A new sound in the air, and growing louder, is made by a musical instrument most young hipsters have never seen. Take a vellum drumhead with a fretted neck attached, string it with four or five strings, and pluck. Such an instrument worked for U.S. Negroes in the days of slavery, and its name may be derived from bandore or pandura (a lutelike musical device of North Africa). It is called the banjo.
Last week the National Association of Music Merchants was holding its convention in Chicago's Palmer House and talking about the banjo boom. "In the second quarter of this year...
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