Afro-Caribbean Roots of the Banjo with Tony Thomas

Banjo Quest and Tom Collins present a three part talk with Tony Thomas, African American banjo scholar on the African and Caribbean origins of the banjo.

Tony's bio:

Tony Thomas is the leading African American scholar of the banjo. He published the first scholarly article on the banjo written by an African American called “Why African Americans Put the Banjo Down,” which was a contribution to Duke University Press’s Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music published in July 2013.

His “The Banjo and African American Musical Culture” was published online in 2014 by the Oxford African American Studies Center, an online resource maintained by Oxford University Press, following their publication of biographical entries on African American Fiddler Joe Thompson and on the legend of the 19th century banjo figure Picayune Butler.

His research on Black banjoist Gus Cannon “The Colored Champion Banjo Pugilist of the World and the Big World of the Banjo,” a chapter in University of Illinois Press’s anthology Banjo Roots and Branches, published in 2018 by University of Illinois Press, as part of its Music in American Life Serie

Thomas was one of the advisors to the Marc Fields PBS Film "Give Me the Banjo” in which he appears. He was also an adviser to and a major participant in Jim Carrier’s film on Dena Epstein, The Librarian and the Banjo

Thomas has presented many times at the Banjo Collectors Gathering, the central banjo history conference, as well as at Banjo Camp North, the Suwanee Banjo Camp, and the Blue Ridge Old Time Music Week at Mars Hill College, and Britain’s “Sweet Sunny South” Festival. He has performed as a banjoist, guitarist, and singer as a solo performer at concerts, and at old time music, banjo, folk, and blues festivals across the United States, as well as in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. He has also worked as banjoist and guitarist with New York’s Ebony Hillbillies.

He holds a Master of Fine Art in Creative Writing from Florida International University and has published literary fiction and poetry as well as on African American and African studies since the 1960s.