About the Author

Philip F. Gura is William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is an old-time music enthusiast.|James F. Bollman is co-owner and manager of the Music Emporium in Lexington, Massachusetts. He plays clawhammer banjo and has been collecting and researching banjos and banjo-related ephemera for more than thirty years.

Reviews

"America's Instrument is a fascinating, eye-opening read. . . . That this handsome book belongs in the library of every banjo enthusiast barely needs stating, but it is also a gem for anyone interested in folk music, in American studies, and in the development of American popular culture." -- Missouri Folklore Society Journal

"America's Instrument reviews extant banjo history firmly, without antagonism. [The authors] prune from their own new research all but the banjo's technical progress. They watch the banjo change from an African gourd with a neck attached to a twentieth-century machine-made tool able to bounce its yawp off the back of the largest halls. . . . They have written an obsessive book for banjo fanatics, rich in living banjo culture. . . . America's Instrument lavishly details the banjo from the pegface to tailpiece hanger bolt." -- Journal of American History

"American's Instrument is now one of those 'must have' items for 'banjo people.' However, this is a very enjoyable book to look through for anyone, largely because so many incredible photos are of people, not just banjos, staring off the page at us from a century and a half ago. . . . Gura and Bollman have contributed an incredible document to the history of the banjo, and I for one deeply appreciate their effort." -- Béla Fleck, for Mississippi Quarterly

"A clear and extremely detailed account of the banjo in nineteenth-century America. . . . The reader is treated to a feast of illustrations." -- American Historical Review

"Elegant and informative. . . . Gura and Bollman demonstrate more fully than any other writers on the banjo how completely industrial capitalism transformed the instrument itself. . . . Together they help us to better understand the values, goals, strategies, and final instrumental products of the leading nineteenth-century manufacturers of banjos." -- Reviews in American History

"Lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced. . . . Gura and Bollman's rich book makes it clear that the banjo is an essential constituent of what Greil Marcus once called 'that old, weird America.'" -- Times Literary Supplement

"Like a Martin guitar, Philip Gura's book is a pleasure to hold and behold; the prose is accessible and engaging. The illustrations alone . . . reward casual browsing as well as close study." -- Business History Review

"This is and will remain the definitive history of the production, advertisement, and distribution of the banjo in nineteenth-century America. . . . All friends of the banjo will want to own copies of this book, as will anyone interested in the history of the music business in the United States, organologists, and many historians of American culture." -- Music Library Association Notes

"This magnificent . . . book traces the banjo from its origin among slaves attempting to replicate native West African instruments to its central place in American popular culture in the last half of the nineteenth century." -- Boston Globe

"This splendid book . . . is a landmark publication." -- Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society