136 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
Sweeney began learning from slaves in Virginia, probably in the late 1820s; by
the 1830s Sweeney was passing on their playing techniques to white perform-
ers like Billy W hitlock. The early minstrel banjo, which gave the ensemble its
distinctive character, did not sound like a modern banjo. Its body was larger,
the fi ngerboard had no frets, and its fi ve gut strings were tuned well below the
modern pitch. The sound was therefore fuller and suited to its role as a melody
instrument.
That two of the early minstrel band’s four members played small, portable
percussion instruments testifi es to the group’s emphasis on rhythm, timbre,
and body movement over melody and harmony. One member played bones:
usually the rib or leg bones of a cow or pig, sawed into segments about six inches
long. The sound, resembling that of castanets, is made by holding a pair of bones
in either hand and clicking them together, enabling a skilled player to produce
complex rhythmic patterns. It has long been a feature of Irish music, where
modern players often use hardwood replicas or even metal spoons instead of
actual bones, and the practice probably came to the United States from there.
The tambourine, an ancient percussion instrument of Near Eastern origin, is
a hand drum with metal jingles attached to the frame. It can be struck with the
fi ngers for accents and also shaken to provide a layer of shimmering sound.
Compared to a modern tambourine, the minstrel instrument was larger and
had fewer jingles.
Judging by the instruments most often mentioned in ex-slave narratives, the
four core instruments of the minstrel band were indeed those most commonly
played by American slaves. That only one of the four was clearly of African ori-
gin serves as a reminder of the adaptability of African American culture in the
early United States. The heterogeneous sound of the minstrel band resembles
the similar ensembles described in early accounts of slave music making such as
the 1756 Election Day celebration described in chapter 4.SONGS OF THE EARLY MINSTREL SHOWS
The advent of the minstrel show brought a need for a new kind of stage song. The
most popular new songs of the 1840s added to the cast of stereotyped black charac-
ters begun by Jim Crow and Zip Coon. “Miss Lucy Long” (1842) is a comic love song
attributed to Billy Whitlock, the Virginia Minstrels’ banjo player, who probably took
the song in whole or in part from a folk source. The song’s persona—the character
who seems to be singing or narrating to the audience—praises the title character in
ludicrous terms, offering to marry her but suggesting the limits of his love:
Oh Miss Lucy’s teeth is grinning
Just like an ear ob corn,
And her eyes dey look so winning!
Oh would I’d ne’er been born....
If she makes a scolding wife
As sure as she was born,
I’ll tote her down to Georgia
And trade her off for Corn.
Miss Lucy would have been impersonated on the minstrel stage by a man, add-
ing cross-dressing to racial masquerade.bones and tambourine172028_06_132-161_r3_ko.indd 136 23/01/13 8:19 PM