aspect ratio fifteen: the ebony hillbillies live at lincoln center

PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT MAX SINGER 2006 – 2011

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One of the last black string bands in the US, the Hillbillies keep an important legacy alive with a rootsy style that was a key element in the genesis of "American" music. "Documented fiddling by black players goes back to the 1600s in New York," fiddler Henrique Prince says.The banjo, of course, came to these shores from West Africa, where it was fretless and made from a gourd. The African version of the fiddle has one string. "String music is the folk music of Africa, not drums," Prince said."

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MAX SINGER
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	PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT MAX SINGER 2006 – 2011 TO BROWSE THE PUBLICATION, CLICK ON THE COVER IMAGE ABOVE TO OPEN A FLASH-BASED FLIPBOOK. One of the last black string bands in the US, the Hillbillies keep an important legacy alive with a rootsy style that was a key element in the genesis of "American" music. "Documented fiddling by black players goes back to the 1600s in New York," fiddler Henrique Prince says.The banjo, of course, came to these shores from West Africa, where it was fretless and made from a gourd. The African version of the fiddle has one string. "String music is the folk music of Africa, not drums," Prince said." VISIT THE EBONY HILLBILLIES WEBSITE BACK TO TOP BACK TO TOP to receive aspect ratio by e-mail, contact me and write signup in the subject line MAX SINGER 176 EAST 81ST STREET NEW YORK CITY 10028 1.212.288.2239 MAX@MAXSINGER.COM		also in this issue :: BEHIND THE SHOOT Big Apple Hillbillies :: ABOUT MAX SINGER Max Singer is also... Big Apple Hillbillies WHEN TRAVERSING the subway system of New York City, you're likely to encounter all kinds of curiosities; but one thing that's going to inspire a double take, even among the most jaded city dwellers, is *the Ebony Hillbillies. You'll hear them before you see them, the haunting sounds of banjo, fiddle, and washboard drifting down the hallways over the constant hum of rushing trains. And then you'll see them: four older black men pickin' and strummin' for hours on end. People in New York are used to musicians playing in public," explains Henrique Prince, the band's fiddler and vocalist. "But there aren't a lot of bands playing what we play and certainly not a lot of bands that look like us." THE BAND— which includes Norris Bennett* on guitar, dulcimer, and mountain banjo; *"Salty Bill" Salter* on double bass and vocals; *Newman Baker* on washboard, spoons, and percussion; and *Gloria Gassaway* on bones and vocals — has been together for more than a decade, although they've collaborated in different guises since the 1980s. "A long time ago, I got the idea to play in a band that was sort of dance music based on old fiddle music, and I eventually found people who are just as crazy as I was," Prince says. "THIS IS GOING TO BE a great shock to you — you might want to hold on to something — but the oldest made board banjo in the United States was found up in Carytown, N.Y.," Prince says. The string band originated as a sub-genre of old time music, played using a variety of stringed instruments, usually led by a fiddle, and eventually joined by the banjo (an instrument with African origins). It was most popular from the 1890s to the 1930s, pre-dating bluegrass and the country music that we're familiar with today. ACCORDING TO PRINCE, the tunes they play are rare because they're based on music that was popular before recording began." Nobody's ever heard the bands from the era before the Civil War and afterward," he says. "There are pictures of bands with a tambourine player, a bones player, a fiddler, and a banjo, but no one had really heard those bands, because they existed before there was recorded music. The only reports are of how there was great dance music that was trying to adopt a feel." *The Ebony Hillbillies* make great pains to capture that "feel" while improvising and moving forward to create new music. BACK TO TOP about max singer Besides working in the medium of digital photography, Max Singer is also an award-winning cartoonist, illustrator, artist and designer whose work has appeared in numerous national publications including ArtNews, the NY Times and NY Magazine, to name but a few. Max was associated with the world-famous Push Pin Studio. His unique, colorful and bold illustrative style of imagery has been exhibited widely both in his homebase of New York City, in particular at such music and club venues such as the Knitting Factory, as well as various outsider and contemporary venues in his spiritual home of New Orleans, and was featured in the documentary Blood Brothers: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Max is an active member of the New Orleans Photo Alliance. BACK TO TOP all photographs/images copyright max singer 2006-2011. website: www.maxsinger.com contact: max@maxsinger.com