Johnny Coleman, associate professor of art and African American studies at Oberlin, has been researching the origin and history of the banjo. Part art form and part musical mastery, the instrument carries a legacy of racism and stereotypes. It's popularity in America, says Coleman, proliferated with minstrel shows, in which white performers would smear burnt cork on their faces and “act the fool.”

“Early on, the banjo was ubiquitous wherever there were black folks,” Coleman says. “As minstrelsy took off, its popularity exploded.”

His research led him to Jeffrey Menzies, a sculptor, banjo maker, and musician in Ontario. Menzies was a graduate student in art when he began using the banjo in his sculptures. Together they led the winter-term workshop, crafting banjos out of gourds, wood, and other materials. Coleman says the process involved intensive woodworking.  

“Each student had to cut the gourd and sand it, shape the neck, and surface the fingerboard,” he says. “The base or heel of each neck fits the curved surface of the board wonderfully. They did some pretty fine and highly skilled woodworking, and we got them to that point in six days.

“We had a dinner at the end of the workshop, and the students played their banjos. They're just beautiful instruments,” he adds.

Primitive gourd banjos are long gone because of decay, but would have been made from calabash gourds. Menzies buys his gourds from an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania.

“The gourd instrument is still played today, but most of us have not been aware of the history of the instrument,” Coleman says. “In the early 19th century, many European Americans started to learn it from African Americans primarily in the south, the Carolinas, and Virginia.”

The banjo began to evolve as woodworkers found a way to standardize the instrument, first by stretching animal skin over the rim and using tack heads. “Then, when it was fretted, it really changed the voice of the instrument. In African hands, it was a vocal instrument much like a viola or cello because it was fretless,” Coleman says. “The way it evolved, it took the relationship in which a saxophone is played in jazz—it follows the human voice.

As the banjo became more akin to European fretted instruments, steel strings and adjustable necks were added. “The research has indicated a fifth string was added in mid-19th century,” Coleman says. “All these innovations happened over many years. Now, it's a high-tension instrument with steel rim under a plastic skin head and steel strings.”

For Menzies, interest in the banjo coincided with his sculpture practice. “As instrument and sculpture progressed, they became closer and closer as a process,” he says.

In addition to his large collection of banjos, Menzies plays fiddle, upright base, and guitar. “I have a strong interest in the history of the art form,” he says. “I like everything about the instrument, from its history up to its contemporary style. My background was making steel string banjos. The gourd banjo came out of my sculpture work, since I was using gourd as form.”

Menzies says the winter-term workshop was the first he's ever given on a college campus, and he plans to come back to work with Coleman in the future.  

Coleman says his instrument is not yet finished, but he will demonstrate the banjo in a Blues Aesthetic seminar that he's teaching this spring. He will also incorporate his research on the history of the banjo for a new course on material culture, specifically how it transformed the New World.