Andrew Baxter, African-American fiddle player, and Jim Baxter, African-American-Cherokee singer/guitar player, were a father and son fiddle/guitar duet from Gordon County, Georgia who recorded in the 1920s. The Georgia Yellow Hammers and the Baxters traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina to record for Victor in the summer of 1927. Because of the Jim Crow laws, the Baxters had to ride several cars behind the Yellow Hammers on the train ride to Charlotte.
DeFord Bailey (December 14, 1899 – July 2, 1982) was an Americancountry music and blues star from the 1920s until 1941. Bailey was both the first performer to be introduced as playing on the Grand Ole Opry and also the first African-American performer on the show. He played several instruments but is best known for his harmonica tunes.
One of the first interracial recording sessions for this genre. In the photo of this band Taylor, who was their manager and not a musician, is holding the fiddle. Jim Booker (who is African American) doesn't appear in it, though he fiddled on all the band's recordings.
Elizabeth Cotton - North Carolina Folk Songs And Tunes. Music from 1958.
As a young man, singer/songwriter Jimmy Collier helped dismantle segregation in the South through the power of music. He shares his experiences traveling with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and transforming African-American spirituals into civil rights anthems.
Back in the early 80's Yolanda Diamond was ahead of her time being coined the First Black Country Western Singer. She has performed country hits for audiences around the country.
Minstrelsy evolved from several different American entertainment traditions; the traveling circus, medicine shows, shivaree, Irish dance and music with African syncopated rhythms, musical halls and traveling theatre.
From the Science Channel's Series, "How It's Made." Construction of a banjo.
Ekona Diatta, master of the Jola akonting (ekonting) plays at kanjunka. Kanjunka is near the village of Mlomp in southern Senegal. We are on the Southern shore of the Cassamance River. The Jolas of Mlomp relate that the Jola people received the akonting (ekonting) form their neighbors the Manjagos at some time in the distant past, right here in Kanjanka.
The akonting (or ekonting) is one of almost 60 documented plucked spike lutes found in West Africa, and is considered by some musicologists to be (at the least) one of the primary ancestors of the African/American instrument which became the gourd banjo. Despite its simple appearance, the akonking is capable of sophisticated and fascinating musical expression. It is now, however, only rarely played in the Senegambia -- the region of its origin.