Great Acoustics: A Rare 1920s Clef Club Deluxe Guitar Banjo

When singer-songwriter Dom Flemons saw this Clef Club guitar banjo at RetroFret in Brooklyn a few years ago, he knew he had to have it. Flemons had long been inspired by Papa Charlie Jackson, a versatile musician from the 1920s who played a Gibson guitar banjo with an oversized 14-inch head. (Most banjos these days have 11- or 12-inch heads.) With its 16-inch head, this Clef Club is even larger, and it has all the punch and power you could want. As a bonus, it’s ornately decorated with wood marquetry and pearl inlay, which makes it stand out onstage and in photographs.

At the time Flemons received the Clef Club, which he affectionately named Big Head Joe, very little was known about McGinnis and Shaw, the names stamped on the dowel stick. Over the years, though, Flemons and other researchers began to unearth clues about the duo. A number of ads in the New York Tribune in 1915 showed that McGinnis and Shaw had a workshop on Lenox Avenue in Harlem and that they made guitar banjos, cello banjos, and banjolins.

An article dated December 29, 1923, in The New York Age, a prominent African American newspaper, revealed that Richard McGinnis and his business partner, Robert Shaw, were the only Black luthiers working in New York at the time. The article also mentioned that McGinnis had learned his craft at Lyon & Healy in Chicago, where he worked making stringed instruments for 16 years. McGinnis was an inventive man, and in 1919 he was granted a patent for a new style of banjo shell.

The Clef Club was founded in 1910 in New York by James Reese Europe, and it was a combination concert hall and booking agency. There were numerous ensembles affiliated with the Clef Club, most of which consisted of various combinations of fretted instruments, including harp guitars, mandolins, and banjos. The Clef Club Orchestra was the first African American group to play at Carnegie Hall.

Flemons loves playing Big Head Joe in concert. “The immense size of the instrument allows for a sense of wonder with the audience,” he says. “And the quality of its sound and the intricacy of its craftsmanship give it a larger-than-life quality.” He finds that after hearing the guitar banjo, people are inspired to seek out the music of Papa Charlie Jackson, James Reese Europe, and his Clef Club ensembles, and rediscover an overlooked but vital part of American musical culture.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.