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"Reminiscences of a Banjo Player", A(lbert) Baur
Albert Baur of Brookville and New York, one of the pioneer banjoists. (Baur had learned the banjo as a boy in the early 1850s and had joined the Union army early in the war Sgt., Co. A, 102nd NY Infantry).
(published in the February, 1893, in an issue of S.S. Stewarts "Banjo and Guitar Journal", a sales journal that sold musical instruments, books, and sheet music. To that end Stewart would somtimes call on old-timers, in this case an old Minstrel performer, to write about CW or antebellum times as they remembered them decades later -- so not to be taken as definitive history but interesting anyway - dw)
"...In 1864 there very few regiments in the service that had more than one wagon for the whole regiment... Strict orders were at all times issued that no baggage must be carried for an enlisted man in any of the wagons...Where theres a will, theres a way, and a few of us managed with the help of a friendly teamster to stow away a tackhead banjo and an accordion...
If the weather was pleasant a crowd would gather around the camp fire, the banjo and accordion having been sneaked out of the wagon and a door from some farm house or a couple of boards having been put on the ground on one side of the fire, the audience would take its place on the opposite side, when the evenings entertainment would be gone through with. It consisted of songs with banjo and accordion accompaniment, stories of home and jig dancing. The performances were crude but helped while away many a lonely hour and remind us of home and friends in the far north.
Owing to poor facilities for keeping the instruments in order, the instrumental part of our entertainments were always the poorest. Sometimes it would be weeks before we could get a (banjo) string, and if the banjo head was broken, it took much time and maneuvering for one of our party to steal into the tent of a drummer and punch a hole in a drum (head) near the shell, after which we would watch that drummers tent with eagle eyes until he took the damaged head and threw it out, when one of the gang would pounce on it and bring it to camp in a round about way. Owing to their thickness, the drum heads did not make very good banjo heads, but they beat nothing clear out of sight. In addition to the banjo and accordion, we had a set of beef bones and a sheet iron mess pan answered for a tambourine. Taking into consideration our surrounding and the disadvantages under which we labored, we had some tolerably good shows and at any rate satisfied our open air audiences..."
(I suppose by the term "accordion" he meant concertina or melodian? - a smaller instrument that could be stuck into the corner of a wagon- dw)
Dan Wykes
Albert Baur of Brookville and New York, one of the pioneer banjoists. (Baur had learned the banjo as a boy in the early 1850s and had joined the Union army early in the war Sgt., Co. A, 102nd NY Infantry).
(published in the February, 1893, in an issue of S.S. Stewarts "Banjo and Guitar Journal", a sales journal that sold musical instruments, books, and sheet music. To that end Stewart would somtimes call on old-timers, in this case an old Minstrel performer, to write about CW or antebellum times as they remembered them decades later -- so not to be taken as definitive history but interesting anyway - dw)
"...In 1864 there very few regiments in the service that had more than one wagon for the whole regiment... Strict orders were at all times issued that no baggage must be carried for an enlisted man in any of the wagons...Where theres a will, theres a way, and a few of us managed with the help of a friendly teamster to stow away a tackhead banjo and an accordion...
If the weather was pleasant a crowd would gather around the camp fire, the banjo and accordion having been sneaked out of the wagon and a door from some farm house or a couple of boards having been put on the ground on one side of the fire, the audience would take its place on the opposite side, when the evenings entertainment would be gone through with. It consisted of songs with banjo and accordion accompaniment, stories of home and jig dancing. The performances were crude but helped while away many a lonely hour and remind us of home and friends in the far north.
Owing to poor facilities for keeping the instruments in order, the instrumental part of our entertainments were always the poorest. Sometimes it would be weeks before we could get a (banjo) string, and if the banjo head was broken, it took much time and maneuvering for one of our party to steal into the tent of a drummer and punch a hole in a drum (head) near the shell, after which we would watch that drummers tent with eagle eyes until he took the damaged head and threw it out, when one of the gang would pounce on it and bring it to camp in a round about way. Owing to their thickness, the drum heads did not make very good banjo heads, but they beat nothing clear out of sight. In addition to the banjo and accordion, we had a set of beef bones and a sheet iron mess pan answered for a tambourine. Taking into consideration our surrounding and the disadvantages under which we labored, we had some tolerably good shows and at any rate satisfied our open air audiences..."
(I suppose by the term "accordion" he meant concertina or melodian? - a smaller instrument that could be stuck into the corner of a wagon- dw)
Dan Wykes