Kristina R. Gaddy - Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo

My guest this week is Kristina R. Gaddy, who returns to chat about her new book, a collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens, called Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo . The book picks up on the research Kristina did for her previous book Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History (you can hear our conversation about that here ). Crucially though, this volume doesn't just present a series of tunes as research pieces, it includes both banjo transcriptions and standard music notation, so people can play the music and give it a place in the current repertoire. We talk about why so little music was collected from black people in the Americas (fewer than 10 songs before 1861 were collected in the United States that we definitely know are from Black musicians); why these tunes were collected and how; how the way they were collected (and who did the collecting) shaped what was gathered and much more. As always, it was fascinating talking to Kristina. You can find out more about Go Back and Fetch It (and buy the book) via the University of North Carolina Press . For more on Kristina and updates on her research, follow her on Instagram and Substack Support the show === Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!) Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks - Sign up to get updates on new episodes - Free fiddle tune chord sheets - Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews - Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates: Instagram Facebook - Review us on Apple Podcasts

You can listen to Kristina R. Gaddy - Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Kristina R. Gaddy - Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo is an episode from Bluegrass Jam Along by Matt Hutchinson.

This episode is 49:25 long.

This episode was published on Jan 16, 2026.

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