Scott Didlake

Born in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, in 1948, Scott Didlake is best known as an artist, also a gifted musician and a writer, a craftsman who made gourd banjos, which he called banzas–which originally came from Africa, a member of the craftsmen’s guild of Mississippi. He died of  Lou Gehrig’s disease at the age of 46 in 1994;  his instruments are now collectibles. He and a handful of others sparked the now fast-growing movement of gourd banjo players and makers.