"RobertM" asked: as must Bob: I think it's much simpler than that, Bob, it's because to them, it's "cracker" music. And I guess it is. At this point, I'll bet probably not one in twenty young blacks have any idea that the banjo is African in origin, or even know what minstrel music was, any more than young white folks do. Years ago, I worked for a black non-profit organization in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. I was the only white employee in an organization of 120 employees. On my last day on the job, after having been nagged for weeks by my crew, I brought in my banjo. It was wierd, though, the minute I opened the case, the laughing and joking stopped, even before I took it out. Most of them had been born in the south; this was before the great migrations from Haiti, the rest of the West Indies, and the Cape Verdes began in the 80s, and they knew what a banjo was. I guess when they saw the banjo up close, though, they suddenly realized I was just another white guy playing the music of the people they and their families had left behind years before. I picked a really quick tune, and then put it away, and we all went to the going away party. We didn't speak about it.

I remember quite a few years ago, just a few years after my wife pbutted away, I took my two kids on a vacation to Williamsburg. One evening we attended a presentation about early African American music and dance which was held in the slave quarters of one of the big houses. The leading presenter, if I remember right, was from Ghana, West Africa. It was a very detailed presentation, both educational and enormously entertaining, but there was not even a mention of the banjo, nor any of its predecessors. They had done a great deal of research for their presentation, so it had to be a deliberate omission. So even when they know about the history, they may choose to ignore it. I did not ask about it, though. When you are a guest in someone else's home, you don't criticize the meal, and that's how the situation felt to me.

Leve

Trust me on this, the feeling is mutual.

Pete

Jeez, Pete, you still wanting the last word on that one? Okay, you win- it *is* a drone string. }:-)

- Don Borchelt