International Jazz Banjo Newsletter

This is a radio show site with a program about Fred van Eps and his banjo playing. Specially the much too short interview with him made by Lew Green 1959 is very interesting. Fred explains how J.B Shall came to make the first four string banjo ( before 1908) tuned in fifth later named tenor banjo.

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/9392

You need a Real Player to be able to play the interview with van Eps. It is located about 40 minutes into the program.
Mr. Van Eps claims that it was a violin player and tuner of banjo playing machines, Louis Stepner of Venice, CA, who ordered the first "Tenor" banjo from J.B Shall. He found out the banjo machine banjos were tuned in fifth with no short string and he thought that he, as a violin player, could play such banjo rather easily.
I have to say that I value the statement from Fred van Eps high. The most interesting facts put forward by Fred van Eps is that these so called banjo playing machines as early as during the nineties removed the fifth string and tuned the banjos in fifth, like a mandolin or later a tenor banjo. Because of that, is it ever possible to find out who were the first to make four string banjos tuned in fifth. Of course during the nineties we had the Faris banjos, probably not tuned in fifth, and the short neck mandolin banjos, tuned in fifth? The prototypes for the tenor banjo were there quite early. However I once saw, about 1992, an original banjo playing machine, price $25.000, in an antique shop in Chester, PA. It had a long four string neck like a plectrum banjo as far as I remember it. So perhaps J.B Shall was the first to make a 19 fret "tenor" banjo tuned in fifth for sale?

From Ulf Jagfors.