Pete Ross Crafts Gourd Banjos, Ranging From His Own Design To Replicas Of Historic Instruments
“I was always like a record store hound since I was in elementary school and so I started working record stores and I worked at weird indy stores. Yeah, like underground music they're cool back in the 80s. And yeah, and but those stores often had like a strong kind of roots music component as well and by chance I heard a recording that been a field recording of a fiddle and banjo player made in the 40 or 41 and I just put it on because I had to keep something playing in the store right. I wasn't really paying attention because it was busy and then a few songs played and I was like man what is this. I had heard bluegrass and stuff like that before, but this didn't sound at all like that. It was like way more acerbic and emotionally direct. It really had a coarseness to it that probably appealed to my ears because of all this sort of harsh underground music I'd listen to. But the other thing that was interesting to me about it was that they were both African American musicians. I didn't really know what it was and if it had been just sort of filed in the blues section, yes. Whoever filed it didn't know, either. And, you know, I knew there were some customers in the store, who are really into like, 78. Collecting and really, really rich music collecting. And so I played it for one of them. And he's like, yeah, that's pretty good. And I was trying to get a feel for what it was. He didn't say much. And then he came into the store, like a few weeks later, and he says, Hey, Pete, you still listen to that country music? I was like, Is that what that is? Like? I didn't really know because I didn't quite sound like anything I'd heard. So it's sort of the idea of African Americans playing this music that I always thought it was kind of the most cracker fire music out there. It was a revelation. And then I'm just curious. I started reading more about the history of that music and then the instrument specifically. I found out that the banjo itself was an African American instrument originally. I found out pretty quickly, at least at that point, it seemed that none from that earliest period of history had survived. I was just so driven to learn more about it. I realized to hear one play, I had to make it myself. So that's what got me started,” said Pete Ross.
Kristan was shocked about how much Pete knew about the history of this beautiful instrument and who knew the banjo had a connection to Baltimore.
“The earliest commercial maker was here. The instrument was played by African Americans here as well at the tobacco plantations on the eastern shore. I was sort of exploring my identity, somebody from a state that doesn't carry a lot of cultural identity in the minds of the rest of Americans. But I was sort of discovering like, this is the place where these things happened, right? But it was a southern state that even though didn't join the Confederacy, the economics here grew around mass force labor to Kansas, growing tobacco here, right. And it was important that wasn't forgotten either. So I started, like, how much do you identify with that? Well, not really. But it's also I didn't grow up in Baltimore. I grew up in Maryland. So that all played in my mind. I had spent some time in high school in Baltimore come up here to see the punk bands and all in the little crappy little clubs and abandoned buildings. So I got to know the lay of the land. As you grow closer DC as DC having more intensely gentrified, the sort of more blue collar surroundings, and Baltimore, just like, I felt more comfortable with it. Like I said before, you know, it's sort of the perfect place to have sort of delete that kind of bohemian lifestyle because you don't have to devote so much of your lifetime,” said Pete.
Kristan learned more about Pete’s mentors, musicians he crafted banjos for, his time growing up in Maryland, the step-by-step process on how he crafts his banjos and so much more.
To learn more about Pete’s craft visit his website and Instagram.
Photo Credit: Matt Sprague
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