2nd South Carolina String Band

Words and music by Stephen Foster. One of Foster’s catchiest tunes, ‘Ring, Ring the Banjo’ turned out to be not all that popular in his own time, selling less than 2,000 copies in six years. During a roughly twelve-month period from 1850 to 1851, Foster wrote this song for the minstrel stage, along with at least 14 others, many of which have gone on to become of American music classics.

Written in the first few years of his career, during his early association with black-face minstrelsy, Foster would begin to distance himself from such songs in his later works as he tried to capture the “legitimate” music market. Interestingly, prior to 1850, the lyrics in some minstrel songs were one of the few places (other than Abolitionist literature) where sympathetic interpretations of the plight of slaves could be found.

Originally composed as a tribute to the instrument, the song’s lyrics purport to tell the story of a former slave who, freed by his ‘Ol Massa’, travels to Kentucky, but then, missing his love (Susanna ?) and apparently, his previous life on the plantation, returns to play the banjo one last time for his dying master.