History of the Washboard
by Stephanie Chen “First time that I played washboard, I just won’t forget this…I was on stage had my thimbles on and two thimbles just popped off and just went out and that was just the funniest thing and I just had to…move right on, keep going.” – Tonya Locklear In the mid to late 1800s, Creole musicians in southwest Louisiana started playing washboards. One of the reasons is that they could not afford the percussion instruments in stores. Today, many music genres in the United States feature this seemingly mundane household tool, the most prominent ones being Cajun, Zydeco, and Jazz music. But how did it find its way into blues music? One theory points to the geographic proximity between Louisiana, celebrated for its jazz and Creole music tradition, and the Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of blues. In any case, washboard became a staple in blues music by the 1930s. Many bluesmen played washboard, often among other instruments, and some of them recorded. Robert Young, better known as Washboard Slim, pioneered washboard playing in the early twentieth century. Expanding the musical possibilities of the washboard, Slim added frying pans, a hubcap, pot lids, a cowbell, and an old rubber car horn to his washboard. The percussive instrument now added both rhythm and diverse colours to the music. As a musician, Slim accompanied many blues giants such as Big Bill Broonzy and Brownie McGhee. As an inventor, Slim began a tradition in adorning washboards with ordinary objects in blues music. His contribution to American music was so great that his original washboard sits now in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Another successful washboard player was Robert Brown with a fitting stage name – Washboard Sam. Ten years younger than Slim, Sam was born in Arkansas, a state adjacent to both Louisiana and Mississippi. Washboard likely found its way into his music through jug bands in Memphis, where he lived in the 1920s. Jug bands often played a mixture of Memphis blues, ragtime, and jazz music on home-‐made instruments. Interwoven are the traditions of jazz and blues, their use of the washboard, and the home of today’s largest folk music festivals,