Arthur Lee Holloway was the twelfth child in a family of thirteen. When he was just three or four years old, following church services the family would gather with others at someone’s house where they would play music and socialize. Arthur Lee loved the banjo music and would copy the sound. Folks were soon calling him “Little Banjo.” When he started his first day of school, his mother wrote his real name, Arthur Lee, on a paper and put it in his pocket. Along the way he lost the piece of paper . Since everybody already knew him as Banjo, he was called Banjo from then on. The “Little” was dropped when he started school.