Banjos Unlimited is a group of performing folklorists who devote their attentions to the song and dance musics of the first U.S. century. 

The photo below is from the Florida Folk Festival around the turn of the century.  From the left, the group as it appeared on the Amphitheatre stage, is comprised of Topaz Terry, vocals; Terri Musgrove, banjo and vocal; Vgo, fiddle; Bobert Brown, snare-drum; and visited by Bill Dudley, guitar.

The performing folklorists that are Banjos Unlimited are three in number. The most recent to join is Bobert Brown. He is a trained percussionist and is earnestly sought as an accompaniest for musics from country-western to klezmer. Bobert is skilled in american blues and early country music and has learned the banjo as a natural extention of the styles he grew up with. Bobert is also an extensive collector of guitars and banjos and by default quite knowledgeable about the repair, maintainance and values of antique instruments as well as recently made recreations of classic designs such as the Briley Resophonic Guitars. Bobert has been a participant in the Florida Folk Festival for a decade and appears around the state at other festivals with and without Banjos Unlimited.

The single most identifiable and distinguishable tool of this transformation is the five-string banjo, itself a 'modified' folk instrument, which in turn started the experimentation and invention of a whole class of instruments such as the banjo-guitar (l885), the banjo-mandolin(l865), the tenor or tango-banjo(1910). plus the piccolo banjo, banjeurine, cello banjo, bass banjo and other artifacts of the banjo orchestras and performance clubs both in the U.S. and U.K. around the turn of the twentieth century.

The era from the 1770's to the 1870's is the establishing period in the developement of a "national" identity or idiom in our cultural characteristics. This is the period of generation of industrialization of cultural artifacts both in live performance and in mechanical duplication and distribution. The music publishing industry moved from broadsheets and almanac filler to the industrial giants such as Root&Cady and Oliver Ditson.

South vs. North  CD
Now available by mail order from Banjos Unlimited for $15. Write; Vgo, 323 3rd Ave. N., Safety Harbor, Fl. 34695-3620.