The jumping-off place for this BluesNotes on Diddley Bows is taken from Gerhard Kubik’s wonderful book, Africa & the Blues (University Press of Mississippi, 1999).
Writing about one-stringed instruments, Kubik cites David Evans's wonderful African-American One-Stringed Instruments (Evans, 1970) and goes on to note that:
“Like many other African traditions and culture traits, the idea of the monochord zither seems to have smoldered on through the nineteenth century in an underground existence–perpetuated especially by children–and in the rare cases in which the instrument was perhaps observed by outsiders, was not considered even worthy of report.
Only when systematic research of the southern cultures began in the 1930s, does it become documented through photographs, and it was not recorded until the 1950s.”
This matches my experience with Diddley Bows and one-string instruments exactly. My second CD, Terraplane features two diddley bow tracks: a version of Robert Johnson's If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day, and of Bukka White's Parchman Farm Blues.
LISTEN: Parchman Farm Blues (Bukka White) arr. & recorded by Scott Ainslie
I first heard about these instruments from Romey Plum of the Lake Gaston area in eastern North Carolina, and subsequently from variuous Piedmont blues and gospel musicians.
All these men spoke of these instruments from their childhood with great affection. Many of them made their first sounds on a one-string instrument they built from junk in the backyard, on the side of an outbuilding, or–in the case of Doug Quimby (of the Georgia Sea Island Singers)–the wall outside his mother’s kitchen ("Cut Out That Noise!" she yelled.)
As soon as other instruments became available, one-strings were readily abandoned by the players I knew, but their clear affection for the instruments drove me to try building and playing them in the 1990s.
At a music conservatory in Atlanta, back in the mid-1990s, I demonstrated these instruments and referred to them by the Carolina/Virginia names, a ‘one-string,’ or a ‘cigar box guitar.’
After the presentation, I hopped down off the high stage to the floor of the auditorium (5 feet or so) to talk with students and faculty. But the first guy to get to me was an elderly black gentleman, white hair and whiskers. He wordlessly took my hand and started to shake it. I spoke to him: “I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for coming.”
No response, still shaking hands.
“Did you grow up with music in your family? Did you play?”
Nothing.
After a few minutes of this, surrounded by faculty and students, I simply ran out of things to say and started to let go of his hand. But he would not let go of mine.
I found myself standing, the center of a small group of students and faculty, holding hands with an elderly black man and having no idea what might happened next.
Finally, he spoke: “We didn’t call them one-strings down here.”
He knew the instrument I was speaking about. “What did you call them?” I asked.
“We called them, uh, a Diddley Bow.”
I repeated it, “Diddly Bow,” which he greeted with vigorous handshaking. Then he froze and gripped my hand so tightly I thought tears might jump out of my eyes:
“Get it right!”
He didn’t have to say “White boy,” I knew that part.
I thanked him and satisfied he let go of my hand. I chatted with other audience members, then broke down the sound equipment and moved it and my instruments to the load-in.
As I was putting the sound equipment in the trunk of my Volvo 240 (the trusted Pride of Durham), I thought: Diddley Bow! Bo Diddly!!
Bo Diddly had to have taken his stage name and the shape of his custom-made electric guitar from these ‘cigar box’ instruments.
A few years after this, in a Rolling Stone interview, Bo Diddly was asked about his name and this instrument. And he basically said, “Y’all didn’t know that?”
Well, I didn’t know that until a chance encounter with my black elder in Atlanta. It was nice to have confirmation.
In his Africa & The Blues, Kubik continues:
In Africa, too, these instruments have been overlooked or not found worth reporting. For this reason we have notable gaps in our African distribution map.
Monochord zithers are common in a relatively compact region of Africa including southeastern Nigeria, southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of Congo, and the southwestern tip of the Central African Republic....[the instruments] are played mostly by two (male) youngsters, one striking the string with two sticks, the other altering its pitch by stopping the string with a knife, bottle, or other object, often sliding along it.”
Kubik’s book is a treasure trove of similar information presented with scholarly care, but more with enthusiasm that belies more than forty years of exploring and playing in the musical traditions of both Africa and America.
Africa & the Blues is available from the University Press of Mississippi.
I recommend it as an important and approachable reference book for all those interested in the cultural connections between Africa and the Americas.
A brief video/radio discussion on this instrument and how I play it is here. There is also a longer demonstration from my time at the Ships of the Sea Museum in Savannah, Georgia.
Thanks for being here,
Scott Ainslie
https://Patreon.com/ScottAinslie
https://ScottAinslie.Substack.com
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HI Scott -
I came across a post by Rhannon Giddens on my facebook page today, and it sounds as if you and she are on similar paths in your research. Have the two of you spoken?
Cool!