"The Banjo Entertainers: Roots to Ragtime, A Banjo History" focuses on the hundreds of banjoists who made their living as professional entertainers in years ranging from the minstrel period of the early 1800s into the ragtime era leading into the 20th Century. Highlights include little known as well as famous minstrel banjoists, the showboat Banjo, the rest of the story of elusive banjoist Ferguson, the banjo in the Civil War, the artists of the classic banjo era, the banjo in ragtime, and a rare picture of 1850s banjo star Tom Briggs. The book also touches on related areas in the banjo’s development. Author Lowell H. Schreyer, a former newspaper reporter, relied heavily on the products of his profession in tracing careers and performing routes of these banjoists through pre-Civil War newspapers, entertainment journals and later fretted instrument periodicals. This virtual time travel in print involved years of tedious cranking through microfilm of these publications page by page.
151 B/W photographs and illustrations
Soft cover, 269 pp.
7 ½" X 9 ½"
ISBN: 978-0-9713168-9-8
$35.00
The Eddie Peabody Story chronicles the 50-year show business career of the most influential banjoist of the first half of the 20th Century. It follows Eddie Peabody from his early dance band days following Navy service in World War I through his emergence as a trend-setting plectrum banjo soloist in vaudeville, radio, movies and television. The book also tells of his Navy service as a banjo-playing spy in Nazi Germany prior to World War II and his entertaining of troops in the Pacific during that war.
59 B/W photographs and illustrations
Soft cover, 97 pp.
8 1/4" X 10 3/4"
$20.00