Gourd Banjo by Jeff Menzies, with Fiddle and Guitar

The gourd banjo is the earliest form of what we now know as the banjo, with direct ancestral roots to Africa.It is well-established that it was the African slaves in America who invented the gourd banjo. The gourd banjo pre-dates the tackhead and minstrel banjos by at least a century. The gourd banjo, and its descendents, the tackhead and minstrel banjos, ultimately became a primary fixture in Appalachian folk music, which evolved into what we now call “Old-Time” or “Roots” music, a distinctly American blend of African and Scots-Irish music. This music ultimately evolved into Bluegrass music in the 20th Century. The original gourd banjos were unfretted, but some were retrofit with tied gut frets much like those used on the viola da gamba and the Renaissance fiddle.