Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Paul Smith
A trail of research, construction, writing and recording leads to a performance Saturday at the Dahmen Barn by Paul Smith of Palouse, whose album, “American Akonting” came out last year, the culmination of a study of the West African instrument understood to be the precursor to the banjo.
Smith, a Palouse resident since 1991 and former instructor of world music and world history at WSU, first considered the akonting in 1992 as a graduate student at the University of San Diego.
With the first transcription of a black banjo player published in 1901, Smith looked farther back, to before 1850, when Thomas Jefferson and others wrote of seeing black banjo players while nothing further was recorded.
“People described seeing it, but nobody preserved the music,” Smith said.
He realized he needed to make an instrument.
He built his first akonting, or gourd banjo, in 1992, then a second one in 2010, soon after which he started on the recording of what became the “American Akonting” album.
Working at his home studio, as Smith modified the instrument he built, he scrapped previous versions of the record.
“I made one, I threw it out,” he said. “I changed something about the instrument and oh, this is so much better.”
The final recording includes guest players Richard Kriehn, Lisa O’Leary, and Rob Ely.
Smith’s first recording on banjo, the album “Mysterious Barricades,” was released on Flying Fish Records (Chicago) in 1982.
He will play selections from “American Akonting” in Uniontown from 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. Saturday at the Dahmen Barn, then at the Spokane Folk Festival Nov. 11. At Uniontown, he will appear with the group Bigger Boat. Cost is $15.
“I’m going to do a set, they’re gonna do a set, then we’ll do some pieces together,” Smith said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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