English only - no subtitle “We have seen the films “Bonnie and Clyde”, “Deliverance”, and more recently “Oh Brother! Where Art Thou”. These movies took Appalachian music and the five-string banjo to a broader international audience. A Banjo Frolic addresses the same subject, providing testimony about the present vitality and meaning of traditional music in the United States. We drove from Atlanta GA to Washington DC (home of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, two huge folk-music repositories), and throughout western North Carolina and Virginia, the Blue Ridge and the Smoky Mountains. The Appalachian areas we visited are in the nest of old-time music (also bluegrass), which is distinct from the usual commercial trends of the country music. A Banjo Frolic raises several issues like conservation, transmission, and transformation of the Southern musical heritage. It surely could be used as a basis for reflecting on the meaning of our own European traditional music, its use and value within the present-day world. The context presented is an America distant from the usual clichés.” Gérard De SMAELE & Patrick FERRYN