans were making in the 19th and early 20th centuries.”.......87 23. Word clouds of non-music majors’ responses to the question “Describe the music African Americans were making in the 19th and early 20th centuries.”.......87 24. Music Major responses when asked where the banjo is originally from ...............89 25.