Stanley Hicks Mountain Banjo Model 5 String Fretless Banjo (1985), made in Watauga County, North Carolina, natural finish, cherry neck, cherry body with skin head.
Watauga County, North Carolina was home to many of the torchbearers of American traditional music and Appalachian storytelling, but Stanley Hicks in particular was a master of his many crafts including storytelling, flatfooting, and of course instrument making. From humble beginnings as the child of English immigrants, Hicks taught himself how to build banjos and dulcimers like his father and grandfather before him. Like other resourceful mountain instrument builders, Hicks made use of the easily attainable tone woods on his property and likely used the skin of whatever critter was available that week.
The simple but ingenious design of these banjos is far closer to original African-style instruments built in the southern States by enslaved African-Americans than it is to the intricately factory engraved, complex and pearlescent offerings of companies like Gibson and Bacon & Day which were usually financially unattainable to blue-collar pickers of rural Appalachia. This banjo is built with a subtly figured one-piece cherry neck with a smooth and easy playing D-shaped profile. The body has a cherry top, back sides and tailpiece and a genuine skin head. It is fretless with no markers on the fingerboard (though Hicks did use the wood's natural grain to clever effect at the 12th fret) and a set of matching hand-carved cherry wooden friction pegs in the date-inscribed headstock.
Hicks was a vital part of the region's folk music community writ large and an avid storyteller, a tradition that holds a lot of weight in Appalachia and earned him several regional and national accolades. He went on to be recorded by the likes of Alan Lomax and was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow in 1983, the highest national honor for folk art. He passed away in 1989 only a few years after the construction of this banjo, building instruments and making music until the end of his life. Today his instruments are considered among the higher quality examples of the mountain banjo tradition, and among the most sought after of this banjo family.
Overall length is 36 3/8 in. (92.4 cm.), 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm.) width, and 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim.
This Hicks mountain banjo comes to us in delightful condition with just some minor wear from conscientious use over the years. It has been played over the years; there are scratches and scuffs, mostly to the back, with a few scuffs around the neck and headstock area as well. There are no cracks or splits in the wood, and all wear is topical, cosmetic wear from play.
The skin head appears to be original and not in need of replacement, a somewhat arduous process for this species of banjo, anytime soon. There is no label inside this one, but his initials and the date of completion are hand carved customarily in the back of the headstock. There do not appear to be any cracks or repairs of note on this instrument, and the fretless fingerboard shines unmarred and a treat to play. Hicks tastefully lined up a strong horizontal bit of figuring in the fingerboard to fall just at what should be approximately the "12th fret!"
The banjo plays very well to the standards of these instruments and Hicks is still regarded as one of the higher quality builders of his day; with steel strings and hand-made friction pegs it is not the easiest to tune, but rewards the effort with a beautiful and uniquely evocative sound. It has no original case or bag (they came in a handmade bag, if anything at all). Overall Excellent - Condition.
