Goombay

Goombay is the traditional secular music of the Bahamas, named for the goatskin drum (gumbay) at its centre. Developed in Nassau and the Out Islands from African rhythmic practice, European dance forms and American popular song, it is played by rake-and-scrape bands: a goatskin drum worked with sticks, concertina or accordion, maracas, guitar and a carpenter's saw bent and scraped with a nail file. Its repertory of quadrilles, waltzes, calypso-like topical songs and religious parodies made it the islands' dance music of the first half of the twentieth century, documented above all by the blind guitarist and singer *Blind Blake*.