Banjo ukulele
four-stringed musical instrument with a small banjo-type body and a fretted ukulele neck
The banjo ukulele, also known as the banjolele or banjo uke, is a four-stringed musical instrument with a small banjo-type body and a fretted ukulele neck. The earliest known banjoleles were built by John A. Bolander and by Alvin D. Keech, both in 1917.
The instrument achieved its greatest popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, and combines the small scale, tuning, and playing style of a ukulele with the construction and distinctive tone of a banjo, hence the name. Its development was pushed by the need for vaudeville performers to have an instrument that could be played with the ease of the ukulele, but with more volume.
Construction and tuning
In terms of overall construction, banjo ukuleles parallel banjos, though on a smaller scale. They are always fretted. Most are built of wood with metal accoutrements, although the mid-century "Dixie" brand featured banjo ukuleles made from solid metal.
The banjo ukulele neck typically has sixteen frets, and is the same scale length as a soprano or, less commonly, concert or tenor-sized ukulele. Banjo ukuleles may be open-backed, or may incorporate a resonator.
Banjo ukulele heads were traditionally made of calf skin, but most modern instruments are fitted with synthetic heads.
The public source identifies “Banjo ukulele” as four-stringed musical instrument with a small banjo-type body and a fretted ukulele neck. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Banjo, ukulele and four-stringed.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1889346. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917.
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This entry incorporates text from “Banjo ukulele” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.