Banning Eyre

Banning Eyre is an author, guitarist, photographer, and Senior Producer for the Peabody Award-winning public radio series Afropop Worldwide. His work has taken him to over 25 African countries to research local music. Eyre has produced over 180 Afropop episodes including in-depth coverage of Mali, Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Lebanon, Madagascar and Nigeria. He comments on world music for NPR’s All Things Considered. In May, 2015, Duke University Press published his fourth book, Lion Songs: Thomas Mapfumo and the Music That Made Zimbabwe, which won the 2016 Society for Ethnomusicology African Music Section Kwabena Nketia Book Prize. His previous books are Afropop! An Illustrated Guide, In Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali, and Guitar Atlas Africa, a book of introductory lessons in African guitar styles. He also co-produced the 2004 film Festival in the Desert: The Tent Sessions, filmed in location in Essakane, Mali. He edits and contributes to www.afropop.org, and hosts www.banningeyre.com, the home of his independent label Lion Songs Records.

Awards

2015 Peabody Institutional Award for production work on public radio's Afropop Worldwide 2016 Society for Ethnomusicology African Music Section Kwabena Nketia Book Prize

Tags