SHANE'S CHALLENGE: Let's Do Something Cool With Gus Cannon's First Banjo

The Guy on the Left is Gus Cannon. 
Let's Do Something Cool With His History...


Gus Cannon was one of the very first innovators in jug band music.  He lead his Cannon's Jug Stompers in the 1920's and 30's, playing wild, driving blues with banjos, jugs, guitars and more.

Gus Cannon was also the first performer to ever play SLIDE BANJO! on record.  He used a butterknife as a slide:



I've been reading about Cannon and others in the seminal blues history book, The Country Blues by Samuel B. Charters.  My heart nearly skipped a beat when Charters described Cannon's very first instrument, a homemade banjo:

He loved music and wanted to learn how to play the banjo, so he made himself one out of a bread pan that his mother gave him and a guitar neck.  He put the guitar neck through holes in the side of the dough pan, then covered the pan with a raccoon skin, scraped thin.

A lot of country boys made their own banjos this way.  The only unsatisfactory aspect was that there were no elaborate drumhead arrangements, with bolts and screws to keep the skin head tight in damp weather.  Cannon always traveled with his pockets full of crumpled newspaper, and before he was going to play, he would make a fire with the paper and hold the banjo over the heat until the head was tight enough to play.



A Cigar Box Nation member should re-create Gus Cannon's first banjo.  Get the materials...use some ingenuity.  Come on!  It would be so cool to hear what a true turn-of-the-century homemade banjo would sound.

I've done historical builds before and they're a blast!  Blues legend, Scrapper Blackwell started on a cigar box guitar and he described it in an interview, one year before he was murdered.  I took the description and built my own:



It's one thing to read the history.  It's another thing to hold an instrument in your hands that has leaped from the books!  

If you go down this rabbit hole, you'll thank me later.

So who's gonna make Gus Cannon's first banjo?  Post pics below.

Shane

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Thank you for sharing this! One of those round ones would certainly make for an instrument that looked more like a conventional banjo.

thanks for keeping history and the ones who made it alive- 

you do well- and i do appreciate what you do 

J

I'm so on this! A friend of mine is an avid trapper and recently gave me a nicely dried skin - not raccoon - but I'm reluctant to divulge the animal it came from. He says he skunt it and dried it just for me 'cause he likes my instruments. No prize needed - just the fun of doing what I've never tried before!

Several other sources state that he made the banjo from either a frying pan or a bedpan with the coon skin stretched on it. Either of those would most likely be round and I'm guessing he told the story, or it got re-told, a little differently each time. Either way I'm curious to see what builds come from this! I'm going with frying pan and skin of undisclosed animal since that's what I have on hand.

Here's the start using a frying pan

It's nearing completion. Gotta wait about 12 -24 hours for the skin to dry before stringing it up. Not sure what method Gus would've used to attach the skin but I went with self tapping screws.

Interesting ideas here. It's not in keeping with the original banjo, what about a wood top banjo. Here's one I built a couple of years ago.

Cheers Taff 

That is a beauty!

Alright it's finished! I re-did the neck since after reading the post I realized it said Gus used a guitar neck. I grabbed the oldest, crustiest one I had and grafted it on. Here's how it looks. I'll do a demo video later.

Thanks Wayfinder. It's uploading now.

Frying pans never sounded so good!

Yup Scott and I can still smell bacon in it!

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