Banning Eyre has written about international music, especially African guitar styles, since 1988. He comments and reports on music for National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and contributes regularly to The Boston Phoenix, Guitar Player, Rhythm, Folk Roots, The Beat, CD Now, CMJ, New Music Monthly, and the Music Hound and All Music Guides. He has traveled extensively in Africa and has produced many programs for the public radio series Afropop Worldwide. In 1995, Eyre co-authored AFROPOP! An Illustrated Guide to Contemporary African Music with Sean Barlow. Eyre's book focussed on Malian guitar styles, In Griot Time, An American Guitarist in Mali, was released by Temple University Press (2000) and in the UK on Serpent's Tail (2002). The companion CD Eyre compiled, In Griot Time, String Music from Mali, is out on Stern's Africa.

Eyre spent a month in Zimbabwe in 2001, and wrote a report on music censorship there for the Danish human rights organization, Freemuse. The report, Playing With Fire, Fear and Self-Censorship in Zimbabwean Music, is available online at the website www.freemuse.org. He is currently at work on a book about Thomas Mapfumo and the contemporary history of Zimbabwe.

Eyre has a background in technology; he worked for 10 years as a software technical writer in the Boston high-tech industry (1985-1995). He brings all of his skills to bear in his current work as the Senior Editor for Africa at afropop.org.

Musical Background

Eyre has played guitar professionally since the mid '70s, working in genres as diverse as jazz, flamenco, dance-rock and reggae. For the past ten years, he has specialized in guitar styles from Africa, playing in a series of Congolese soukous bands in Boston, including Sankai, in the West African folk ensemble Cora Connection, and in Glamour Boys, a New York based group that combines traditional mbira music from Zimbabwe with guitar. He currently plays in two groups, West African Music Project, and Shona Music Project.

During his travels, Eyre has performed with The Super Rail Band of Bamako and Sali Sidibe in Mali, and with Thomas Mapfumo and The Blacks Unlimited in Zimbabwe. He plays on two Thomas Mapfumo albums, Chimurenga 98 (Anonymous Web, 1998), and Chimurenga Explosion (Anonymous Web 2000). A song he created with Mapfumo and his band in 1998 became a hit on Zimbabwean radio. Eyre also played on a track on Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabate's Kulanjan (Hannibal 1999), which was voted Folk Roots "Album of the Year" in the UK.

Eyre teaches African guitar styles, both privately and in workshops at Tribal Sounds in New York City. Eyre is also the author of an instructional book on African guitar called Guitar Atlas: Africa, published by Alfred in the summer of 2002.