Tennessee: The American Banjo

<sub>((PKG)) BANJO
((Banner: The American Banjo))

((Reporter: Lesia Bakalets))
((Camera: Sergey Sokolov))

((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou))

((Map: Somerville, Tennessee))
((NATS))
((Christian Stanfield, Content Manager, GeorgeBanjos.com))

The Banjo is a uniquely American instrument. The roots of the banjo were brought over by enslaved peoples from Africa, who were brought to the Caribbean into the United States, and they made the early gourd banjos. And then in the 1830s, the African American design was modified by some white Southerners, who lived in Virginia, to create the basis of the modern banjo.
((NATS))
((Christian Stanfield, Content Manager, GeorgeBanjos.com))

So really, the banjo is the American instrument and it was made by both black and white cultures came together to produce this instrument.
((NATS))
((Christian Stanfield, Content Manager, GeorgeBanjos.com))

And so, I bought a banjo from Tommy and that’s how we met.
((NATS))
((Christian Stanfield, Content Manager, GeorgeBanjos.com))

And Tommy very graciously invited me to start coming over. And I would come over and work for a couple of hours, and in three months, I had a banjo that I had made myself.

You have the round part and you have the straight part and they’re made separately. We start with a board. I will take this and I will put it in a steam box and the steam will make it very soft. And then, I will put it in this form and it will actually be able to bend without breaking. It’ll bend around this and I will put one layer inside and another layer inside. When it comes out, it will look something like this.
((NATS))
((Tommy George, Master Luthier, GeorgeBanjos.com))

I wanted a banjo when I was a teenager, so I mowed yards around my neighborhood to raise money, and I bought a banjo, and I said, maybe I can improve it. So, I started trying to improve that one and thought, I could make one a little better than that and a little better than that and then on up till today. As I sell one, you know, I don’t take the money or spend it. I kind of put it back in. I’ll buy more parts to make more banjos. The next one I do may sound different. It may sound better. It may not sound as good as the last one. I always say if you use good parts and you put it together right, you’re going to have a good banjo.
((NATS))
((Christian Stanfield, Content Manager, GeorgeBanjos.com))

I like making banjos. I like working with wood. I like working with inlay. I like working with customers. I like working with people to help them take their vision and make something real out of it.
((NATS))</sub>