Black Appalachia: When the Banjo Climbed the Mountains
The banjo may sound inseparable from Appalachia, but its story began an ocean away. In this Echoes & Footprints Showcase, we trace the instrument’s journey from its West African relatives through the Caribbean and American South and into the Appalachian Mountains.
Along the way, African musical traditions met European fiddle tunes, ballads, and mountain communities, helping shape a distinctly American sound. We explore the often-overlooked contributions of Black Appalachians and musicians such as Arnold Shultz, Lesley Riddle, and DeFord Bailey—and the musical conversations that helped lay the groundwork for bluegrass.
The mountains didn’t create the banjo. They welcomed it.
The Beat remembers. The Beat is the History.
References
Conway, C. (1995). African banjo echoes in Appalachia: A study of folk traditions. University of Tennessee Press.
Dubois, L. (2016). The banjo: America’s African instrument. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Foster, P. E. (2003). Black Appalachian music in the mountains and beyond. Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Smithsonian Folklife Festival (https://festival.si.edu/articles/2003/black-appalachian-music-in-the-mountains-and-beyond?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Library of Congress. (n.d.). African-American banjo music: Resources in the American Folklife Center. Library of Congress research guide (https://guides.loc.gov/African-american-banjo?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. (n.d.). Black musicians’ quest to return the banjo to its African roots. Smithsonian Folklife (https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/black-banjo-reclamation-project-african-roots?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Smithsonian Institution. (n.d.). Banjos at the Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution (https://www.si.edu/spotlight/banjos-smithsonian?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Winans, R. B. (Ed.). (2018). Banjo roots and branches. University of Illinois Press.
28 Sept 2026
Profile: Arnold Shultz - The Blues Before Bluegrass
Before bluegrass had a name, a Black guitarist and fiddler named Arnold Shultz was carrying blues, syncopation, and innovative guitar techniques through the coal towns and dance halls of western Kentucky.
Born in 1886, Shultz became one of the region’s most admired musicians, performing for both Black and white audiences during the Jim Crow era. His distinctive guitar style combined a steady bass pulse with melody, chords, syncopation, and fluid runs between chords—techniques that helped expand the guitar beyond its traditional role as a rhythm instrument.
Among the young musicians who encountered Shultz was Bill Monroe, who would later become known as the father of bluegrass. Monroe played dances with Shultz and later acknowledged the importance of Shultz’s blues playing and chord-to-chord runs to his own musical development. Shultz’s influence also traveled through western Kentucky’s guitar community, connecting musicians such as Kennedy Jones and Mose Rager with the thumb-picking tradition later associated with Merle Travis and Chet Atkins.
No known recording of Arnold Shultz survives. His story instead comes to us through oral histories, musicians who remembered him, and the musical ideas passed from one generation to another. His life demonstrates that bluegrass did not develop within a single musical or racial tradition. It emerged from encounters among African American blues, old-time fiddle music, gospel, popular music, dance music, and the musicians who shared those traditions.
In 2025, Arnold Shultz was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame—recognition of a musician whose influence had traveled through American music for nearly a century.
Arnold Shultz: The Blues Before Bluegrass asks us to listen for the musicians history did not record, but whose fingerprints remain in the music we hear today.
The beat remembers. The beat IS the history.
References
Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum. (2025). Arnold Shultz. https://www.bluegrasshall.org/inductees/arnold-shultz/ (https://www.bluegrasshall.org/inductees/arnold-shultz/)
International Bluegrass Music Association Foundation. (2020, October 22). Arnold Shultz: The greatest (?) guitar picker’s life ended before promise realized. https://bluegrassfoundation.org/2020/10/22/arnold-shultz-the-greatest-guitar-pickers-life-ended-before-promise-realized/ (https://bluegrassfoundation.org/2020/10/22/arnold-shultz-the-greatest-guitar-pickers-life-ended-before-promise-realized/)
Kentucky Educational Television. (2019). Big family: The story of bluegrass music [Documentary]. PBS.
Kentucky Educational Television. (2019, August 30). Bill Monroe’s formative years [Video]. PBS.
Rooney, J. (1971). Bossmen: Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters. Dial Press.
21 Sept 2026
"I Feel Love": When the Future Learned the Ancient Groove
In 1977, Donna Summer and producer Giorgio Moroder created a record that seemed to arrive from the future. But beneath the synthesizers, sequencers, and electronic precision of “I Feel Love” lies an ancient approach to music-making: independent, repeating patterns combining to create a groove that belongs to no single voice.
This Echoes & Footprints Showcase explores how the song’s interlocking layers echo rhythmic traditions from West and Central Africa—and how its hypnotic architecture helped lay the foundation for Chicago house and generations of electronic dance music. The future didn’t invent a new groove. It discovered an ancient way of building one.
This episode includes a brief excerpt of “I Feel Love” for educational commentary and analysis.
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