In 1963, when the folk-music trend made a young Greg Deering want to learn to play the banjo, his mother said no. But he was obsessed, desperate to create the sounds he had heard on a Kingston Trio ...

Early American banjo music is Black music. The banjo was created by enslaved African Americans, and according to the Smithsonian Institute, up until the 1830s, the banjo was exclusively an African ...

Hand the banjo man a stringed instrument, and he'll pick you a tune fine enough to make Bill Monroe, the so-called father of bluegrass, perk up his ears. Hand him a cigar box, a car tag and a guitar ...

When the notes of a favorite song come on the radio or the first line of a favorite hymn is heard, the power of memory can ...

Fast forward to May of this year, when the band released its followup to Babel, Wilder Mind. The album was notable more for what it lacked than for what it featured, and what it lacked was banjo.