Pete Ross
Photo Credit: Matt Sprague
“I was always like a record store hound since I was in elementary school and so I started working record stores and I worked at weird indy stores. Yeah, like underground music they're cool back in the 80s. And yeah, and but those stores often had like a strong kind of roots music component as well and by chance I heard a recording that been a field recording of a fiddle and banjo player made in the 40 or 41 and I just put it on because I had to keep something playing in the store right. I wasn't really paying attention because it was busy and then a few songs played and I was like man what is this. I had heard bluegrass and stuff like that before, but this didn't sound at all like that. It was like way more acerbic and emotionally direct. It really had a coarseness to it that probably appealed to my ears because of all this sort of harsh underground music I'd listen to. But the other thing that was interesting to me about it was that they were both African American musicians. I didn't really know what it was and if it had been just sort of filed in the blues section, yes. Whoever filed it didn't know, either. And, you know, I knew there were some customers in the store, who are really into like, 78. Collecting and really, really rich music collecting. And so I played it for one of them. And he's like, yeah, that's pretty good. And I was trying to get a feel for what it was. He didn't say much. And then he came into the store, like a few weeks later, and he says, Hey, Pete, you still listen to that country music? I was like, Is that what that is? Like? I didn't really know because I didn't quite sound like anything I'd heard. So it's sort of the idea of African Americans playing this music that I always thought it was kind of the most cracker fire music out there. It was a revelation. And then I'm just curious. I started reading more about the history of that music and then the instrument specifically. I found out that the banjo itself was an African American instrument originally. I found out pretty quickly, at least at that point, it seemed that none from that earliest period of history had survived. I was just so driven to learn more about it. I realized to hear one play, I had to make it myself. So that's what got me started,” said Pete Ross.
Pete Ross is a banjo maker, researcher, and musician who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Pete is one of the earliest contemporary makers of gourd banjos, ranging from those of his own design to exact replicas of historic instruments. His reconstructions of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century banjos have been featured internationally in museums, art galleries, movies, documentaries, and live performances.
Photo Credit: Matt Sprague
“I quickly met people that are interested in this history, and corresponded with them. I met one guy, my friend Clark, who was living in Arkansas at the time, and he had been building them. But it was pre-internet, so he couldn't really figure out who else was doing it and they hadn't risen to view yet. I was traveling in the country, and I knew I was going to be in Mississippi to meet my girlfriend's grandparents. Clark says, well, while you're in Jackson, you should go meet Scott Didlake. He's been working on this, and he has a lot of same ideas you do about it. Plus, he is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. So I called him up, and he invited me over. He basically asked me to be his apprentice, while he still had time left to pass on what he did,” said Pete.
Kristan was shocked about how much Pete knew about the history of this beautiful instrument and who knew the banjo had a connection to Baltimore.
“The earliest commercial maker was here. The instrument was played by African Americans here as well at the tobacco plantations on the eastern shore. I was sort of exploring my identity, somebody from a state that doesn't carry a lot of cultural identity in the minds of the rest of Americans. But I was sort of discovering like, this is the place where these things happened, right? But it was a southern state that even though didn't join the Confederacy, the economics here grew around mass force labor to Kansas, growing tobacco here, right. And it was important that wasn't forgotten either. So I started, like, how much do you identify with that? Well, not really. But it's also I didn't grow up Baltimore. I grew up in Maryland. So that all played in my mind. I had spent some time in high school in Baltimore come up here to see the punk bands and all in the little crappy little clubs and abandoned buildings. So I got to know the lay of the land. As you grow closer DC as DC having more intensely gentrified, the sort of more blue collar surroundings, and Baltimore, just like, I felt more comfortable with it. Like I said before, you know, it's sort of the perfect place to have sort of delete that kind of bohemian lifestyle because you don't have to devote so much of your lifetime,” said Pete.
Photo Credit: Matt Sprague
Pete explained that the craft of building a gourd banjo has its challenges. He sources most of his materials within the United States and what’s fascinating about each piece he makes, is that they’re not a like, each is different in its own way.
The main challenge is just, you know, constantly wanting to improve, right. And as your skills improve, you're more demanding on yourself, you know, so stuff I might let go or not noticed 10 years ago. The gnashing of teeth and cursing and stuff that goes on in the workshop. I like the challenges when somebody comes or you have sort of a historical or aesthetic concept. I enjoy that, you know, because it's, I don't want to be a factory. You know, there are sort of standard models that people see some, you know, local musician Brad Connors and he plays one and he sounds fantastic on it. People hear it and they want that one. Which is great. I know how to make it. Recently it was one that was fun recently was the Prime Video that did the the adaptation of Colson Whiteheads Underground Railroad? They came to me and wanted a banjo for it. It was fun working with them, because they obviously cared about the history. I made an instrument based on a circa 1800 image, but I altered it, number one to make it more easily playable by a modern day musician. And number two, I was able to incorporate some of the spiritual imagery used by African Americans at that time in place. My girlfriend, Kristina, is now writing a book on the strong connection between the banjo and those spiritual practices. Starting in, again, the late 17th, up to the early, earliest 19th century. So we could because she had the research material in the house as some of this imagery and put that on the banjo,” said Pete.
Kristan learned more about Pete’s mentors, musicians he crafted banjos for, his time growing up in Maryland, the step by step process on how he crafts his banjos and so much more.
To learn more about Pete’s craft visit his website and Instagram.