Pity the Poor Banjo

While thumbing through a Far Side book, I glimpsed a banjo in one of the cartoons. Before reading the caption, I anticipated a satirical reference to that humble instrument. Sure enough, the cartoon depicted the Devil escorting an orchestra conductor into a small room filled with grinning hicks playing banjos. The Devil, with his hand around the conductor's shoulder, smiles and says, "Here's where you spend eternity, Maestro." As an amateur banjo player, I take issue with such affronts against my humble instrument, and feel compelled to defend the integrity of the long suffering banjo.

Somehow the banjo became a pariah in the instrument world. Indeed, the word "banjo" conjures up images of dentally-challenged hillbillies, sitting on hay bales and swilling moonshine. That eerie kid in the film "Deliverance" didn't help, and Hee Haw's pickin' and grinnin' hardly enhanced this reputation. Such shenanigans, although injurious, need not disqualify the banjo from the family of legitimate musical instruments.

Probably more than any other group, classical music enthusiasts despise the banjo, regarding it as a primitive contraption far beneath their dignity. To them, a musician playing banjo in an orchestra parallels a clown dancing the hokey pokey in the Bolshoy Ballet. Accordingly, you'll never hear the New York Philharmonic perform "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" or hear Placido Domingo sing "Wabash Cannonball." Even though banjo music is not conducive to highbrow culture, I'd venture to say banjo players dedicate themselves to their instruments no less seriously than violinists, flutists, or the guys who bang those god-awful cymbals.

Of course, this bias in musical appreciation is not limited to the classical genre. Pop, jazz, rap, and even many country music enthusiasts perceive the banjo as the persona non grata of the musical realm. Inject a banjo into any of these bands, and it will grate their teeth like fingernails on a chalkboard. Yet, I could just as well say their guitars, drums and keyboards spoil the good banjo music.

Guitar players in particular attract inordinate attention at the banjo's expense. Ask someone about famous guitarists and they'll rattle off numerous household names. Ask the same guy to name an accomplished banjo player and he'll rub his chin and say something like,"That fat guy on Hee Haw. What's his name? Junior something?" Of course the few remaining bluegrass enthusiasts swell with admiration for their banjo-picking heroes. But for every Scruggs, there are a hundred Hendrix's. In short, guitars signify the Obama's of the musical world, whereas banjos represent the McCain's.

For further evidence of this disparity, go to a newstand and you'll see numerous magazines with names like "Guitar Aficionado" but you'd be hard-pressed to find a single publication dedicated to banjos. Indeed, when did you last hear the term "Banjo aficionado?" Even the sound of that term smacks oxy-moronic. In the ultimate example of the banjo's relative unpopularity, gorgeous girls flock to guitar players while banjo players must settle for the Janet Reno look-alikes; or, as a last resort, they sneak back alone to their room for some solitary strummin' and a'grinnin'.

Our culture's open season on banjo humor further demonstrates rampant disrespect. Although political correctness discourages stereotypical humor targeting ethnic, racial, and religious minorities, banjo players remain immune to such redemption. Indeed, my own brother, a drummer, referenced a bluegrass musician crossing an international border. The police guard opens the guy's banjo case and sees it's full of explosives. Setting the lid down, the guard wipes his brow and says, "That's a relief. For a minute I thought there was a banjo in there." If you see humor in that affront, you have only proven how vulnerable the banjo remains to wanton ridicule.

While the world scorns the long-suffering banjo, however I'll remain forever devoted to mine--regardless of the repercussions. Someday I'll visit Beethoven's final resting place and pick "Moonlight Sonata," until he moans in his grave; and if it offends the Maestros, they can go to the Devil and serve eternity in that roomful of banjo pickers. As for me, I'd gnash my teeth just as much in a room full of high-falutin' dandies, droning on with their stuffy symphonies. Now that would really be hell.