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39 albums · 1924–2021

The banjo, from old-time music and bluegrass to early jazz, Irish music and the concert hall

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

A five-string banjo with a round resonator and inlaid neck in a glass case, a panel on Earl Scruggs behind it
Rows of decorated four-string banjos with gold-plated, carved resonators in glass casesEarl Scruggs, white-haired in a dark jacket, playing a banjo at the microphone outdoors
A Gibson Earl Scruggs Standard five-string banjo in the American Banjo Museum, Oklahoma City. Photo: Jacqke, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Four-string banjos of the jazz age in the American Banjo Museum. Photo: Jacqke, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Earl Scruggs at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, San Francisco, in 2009. Photo: Eric Frommer, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The banjo is a drum with a neck: its strings run over a skin or plastic head stretched across a round frame, and its notes ring bright and die away fast. It grew from gourd instruments that enslaved Africans made in the Americas. The five-string banjo has a short fifth string that drones beside the melody; the tenor banjo has four strings and is played with a pick.

Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole and Dock Boggs recorded the old-time music of the South in the 1920s. Earl Scruggs's three-finger rolls, first with Bill Monroe and then with Lester Flatt, made the sound of bluegrass, and Béla Fleck took the banjo into jazz and the concert hall. Elmer Snowden played it in the jazz of the twenties, and We Banjo 3 play the tenor banjo in Irish music. The Carolina Chocolate Drops learned the string band music of North Carolina's Piedmont from the fiddler Joe Thompson.

The list has 39 records from 1924 to 2021; the oldest are later collections, dated by the first year of their recordings. Records where a banjo plays in the band behind a singer are left out. About 30 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

What it sounds like

The Carnival of Venice, arranged for the banjo, an Edison record of 1917Alfred A. Farland, banjo

Recording, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

By genre

Folk & Country 45%Jazz 7%Rock 4%Other 44%
  • Folk & Country 45%
  • Jazz 7%
  • Rock 4%
  • Other 44%

The genres named most: banjo, bluegrass, folk, jazz, country, old-time.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 3 countries: United States 36, Ireland 2, Canada 1. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1920s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

  • DriveBéla Fleck · 1988

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Instruments first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.

29 albums · 1976–2024

The kora of Mali, the harp-lute of the jeli

· 1 min read

The kora is the harp-lute of the jeli, the griots of Mali, Guinea, Senegal and the Gambia: 21 strings over a large calabash covered in cowhide, played with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands.

World 89%Blues 3%Classical 3%Other 5%
  • World 89%
  • Blues 3%
  • Classical 3%
  • Other 5%

Read and see the list