Classic Banjo, out August 6, features tracks by the best American banjo players over the past 60 years. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings The banjo conjures American musical icons: the ...

Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5293105/5293208" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Forty ...

Beyonce’s hit “Texas Hold ’Em” opens with a beat seldom heard on hip-hop tracks: the unmistakable clip-clop of a four-stringed clawhammer banjo. It comes via folk icon Rhiannon Giddens, who was ...

PENDLETON -- Vern Marr attaches a carved maple neck to the body of a clawhammer banjo he's building in his cluttered Pendleton studio. This rodeo town might be better known for custom saddle makers ...

For over a decade Abigail Washburn, a singer-songwriter and clawhammer banjo player, knew she wanted to help improve Chinese-American relations. She just never thought she’d be doing it through song.

Forty years ago, a young man named Charles Faurot traveled from New York City to southwestern Virginia looking for older traditional banjo players to record for a tiny country-music record label. He ...