Clawhammer banjo, while sometimes used to play classical, Irish or other musical styles, is basically music from the Appalachian mountains, and complements the primary instrument the fiddle. Eno, a ...

Beyonce’s hit “Texas Hold ’Em” opens with a beat seldom heard on hip-hop tracks: the unmistakable clip-clop of a four-stringed clawhammer banjo. It comes via folk icon Rhiannon Giddens, who was ...

Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5293105/5293208" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Forty ...

No really, it's true. If you stumble upon the Hancock Recreation Center some Wednesday evening, you'll encounter a group of musicians sitting near a corner of the dance floor and playing banjos, ...

PENDLETON -- Vern Marr attaches a carved maple neck to the body of a clawhammer banjo he's building in his cluttered Pendleton studio. This rodeo town might be better known for custom saddle makers ...

Steve Martin knows banjo playing and works hard to keep the tradition alive, establishing an annual award given to players who excel on the instrument. This year, the Steve Martin Banjo Prize ...

Banjo-maker Vern Marr takes a break during lunch earlier this month to strum a banjo built in the 1880s when Pendleton was still a wild and woolly frontier town. “I get more satisfaction fixing old ...

Kaia Kater has played the banjo since she was 11 years old, explaining that the instrument's sound caught her "instantly." Now, almost two decades later, she's still playing on her third album, ...

The banjo gets a bum rap. A staple of American country music, its bright tone and rhythmic clangor threaten to overwhelm musical gatherings of other, milder string-band instruments, such as guitar, ...