Junk Box Jury

Taken from the LP ‘Banjo Party Time’ | (Music For Pleasure MFP 1279) 1968

The banjo is an instrument with a hazy history, and all we can say with certainty is that it was used in Africa some centuries ago, and became the predominant instrument of the Negro slaves in America.

With the immense popularity of the blackface minstrel groups in the last century the banjo became the most widespread of all musical instruments with the possible exception of the piano.

Its popularity has lasted to the present day, a popularity which is easily explained by its in expensive construction and the fact that it is an instrument for the beginner, although there are no limits to the virtuosity which may be displayed on it by an expert.

exciting instrument

But above all it is the banjo’s brilliant percussive tone which makes it such an attractive and exciting instrument, ideally suited for the bright syncopated tune which were in vogue at the beginning of this century, and many of which have lost none of their vitality today.

On this wonderful album an orchestra of banjos under the direction of Geoff Love play some of till hardiest ragtime hits, from the classic “Bill Bailey”, “Won’t You Please Come Home?”, written at the beginning of the century, to “Baby Face” a ‘twenties number which was so notably revived for the film ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’.

The Geoff Love Banjos | Cover Version | Margie

Another classic is “Margie”, written in 1920 and surely one of the most popular songs of the century, while that lasting favourite “How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm (after they’ve seen Paree)” was born when the troops came back from Europe after the First World War.

“He’d Have to Get Under—Get Out and Get Under—to Fix Up His Automobile”, to give it its full title, was a hit of 1913, and “California, Here I Come” began its long career when Al Jolson brought it into his hit revue of the early ‘twenties ‘Bombo’.

sparkle and gaiety

“I’m Just Wild About Harry” was the hit song from a very successful all-Negro revue of 1921, ‘Shuffle Along’.

Here is a record packed with the sparkle and gaiety that so often seems to be lost from today’s pop music, a real party of a record—Geoff Love’s Banjo Party. (Blase Machin)

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cost of record: 50p
from: charity shop