Posted in: String by Robert Tidwell on April 5th, 2011 | 7 Comments
Taylor Swift, Mumford and Sons, The All Girl Boys Choir and many other people are bringing the Banjo back in a strong way.
Taylor Swift’s new song Mean features a strong performance on the banjo and it made me wonder, what’s up with that?
The banjo has been a typically stylized instrument whose sound instantly conjures up mentally challenged hill billies ala Deliverance. Sure, she sings country music but her music is so plastic and poppy that it can hardly be called country. So what’s up with the banjo? Is she trying to be more country or is it something else?
On a rather different end of the music spectrum you have the band Mumford and Sons. They are a pretty traditional rock band who use a banjo. Their music is a bit different in that they actually put depth to their tunes.
Recently while at church I was talking to the highschool aged kids and one of them (whose favorite music is screamo) had said she would love to hear a hardcore or screamo band who use an electric banjo but that she couldn’t find one.
I know of an indie band called the All Girl Boys Choir who have a banjo in their band so I gave the student from church their album. It wasn’t screamo or hardcore and the banjo wasn’t electric, but she loved their tunes.
So all this got me to thinking. What’s up with the banjo? A few years back I noticed the Ukelele was making a big come back and now it’s everywhere. Will we be seeing this with the banjo as well?
I did a bit of an experiment last year with google adwords and did an ad for the All Girl Boys Choir and used the phrase Banjo Rock as a key word. Several thousand people did google searches for indie rock bands with banjos in their music.
donyorkd61 April 5th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Every great achievement was a dream before it become a reality.^
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CHIPMUNK April 6th, 2011 at 4:00 am
great read
sanataryal April 13th, 2011 at 11:05 am
Very interesting.
Gio Di Russo June 14th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
What I hope to see one day are “Banjo Hero” and “Folk Band”.
David L. Russell November 19th, 2011 at 2:46 am
I’ve been a bluegrass banjo teacher, and at times, professional bluegrass musician since the late 1970s, and I would say that the banjo is not a recent come back instrument, but has been growing since Earl Scruggs began popularizing it in the 1940s. Since then, players like J. D. Crowe, Sonny Osbourne, Bill Emerson, Sammy Shelor, Ron Block, Ron Stewart, Bela Fleck, Steve Martin, and a plethora of many others have been the driving force. Mumford and Sons, Avitt Brothers, and various country bands have only recently jumped on the banjo bus. Most of them don’t even play the kind of banjo that has appealed to people over the decades, but rather often only stand there and strum, if not pluck out Irish sounding drones.
Robert Tidwell November 20th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
The phrase comeback means a return to mainstream popularity. Yes, it’s had a long life in a niche market but it is once again becoming a pop music instrument.
Natd45 November 28th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Very informative! Thanks for sharing.