Old time article for peer review
Brad Sondahl
intro for old time to the bluegrass public. I'd appreciate positive
suggestions and corrections from the group before I send it in. It's
tough to compress it into something this short, but they don't have a
lot of free space, what with all the bluegrass festivals...
Old time and Bluegrass
While bluegrass is a well defined style with a definite beginning (Bill
Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, etc), old time is more like the wild
meadow that bluegrass grew out of, and is blurred more by the mists of
time. "Old time" means different things to different people. In
general it refers to music developed in the South Eastern US starting in
the 1800's and first recorded in the 1920's. Just as bluegrass may
incorporate older and diverse songs such as Irish fiddle tunes, rags and
waltzes, old time includes those forms and more. The stlyes of playing
and instruments involved vary more than the standard bluegrass setup.
The upright bass was seldom seen in the early days, and if present it
was often played with a bow. The guitar arrived late on the scene,
mostly used for bass runs, but sometimes playing melody or lead. The
fiddle was predominant, because it's one of the louder acoustic
instruments, followed by the banjo. Some people think the only old time
style of banjo was frailing or clawhammer, but that was only one way of
playing that versatile instrument. Following a tour of Hawaaian
musicians playing slack key guitar, a lot of people started playing
slide guitar, including pioneers Darby and Tarleton.
The same recording session in Virginia that first captured the Carter
Family and Jimmy Rodgers also recorded a variety of old time and gospel
musicians from the area. This was in 1927, a time when that newfangled
radio was causing a slump in record sales. Radio tended to feature
classical and jazz music, which didn't appeal to rural Southerners, so
they provided a market for the "old time" 78's. Also the Grand Ole Opry
started in 1925, providing fame and record sales to the same type of
musicians, and could be heard nationally. Meanwhile Henry Ford, who
thought jazz was degenerate, started a series of fiddle contests to
promote "American" music and his American autos. It also spread and
developed separately in other places such as the Carolinas, Kentucky,
and even Chicago, which had its own Barn Dance on WLS.
Until about 1940 when the Opry added drums and electric instruments,
The Grand Ole Opry would sound similar to a Thang from today. There
would be tight harmonies from brother or sister acts and family groups,
while others would more feature instrumentals, or comedy routines. Here
are some of the great early names from those days, in case you'd like to
research them more. Uncle Dave Macon, the McGee Brothers, the Carter
Family, Arthur Smith, the Binkley Brothers Dixie Clodhoppers, Dr.
Humphrey Bates, DeFord Bailey, the Delmore Brothers, and the Crook
Brothers. A lot of their music is made available on the internet.
Charles Wolfe's book A Good-Natured Riot is a good history from those days.
Old time music can be a body of music, which can then be converted to
bluegrass or other modern styles, like the tune "June Apple." It can
also be a style of music, so that one could play a Beatles tune on the
clawhammer banjo, giving it an old timey sound. Of course for a lot of
people the Beatles are old time music, so you can see it's pretty
slippery to define. It's still more popular in some parts of the
country than others. Portland has a lively old-time music scene. In
Minnesota they recognize the difference but include both in their
Minnesota Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association.
More recent groups influenced by Old time include the New Lost City
Ramblers, which popularized it in the 1950'sand 60's. Crooked Still, the
Carolina Chocolate Drops, and the Freight Hoppers are other modern examples.
Brad
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To respond directly, don't forget to take out the "garbage"
Lyle Lofgren
It reads well for a short article, Brad, and touches the main points.
I'm pretty sure the original Carter Family didn't play on the Opry,
though, but I might be wrong. I don't have their biography handy --
but wasn't that Maybelle & the kids, in the 1950s?
And, of course, a number of OT records sold well in the 1923 -27
period, so the Big Bang from Bristol is a little bit exaggerated, a
piece of folklore in its own right. But that's not worth complaining
about in a brief description.
Lyle
carlb
I think you should include in your article the fact that bluegrass
developed, and is, a performance music that features solos for each of
the instruments while in old time music everybody plays together
without individuals playing solos and was, and is today, more of a
social music than a performance music.
Carl
Joel Shimberg
> Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, etc), old time is more like the wild
For what it's worth, I would argue that the Stanley Brothers,
especially in their earlier days, were the climax of old-time string
band music, rather than the beginning of bluegrass, but I wouldn't
change what you have written, especially given your target audience.
Joel Shimberg
Paul
Several good answers so far. I would only add that I would mention:
(1) the "home made" quality of old-time music as opposed to the
professional polish of Bluegrass; (2) the diverse and eclectic styles
of old-time compared to the rather formalized style of Bluegrass; and
(3) the preponderance of dance music--accompaniment for square dancing
especially--in the old-time world. You could also make a case that old-
time is less regional than Bluegrass; my mother (born 1903 in Iowa)
grew up knowing dozens of old square-dance numbers like Old Dan Tucker
and Turkey in the Straw. The fiddle rode on the wagons West, all the
way to the gold fields.
Peter Feldmann
I can't follow your distinction between "social" and "performance"
musics. A performance _is_ a social event. Moreover, in its original
form, "old time music" included a huge range of types of music, from a
solo fiddle tune played on a back porch to professional ensembles which
might include woodwinds, horns, percussion, etc., playing concerts,
auctions, vaudeville houses, and radio shows -- just to name a few of
the types of venues.
The fact that there are few old time musicians who play professionally
full time now does not mean that the same situation obtained in the
music's golden age.
As far as the distinction between old time and bluegrass, bluegrass did
develop as a jazz-influenced, commercial approach to string band music.
It was not originally played by amateurs. It also was the first
type of music that was specifically developed to be played in front of a
microphone. One helpful way to look at the situation is to regard Bill
Monroe as the world's last old time musician . . .
--
Peter Feldmann
BlueGrass West
PO Box 614
Los Olivos, CA 93441 USA
+1 805 688 9894 // 805 350 3918 (cell)
www.BlueGrassWest.com
bassrun
> I'm thinking of submitting this to our local bluegrass newsletter as an
> intro for old time to the bluegrass public. I'd appreciate positive
Brad--For the most part I really like what you've written, and I also
agree with most of the comments you've received thus far. I often
describe bluegrass as performance-oriented and old-time as ensemble
music, so I agree with Carl's "social vs. performance"
characterization. But I think that Peter Feldmann has a point, too.
I was right with you until you got to the part about the Beatles. Just
because you can play a Beatles song in clawhammer style doesn't make
it old-time. Old-time is about tradition as much as anything. I also
was a bit bothered by your final paragraph. I wouldn't say that the
NLCR were "influenced" by OT--they were playing OT music, flat out.
I'm not sure I'd have chosen Crooked Still, the Carolina Chocolate
Drops, and the Freight Hoppers as my three examples of recent "OT-
influenced" groups, but that may just be a matter of taste.
One other small edit: It's Humphrey *Bate*, not Bates.
--John
mgarelick
of black musicians to old time music; it is illustrated by the Lomax
collection "Black Appalachia: string bands, songsters and hoedowns."
Brad Sondahl
Still just played here at a bluegrass festival, and have some roots in
oldtime, as much as Pentangle did in English folk, but neither were
authentically in the original genre. (Crooked Still is about as far out
as an acoustic group gets, IMHO) I suppose you could argue that the
insofar as the NLCR were not of the tradition they were not old time
musicians, but re-creationists (which is probably true of most of us
fans of old-time as well for what it's worth). It reminds me of the
chart someone posted recently as to how authentic you are as a musician
based on how you learned your music.
As to the whether the Beatles music could become old-time, the point
was that old-time, in addition to being a body of music, is also a
musical style. That said, Charlie Poole took a few fairly recent (to
his experience) popular tunes like Baby Rose, and appropriated them to
his style of music. I think it happens fairly frequently that a song
gets appropriated by another genre and can become an accepted part of
that other genre's repertoire. This would not work for those that feel
that the canon for the genre is closed, which seems to be the direction
you lean. So if the Beatles songs can't be rendered into "legitimate"
old-time music, what about other more modern players and writers like
John Hartford? He wrote a few very old-timey sounding songs...
Then, thinking about my previous post about Loudon Wainwright III--when
a pop singer covers old-time music it's clearly not old-time music.
It's not so clear the other way around. I'm a big Sam McGee fan,
thinking him the epitome of old time, but was surprised to learn that
the title song of their Folkways Record, Milk Em in the Evening Blues,
was only a few years old when they recorded it, coming from Tennessee
Ernie Ford in 1949.
So it's kind of genre-bending, for sure, to cross the line and
appropriate modern material, and it's not for the pure at heart, but it
happens.
I threw in the Beatles to the article because quite a few of the local
bluegrass bands cover a tune or two of them, and I also like the Beatles
music and play them acoustically, if not in an old time style.
Lastly, he's no longer hear to defend himself, but Mike Seeger had a
link on his website to the Grateful Dead's homepage. I don't know if
Mike ever covered either the Beatles or the Dead's songs, but I always
found that link on his page interesting.
Brad Sondahl
bassrun
On Aug 27, 2:27 pm, Brad Sondahl <bradgarb...@sondahl.com> wrote:
>
> I suppose you could argue that the
> insofar as the NLCR were not of the tradition they were not old time
> musicians, but re-creationists (which is probably true of most of us
> fans of old-time as well for what it's worth). It reminds me of the
> chart someone posted recently as to how authentic you are as a musician
> based on how you learned your music.
Yeah, that's a real can of worms. Though there are some purists who
feel that "how you learned your music" is a defining point, I think
it's naive to say that the only true old-time musicians are those who
learned at the knee of a relative or a member of their own local
community. This can be a terrific way to learn and to keep the
tradition alive, but I think it's shortsighted to undervalue folks who
may have come from outside a particular community but who have made a
point of befriending members of that community and learning music
(directly or via recordings) from source musicians.
"Purity" is impossible these days, as media influences are
unavoidable. It's not as if people living even in the most
inaccessible nooks and crannies of West Virginia don't watch satellite
TV or listen to radio, CDs, etc. Conversely, I don't think that
there's any reason that someone raised in an urban environment can't
become a living exponent of a rural musical style. But I do think that
learning from the source musicians is critical. Secondary sources
don't cut it, IMHO.
> As to the whether the Beatles music could become old-time, the point
> was that old-time, in addition to being a body of music, is also a
> musical style. That said, Charlie Poole took a few fairly recent (to
> his experience) popular tunes like Baby Rose, and appropriated them to
> his style of music.
> I'm a big Sam McGee fan,
> thinking him the epitome of old time, but was surprised to learn that
> the title song of their Folkways Record, Milk Em in the Evening Blues,
> was only a few years old when they recorded it, coming from Tennessee
> Ernie Ford in 1949.
> I think it happens fairly frequently that a song
> gets appropriated by another genre and can become an accepted part of
> that other genre's repertoire. This would not work for those that feel
> that the canon for the genre is closed, which seems to be the direction
> you lean. So if the Beatles songs can't be rendered into "legitimate"
> old-time music, what about other more modern players and writers like
> John Hartford? He wrote a few very old-timey sounding songs...
This is an interesting point. You're absolutely right about Charlie
Poole et al., but I have a tough time buying the idea that Beatles
songs can ever become a legitimate part of the OT repertoire. I'd say
that even Joe Val's bluegrass covers of Beatles' songs, while
appealing, are more curiosities than actual bluegrass.
There are very few "written" tunes that strike my ear as authentically
old-time. The key term here may be "old-timey," which to me has a much
different connotation than "old-time."
> So it's kind of genre-bending, for sure, to cross the line and
> appropriate modern material, and it's not for the pure at heart, but it
> happens.
True. But just because it happens doesn't necessarily make the result
into old-time music. When a concert violinist plays Sally Ann, is that
an example of old-time fiddling (or even Round Peak fiddling)? Is it
classical music? I'd say neither.
> Lastly, he's no longer hear to defend himself, but Mike Seeger had a
> link on his website to the Grateful Dead's homepage. I don't know if
> Mike ever covered either the Beatles or the Dead's songs, but I always
> found that link on his page interesting.
Mike was surprisingly eclectic in his musical interests and had
friends spanning the musical universe. He even recorded one album with
Grisman and Hartford, though I am not sure how comfortable he felt
with the outcome. BTW, by the purists' definition, Mike would not be
an authentic old-time musician, as he grew up in suburban Washington,
CD. For cryin' out loud....!
Lyle Lofgren
Mike came through town shortly after Retrograss was released, and he
was indeed unsure of whether it was a good album or not. We had been
listening to it almost continuously since we got it, and assured him
that it was not just a good album, but a great album that did not
cease to amuse us on repeated listening. I don't know if he was
reassured or not, but he did say that the CD had been fun to make. On
thinking it over, I would say that a very important aspect of OT music
is that it should sound as if the performers are having fun while
playing it. That's hard to do when you have to be worrying about
miking and sound balance, but the best performers manage to achieve
that miracle, both on stage and on CD. Maybe that's another
distinction between OT and BG.
Lyle
Peter Feldmann
> Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Brad.
>
> Yeah, that's a real can of worms. Though there are some purists who
> feel that "how you learned your music" is a defining point, I think
> it's naive to say that the only true old-time musicians are those who
> learned at the knee of a relative or a member of their own local
> community. This can be a terrific way to learn and to keep the
> tradition alive, but I think it's shortsighted to undervalue folks who
> may have come from outside a particular community but who have made a
> point of befriending members of that community and learning music
> (directly or via recordings) from source musicians.
>
> "Purity" is impossible these days, as media influences are
> unavoidable. It's not as if people living even in the most
> inaccessible nooks and crannies of West Virginia don't watch satellite
> TV or listen to radio, CDs, etc. Conversely, I don't think that
> there's any reason that someone raised in an urban environment can't
> become a living exponent of a rural musical style. But I do think that
> learning from the source musicians is critical. Secondary sources
> don't cut it, IMHO.
Well, actually, there never WAS any "purity"! (Whatever that might
mean). Musicians are always influenced by a variety of sources from
inside and outside their immediate community. I am always reminded of a
very old Navajo blanket -- from the early 1860s -- on display in an
Arizona museum: it is a detailed and perfect copy of an Ivory Soap
label. The label had been discarded by some trade expedition and the
finder believed it had some sort of sacred significance to the traders,
& so made a copy for sale back to them.
>
< ... >
>
> There are very few "written" tunes that strike my ear as authentically
> old-time. The key term here may be "old-timey," which to me has a much
> different connotation than "old-time."
Can you elaborate?
>
> True. But just because it happens doesn't necessarily make the result
> into old-time music. When a concert violinist plays Sally Ann, is that
> an example of old-time fiddling (or even Round Peak fiddling)? Is it
> classical music? I'd say neither.
I'd say you had better listen to the violinist before deciding. Does
that mean that someone like Buell Kazee, who was classically trained in
voice, ought not to be considered a traditional singer?
> Mike was surprisingly eclectic in his musical interests and had
> friends spanning the musical universe. He even recorded one album with
> Grisman and Hartford, though I am not sure how comfortable he felt
> with the outcome. BTW, by the purists' definition, Mike would not be
> an authentic old-time musician, as he grew up in suburban Washington,
> CD. For cryin' out loud....!
Mike has made some CDs, but he grew up in DC, which does indeed make
many people cry . . .
"surprisingly eclectic" ? I would say that any good musician is open to
alternate forms of music, almost by definition.
Paul Gifford
.
> The upright bass was seldom seen in the early days, and if present it
> was often played with a bow. The guitar arrived late on the scene,
> mostly used for bass runs, but sometimes playing melody or lead.
This depends on the particular region you are talking about. There
are numerous mentions
of slave musicians playing the guitar in various parts of the South by
the 1850s, in conjunction
with fiddle and banjo. About the time of the Civil War, the cello or
bass was added to such
ensembles in places like Virginia. On the other hand, if you mention
the slapped bass in
conjunction with bluegrass, then it relates more to the piano
accordion and pop instrumentation
from the '30s than with older dance music.
> The same recording session in Virginia that first captured the Carter
> Family and Jimmy Rodgers also recorded a variety of old time and gospel
> musicians from the area. This was in 1927, a time when that newfangled
> radio was causing a slump in record sales. Radio tended to feature
> classical and jazz music, which didn't appeal to rural Southerners, so
> they provided a market for the "old time" 78's. Also the Grand Ole Opry
> started in 1925, providing fame and record sales to the same type of
> musicians, and could be heard nationally.
I think radio is more significant than records. Not to us today, but
at the time----records
have survived, while the broadcasts get forgotten.
Meanwhile Henry Ford, who
> thought jazz was degenerate, started a series of fiddle contests to
> promote "American" music and his American autos.
This is a special interest of mine, and I've done a lot of research.
You probably would
be better to drop this line. Most of this is myth, and it has been
repeated so much that
it has taken a life of its own. He never sponsored any fiddle
contests. He was quoted
as saying that his interest in reviving old-fashioned dancing did not
mean that he was
against jazz.
It also spread and
> developed separately in other places such as the Carolinas, Kentucky,
> and even Chicago, which had its own Barn Dance on WLS.
I'd cut out "even" before Chicago. The WLS Barn Dance was way more
influential
than the Grand Ole Opry in its listening area. There were plenty of
local country
shows in the '30s, in places like Lansing, Flint, Detroit, Cedar
Rapids, etc., etc.
Bill Monroe was discovered by Tom Owens, who was a square dance
caller
on WLS, later going to Cedar Rapids.
> Until about 1940 when the Opry added drums and electric instruments,
> The Grand Ole Opry would sound similar to a Thang from today. There
> would be tight harmonies from brother or sister acts and family groups,
> while others would more feature instrumentals, or comedy routines. Here
> are some of the great early names from those days, in case you'd like to
> research them more. Uncle Dave Macon, the McGee Brothers, the Carter
> Family, Arthur Smith, the Binkley Brothers Dixie Clodhoppers, Dr.
> Humphrey Bates, DeFord Bailey, the Delmore Brothers, and the Crook
> Brothers. A lot of their music is made available on the internet.
> Charles Wolfe's book A Good-Natured Riot is a good history from those days.
Again, maybe too Nashiville-centric. Don't forget there were also the
Louisiana
Hayride, the Wheeling Jamboree, and no doubt a lot of local shows that
are
totally forgotten. It's just that the industry as it is today
developed in Nashville,
so that its history is better known today. If one goes by the
appearance of
1930's records in local junk heaps, I bet that records of most of the
groups that you named
appear only in places that WSM broadcast. In Michigan, out of the
range mostly,
one sees WLS performers' records (Chubby Parker, Prairie Ramblers,
etc.).
Paul Gifford
Peter Feldmann
> On Aug 22, 7:51 pm, Brad Sondahl <bradgarb...@sondahl.com> wrote:
> .
>> The upright bass was seldom seen in the early days, and if present it
>> was often played with a bow. The guitar arrived late on the scene,
>> mostly used for bass runs, but sometimes playing melody or lead.
>
> This depends on the particular region you are talking about. There
> are numerous mentions
> of slave musicians playing the guitar in various parts of the South by
> the 1850s, in conjunction
> with fiddle and banjo. About the time of the Civil War, the cello or
> bass was added to such
> ensembles in places like Virginia. On the other hand, if you mention
> the slapped bass in
> conjunction with bluegrass, then it relates more to the piano
> accordion and pop instrumentation
> from the '30s than with older dance music.
The entire guitar question needs more work. While people talk about
home made banjos and fiddles, home made guitars seem to have been rare
(Jimmy Driftwood built his -- but that's Arkansas, and people are
definitely weird there). So for guitars to figure in, they are going to
be found in places where there was access to store-bought (or as Tom
Ashley used to call it "brought on") instruments). Another factor: the
advent of steel strings: when did this actually become feasible?
>> started in 1925, providing fame and record sales to the same type of
>> musicians, and could be heard nationally.
>
> I think radio is more significant than records. Not to us today, but
> at the time----records
> have survived, while the broadcasts get forgotten.
Yeah, I agree there. Radio was very important, often records were just
too expensive to have much impact in the poorer areas of the country.
> Again, maybe too Nashiville-centric. Don't forget there were also the
> Louisiana
> Hayride, the Wheeling Jamboree, and no doubt a lot of local shows that
> are
> totally forgotten. It's just that the industry as it is today
> developed in Nashville,
> so that its history is better known today. If one goes by the
> appearance of
> 1930's records in local junk heaps, I bet that records of most of the
> groups that you named
> appear only in places that WSM broadcast. In Michigan, out of the
> range mostly,
> one sees WLS performers' records (Chubby Parker, Prairie Ramblers,
> etc.).
> Paul Gifford
WLS was huge. And of course the areas you mention were newly populated
with migrants from the mid-South -- people like Monroe and others who,
moving away from their home cultures, were subjected to new urban and
northern influences. I gave a paper at a BG symposium at Bowling Green
a few years ago. Another presenter was Kenichi Yamaguchi, who spoke in
detail about the BG scene in Detroit from '55 to '59. Afterwards, I
asked him how he, from Japan, happened to know so much about the Detroit
BG scene. He said "I live in the town of Toyota. I work for the
company as an engineer and was sent to Detroit to study American car
manufacture. After hours, I hung out in the bars and discovered the BG
scene." Of course!
Joel Shimberg
>Another factor: the
> advent of steel strings: when did this actually become feasible?
>
wires, but what about harpsichords? J.S. Bach, who died in 1750, owned
a piano. What was it strung with? I think that wire strings go back a
long, long way.
Joel
Paul Gifford
> home made banjos and fiddles, home made guitars seem to have been rare
> (Jimmy Driftwood built his -- but that's Arkansas, and people are
> definitely weird there). So for guitars to figure in, they are going to
> be found in places where there was access to store-bought (or as Tom
> Ashley used to call it "brought on") instruments). Another factor: the
> advent of steel strings: when did this actually become feasible?
My grandfather made two guitars, both steel-strung, around 1890. He
also made a fiddle and a mandolin. His father had made instruments
(1850s). I still play one of his guitars. He was a farmer, not a
professional instrument maker, though he and his father pretty much
made everything they used. But he used the guitars mainly to
accompany either his own whistling or his mouth organ, which was
clamped onto the upper bout of a guitar. It wasn't associated with
fiddling, and he played it with finger tips, with the upper bout
resting on his knee. I mention this because I have hardly ever heard
of homemade rural guitars from this period.
The other homemade guitar from this region (western NY, northwestern
PA) I ran across once was much more crudely made. Instead of curved
sides, it was square. The man was born in 1882 and he also had a
dulcimer he had made.
As far as Joel's question about steel strings, my guess is that it
came from German tradition----I suspect German guitar makers, who
popularized the instrument in the U.S., also popularized steel
strings. I think Vienna, circa 1830, with Mauro Giuliani, etc., was
the source of the U.S. guitar.
Paul Gifford
tonythomas
remarks. In Peer reviewed journals, an article is sent out to
scholars who are deemed experts in the field who evaluate whether the
article adds anything to the scholarship available at the time, as
well as its strengths and weaknesses. As I have learned in my days as
a literary scholar, an article with great information that adds little
to theoretical BS in that field will often be rejected by peer
reviewers. In OTM publication there is so little on a scholarly level
that one has more freedom juust to present information because there
is little organized information on a scholarly level, and as yet
whatever theory is close enough to the ground to be understood by
mortals, not by "peers "
There are too many errors in the original article to comment on. It
is a hodge podge of assumptions held by people who have never looked
at OTM seriously or studied it.
OTM was never one thing, except insofar as the marketing strategy
of record companies designated the term OTM to cover string band and
related music by European Americans (or Black folk they could market
as being European Americans) during recordings in the 1920s and early
1930s. We, the generation of OTM revivalists who have continued the
music starting in the 1950s, have given OTM more identity than
actually existed at the time. Indeed, much of what we view as OTM
reflects cultural trends and ideology reflected among us, a collection
of people largely from outside the original communities that created
the music, who have been going at it for about 50 years, much longer
than the 10 years or so that the OTM commercial recordings were made
in.
Many of us seem to fall for the marketing strategy that the
original recording companies used to create OTM by believing as the
unfortunate author of the "peer reviewed" piece that OTM dates to the
early 1800s. To be sure traditional music and popular music of a
variety of kinds that were the background of much of the OTM comes
from the past, especially the fiddle music--something that was an ever-
declining part of OTM recordings and less of a part of Country music
launched by radio stations in the late 1920s. However, throughout the
19th century just in the Southeast there were a variety of trends,
changes, additions, and influences that created newer and newer music,
and established new blends of old music, and a persistent influence in
many areas of commercial popular music. Malone points out that many
of the socalled traditional songs sung by the Carter family were
actually popular songs written and published in the Eastern cities in
the middle 19th century. What was recorded as actually largely
recent music, the problem of musical developments and social changes
contemporary to the musicians, and largely not what one would have
heard in 1890 or even 1900.
Of course, the writer's central ignorance is his lack of
understanding of how decisive African American music was to the
evolution of this music, both from the influence of early African
American fiddle, banjo, and string band mjusic, and the influence of
other forms of music folk and popular that emerged from African
Americans following the civil wars, the most noted being ragtme,
blues, jazz, religious and barbershop quartet singing, and early
gospel.
Some of the music was quite new music. For both Blacks and whites in
the folk culture the predominant dance music had been fiddle perhaps
accompanied by percussion, perhaps not until the late 19th century,
when the banjo fiddle-combination emerged, although there were all
kinds of different combinations of instruments. The use of the guitar
in the string band was largely a twentieth century question. Had
unaccompanied fiddle or fiddle with percussion been a large part of
the OTM repertoire, then we could say that this was a big continuation
of 19th century rural music. I am not arguing that we cannot find
instances of banjuos and guitars accompanying fiddles from the 19th or
even the 18th century, but that among folk communities, the primacy of
fiddling was great. Likewise, in the OTM recordings we find very
little recordings of two banjos being played together which seems to
have been a significant form of music among African and European
Americans in the Southeast into the twentieth century.
While we like to look back at OTM following the ideology its
marketeers foisted on us, it is very much a music produced by changes
that took place in the late 19th and early 20th Century. Patrick
Huber's _Linthead Stomp__ a book that belongs in every home, charts
the influence of the industrialization of the Piedmont South through
textile mills, textile villagdes, and textile portions of the cities
like Atlanta and the way it encouraged string band and other musical
performances and created networkling that led to string bands and
other performance groups, grouops that were much rarer in mountain
communities or in rural areas where musicians were less common and
more spread apart. He provides important evidence about how
Lintheads like Fiddlin John Carson and Charlie Poole were a
significant part of the early OTM artists.
A very large amount of the music that was recorded by European
American string bands was highly influenced by the popular music of
the late 19th and early 20th century with many verses takien from pop,
pseudo, and real ragtime music. Much of the string band music was
more country ragtime than anything else.
A significant part of the music that got recorded was essentially
parlor music. This what the music of the Carter family was although
as commercial entertainers they reached out to included blues
influenced tunes. They also drew on their basic signing experience of
singing religious songs. A huge part of what the Carters recorded was
religious songs. OTMers of today tend to neglect that because we are
not as interested in religion as they did. While both Pleasant and
Maybelle were known to play string band instruments, the genre that
they performed was a representative of parlor music. A number of other
singers reflected this influence. However, we OTMers have little
knjowledge or understanding of that thread in musical history and
generally conflate discussion of groups like the Carters into our
comments about string bands. It should be added that a major part of
what the Carters and many other good OTM singers and much of Bluegrass
singing came from trends ion Black and white religious music, in the
case of Bluegrass, especially, twentieth century trends like gospel.
Old time music as such really ended before the advent of Bluegrass.
Once the Country radio business started in Atlanta, Nashville, and
Chicago, tradional fiddle-dance music was pushed aside or kept in a
ceremonial status, while singer oriented music more closely rfelated
to popular music was emphasized as were instrumental virtuosity and
improvisation
which was, of course, a reflection of the professionalization involved
in this segment of the music's history which some scholars call
"Hillbilly."
For a variety of reasons both Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs have tried
to make it appear that their music was wholly devised by them or
rooted what Monroe called "the ancient tones." They rather
purposefully neglect Bluegrass sprang as a rather logical growth of
the variety of changes in Hillbilly music that went on in the 1930s
and early 1940s and the rather direct influence on Monroe of Swing and
Jazz and on Scruggs of the classic banjo artists he grew up hearing in
North Carolina and South Carolina and of vaudeville and Ragtime
banjo. Bluegrass emerged as a professional music entertainment music
assuming professional competence especially on banjo and fiddle,
On guitars. The record here is one that has not been solved. Guitars
were not unknown, especially among African Americans in the period
after the civil war. Inexpensive factory made guitars were available
long before steel strings became common. However, the advent of steel
strings, made the guitar a suitable instrument for backing up string
bands and blues playing, because it provided the loud bass sound we
associate with guitars, even with the small guitars that were
available until the 1920s.
Metal strings have been used on lute-family instruments since the days
of the Pharohs. Steel strings started to be marketed for guitars in
the 1870s and 1880s, although few guitars were made designed for steel
strings and many guitars were sold with the explicit warning that
warrenties did not apply if the user put on steel strings. Steel
strings for guitars were extremely expensive until around 1900. In
the first Sears Catalog from 1897, the cost of just the bass strings
for a guitar was equal to the price of an inexpensive steel stringed
guitar or banjo. However, by around 1900, some new process emerged
that made steel strings inexpensive. In the 1907 Sears Catalog most
guitars listed are loudly advertised as having steel strings and
guitars have fallenh in price absolutely since 1897 and guitars which
were previously more expensive than banjos are now listed as more
inexpensive than banjos,.
To date. no one has produced a study that shows how the progression of
steel strings unfoled on guitars. We know they became available in
the 1870s, and might have been available earlier. We know that by
1900 major manufacturers had begun mass producing steel string guitars
and steel string uitars began to be common. In his _Red River Blues_
Bruce Bastin provides a good picture of how the Sears catalog system
and RFD made the guitars made after 1900 widely available in the rural
and mountain South. We know that by 1910, steel string guitars were
commonly used by African Amkericans and southern whites.
However, we do not know by what route and at what rate this happened
either among African Americans or European Americans. Were steel
string guitars a novelty or chiefly urban or something used only by
money professionals until 1900, or did they slowly become popularized
between the 1880s and 1900? Indeed, how did the exploision of steel
string guitar playing in the early 20th Century play out. What degree
was their transmission between African Americans and European
Americans as some reports cite the guitar being played largely by
African Americans and then by European Americans.
Even before steel strings guitar playing among urban African
Americans and Black commercial entertainers was characterized as a
"glut" with as many professional performers "as the sands of the sea"
by a major Black music writer around 1890. It was often a first
instrument for Black musicians who would go on to receive formal
training in orchestral instruments, Both WC Handy and Jelly Roll
Morton first played guitar. We find the generation of musicians of
the early Jazz bands in New Orleans, almost all played in string bands
with guitars, mandolins, basses, and fiddles (but no banjos) when they
were tweenes or teenagers,. Evidence from the late 19th Century in
the South considered the guitar a Black instrument. A number of first-
generation hillbilly performers reported first seeing Blacks playing
the guitar.
On basses. It is a struggle to transport a bass even if you have a
car, or a truck. OTM bands grew up in an era where few
persons owned automobiles, and fewer in the social layer that made the
music owned automobiles. Moreover, until plucked bass playing was
transmitted by Black jazz and blues playing, stringband bass playing,
such as it was, was done by bowing basses, not plucking them. The
bowing rarely picked up on the early recordings, so there may have
been a little more bass playing than we think. I would wager that the
beat was quite different more alinged with the spirited counterpoint
of the banjo and fiddle shuffling, than the stronger beats that seemed
to come into the music with the steel stringed guitars, with the
basses following.
As someone who didnt play or here any contemporary OTM from the mid
1970s until about 10 years ago, the most shocking change has been the
advent of basses in many old time bands. One side this is good
because it seems to result from great opportunities and needs to play
for dancers. On the other hand, it is confusing, especially for my
guitar playing, because it dictates the band creating a nerw division
of labor between the guitar and the bass and playing in ways that
musicians never played in the actual OTM recordings.
On the other hand there are numerous pictures of late 19th Century
string bands, Black and white, with cellos which are a bit easier to
carry around, although these cellos seemed to have died out by the
1940s, replaced by basses which came in with the professional Country
music bands ioncluding Bluegrass that had the resources to have a
vehicle to carry the basses around in. This also reflects the strong
influence on Hillbilly, Country, and Bluegrass music ofr Jazz, Swing,
and other forms of popular music.
TT
tonythomas
"Ford--I think we can all look back to a discourse on this in fiddle l
a few years ago rather than rehashing it here again--what he said here
about Country music radio etc is quite important.
The Country music industry coallesced around radio stations,
While a lot of BS has been created out of publicity mills in
Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry was not so central to the founding of
the industry and only assumed its celebrity in the late 1930s or even
the 1940s as a result of decisions that centered the recording part of
the industtry in Nashville. In fact, the station did not establish
itself as a country station until some point in the 1950s.
The Chicago based Barn dance program was probably the most
influencential show in the 1930s. The initial center of Country Radio
and recording was Atlanta. Radio stations throughout the Midwest and
the South had their own circuits of performers and listeners. The
earliestg audience and product advertising for radio across the
country found that Country music was attractive to both urban and
rural listeners far beyond the South. Biography of 1930s country
performers shows a constant rotation between these stations, something
that lasted into the 1950s, before live radio programs more or less
disappeared except a few of the big weekend shows like the Louisiana,
Wheeling, and Nashville showsw.
Radio was crucial for a number of reasons. For one thing, until
the mid or late 1930s, and then only if you got an expensive set,
radio sound was much better than what was heard on records. Once you
got a radio to your house, you didnt have to go anywhere to get one.
It was also not that hard for local bands to get on local radio
stations all of which featured only live music until after WWII and
many did not go to all recordings until the very late 1940s or the
1950s. Artists could drive up to a radio station, audition, and be
given whatever time was not yet accounted for, and could stay on the
air if they could find a sponsor. On the other hand through network
broadcasts of portions of the big barn dance programs, national styles
anhd national stars congealed in a way that began to determine how
local musicians played, whipping out local and oral tradition.
As a whole radio tended to popularize song and singer oriented music
and decrease the influence of old time dance music that was primarily
instrumental. Indeed, if one listens to Hillbilly recordings of the
1930s, one finds that there is much more singing, and the band playing
has a more subordinate role than on contemporary pop, swing, or
Western Swing records, even when compared to records that were
marketed as by singers, such as the 1930s Columbia sides John Hammond
produced for Billie Holiday and Mildred Bailey. Bluegrass added an
added instrumental side that was not followed in other kinds of
country music. However, Bluegrass did emphasize some of the greatest
singing ever done,. Moreover, the role of the instruments and the
format for songs of Bluegrass is an obvious direct descendant of the
approaches of swing and jazz combos, with the band playing the tune
through once together and then different soloists swinging out. This
is a marked difference from the way older forms of string band dance
music were played. The great instrumental specials and instrumental
versions of old time dance tunes have more in common with the great
arranged instrumental pieces of the swing era like Jumping at the
Woodside or Cottontail and to the great instrumentals of Western Swing
than to the older fiddle dance music.
I do not believe the Grand old Opry allowed drum kits until the 1950s
or perhaps even the 1960s. I know that the drum kit was one of the
many issues that led the Opry to attempt to kick Bob Wills out when he
performed there in 1945. I know that Hank Williams and other
musicians of his period used a guitar tuned low in a tunning and
strummed hard to replace the drum. I know man musicians who recorded
with drums in the studios or in other stage shows appeared without
drums on the Opry into the 1960s.
One of the paradoxes of the Country Music Industry is that while it
claims to represent tradition and ancient tones and claims to be
culturally conservative, it is largely a marketing concept that has
been ominiverous in its acquisition of all kinds of modern musical
influences and practices. Whatever claims it has to tradition are
belied by the way it has developed as a form of the conquest of
originally regional and traditional music by market trends and
developments born in African American and general popular music.
Much as we fans of traditional folk music of all kinds wish to linger
in romantic nostalgia about ancient tones, UR musics, and idylic
"pure" roots settings, this music is a product of the rip and riot
and progress and degeneration that has marked the lives of the people
who made it who were products of the Twentieth Century.
Tony Thomas, who is more and more realizing he is a Twentieth Century
product out of date in the Twenty first
tonythomas
An obvious error:
Steel strings for guitars were extremely expensive until around 1900.
In
the first Sears Catalog from 1897, the cost of just the bass strings
for a guitar was equal to the price of an inexpensive steel stringed
guitar or banjo.
This should read
Steel strings for guitars were extremely expensive until around 1900.
In
the first Sears Catalog from 1897, the cost of just the bass strings
for a guitar was equal to the price of an inexpensive guitar or
banjo.
The 1897 catalog lists no steel string guitars or banjos. Obviously,
the strings
could not cost more than instruments strung with them. In contrast,
the ad for
the guitars in 1907 proclaims loudly that they all come with steel
strings.
I know many on this list are similarly engaged in reading the 1897 and
1907 sears
catalog as I am and that large part of the list is now at peace.
I may have gained this interest from childhood days visiting
relatives who
did not have indoor plumbing and who kept the "wish book" in the
outhouse for both literary and
another use that did not contirbute to its research value. I hope a
thread does not develop on this list
questiong what the second use of the catalgo was.
Tony Thomas
Paul Gifford
>
> Steel strings for guitars were extremely expensive until around 1900.
> In
> the first Sears Catalog from 1897, the cost of just the bass strings
> for a guitar was equal to the price of an inexpensive guitar or
> banjo.
>
> The 1897 catalog lists no steel string guitars or banjos. Obviously,
> the strings
> could not cost more than instruments strung with them. In contrast,
> the ad for
> the guitars in 1907 proclaims loudly that they all come with steel
> strings.
Thanks for posting, Tony. This is very curious. I've looked at
these
Sears catalog reprints, but somehow never noticed this. Re Joel's
Irish harp question----it seems that there were technical advances in
manufacturing wire (probably brass) around 1400, or somewhat
before, which caused a lot of experiments with instruments,
resulting in the development of the harpsichord, clavichord, dulcimer,
and probably others. Evidently in Nuremberg, a wire drawing
process powered by water wheels caused cheaper wire to be
available, although for royal instruments, gold and silver wire
had been available earlier.
Some of the ex-slave narratives and other sources mention guitars
in Southern string bands (played by black musicians), so it had
begun to appear in them before 1860. I'd have to pull out my
references, but the cello or bass appears in the South around this
time as well. There was a custom of serenading in which guitars
were used----I think in one reference I have, the white serenader
in some Southern city, perhaps Richmond, employs black musicians.
A letter written by a Detroit woman in 1845 mentions three black
musicians playing two violins and guitar. If I recalll, the ad
published
by Obadiah Wood, probably one of the violinists, says that his
group was available for serenades.
I don't know how much guitars cost in 1840 or 1850 in comparison
to other instruments, but I bet that they weren't cheap. Since it
was popular with wealthier ladies, perhaps slave musicians may
have come into contact with it more often than poor whites.
Evidently the mandolin craze was caused by touring groups of
so-called Mexican "students," or estudiantinas, which began in
the late 1870s. This is an old custom of singing and playing the
bandurria that university students in Spain practice. Apparently
Mexican imitators, using mandolins, caused Americans to take
it up, leading them to start mandolin clubs.
I read a contemporary news story from 1882 which described a
current craze for fretted instruments----so banjoes, guitars, and
mandolins were all part of this (with autoharps, guitar-zithers, etc.,
coming in a bit later). But by 1906, music retailers were saying
that phonographs were killing this part of the business, fretted
instruments being in decline.
So it's a bit hard to say when the guitar started to get paired with
the fiddle, to accompany dance music. Like Tony says, it probably
was introduced at different times in different places. There are
plenty of photographs, mostly dating from the 1890s and 1900s.
Written descriptions are scarce, at least until the 1880s. It looks
as though the guitar was used as a parlor instrument for family
music-making, also played some by professionals (probably
mainly black and perhaps German musicians) for serenading,
then becoming much more popular in association with mandolins
and banjoes (1880s).
Paul Gifford
tonythomas
current craze for fretted instruments----so banjoes, guitars, and
mandolins were all part of this (with autoharps, guitar-zithers,
It must be remembered that in 1880s fretted banjos were a bnew
"modern" improvement that much of the banjo world was divided over, an
innovation that was shunned into the mid twentieth century by many of
the remaining African Amjerican and European American traditional
banjoists. Frets were adopted on banjos both as part of the
guitarization of the banjo associated with classic banjo and were also
meant as the equivalent of trainer wheels for new banjoists.; Indeed,
initially banjos were mkade with fret lines, but no ffrets, much like
some beginning violin or fiddle teachers willo draw position lines or
put a position card on a violin. There are a number of old banjos
from the late 19th century where it is obvious that the owner or some
tinkerer added their own frets or fret lines with no real knowledge of
the scale!
In the first Sears catalog no mention of steel strings is made in the
advertiserments for guitars and banjos. Steel strings are mentioned
among the accessories for these instruments.
Apparently the change for guitars came not only with the availability
of steel strings, but with the creation of guitar architecture that
made steel string guitars last. I bet many people on this list my age
(62) or older struggled through cheap guitars that were not strong
enough to take the string tension that pulled themselves apart with
steel strings. If you look at late 19th Century guitar ads, though
not in Sears, there are a number of disclaimers saying that the
manufacturer is not responsibile for what will happen to the guitar if
steel strings are used on it. On the other hand, late ninetenth
century architecture for quality banjos, and many non quality as well,
supports steel strings with no adjustments. I am sure many members of
this list play banjos build in the era of gut strings or direct
replicas of them, but use steel strings.
One thing a trip through these early catalogs does teach is the deep
interest in all kinds of musical instruments that the late 19th
century customers must have had./ There are many instruments that are
no longer played, some for good reason, but most because playing the
radio and the record player have moved in. (I am too old timey to
know about IPOD's though I know many beacons of OTM total integrity
swear by thiers),.
LindauUSA2009
between OT and BG, and the roots of OTM, so I went back to this
thread. Upon rereading it, I came across Peter's comments/questions,
which I hadn't noticed previously. He was responding to a reply that
I'd posted earlier.
On Aug 31, 8:12 pm, Peter Feldmann <pe...@bluegrasswest.com> wrote:
> > There are very few "written" tunes that strike my ear as authentically
> > old-time. The key term here may be "old-timey," which to me has a much
> > different connotation than "old-time."
>
> Can you elaborate?
This is a tough one to answer definitively, since it really comes down
to a matter of judgment and taste. But just for starters, the tune
"Waiting for Nancy" immediately strikes me as composed ("old-timey" or
"old-time-like") rather than traditional ("old-time"). That's largely
because of the prominent VII chord, which is very rare (i.e.,
essentially nonexistent) in the old recordings. I can think of a
number of other tunes that strike me as gimicky and therefore recently
composed, though I'd rather not go into specifics. On the other hand,
Craig Johnson's marvelous, brand-new CD ("Away Down the Road;" 5-
String 5SP06001) includes 5 of his own compositions, and they sound to
me for all the world like they're traditional.
> > True. But just because it happens doesn't necessarily make the result
> > into old-time music. When a concert violinist plays Sally Ann, is that
> > an example of old-time fiddling (or even Round Peak fiddling)? Is it
> > classical music? I'd say neither.
>
> I'd say you had better listen to the violinist before deciding. Does
> that mean that someone like Buell Kazee, who was classically trained in
> voice, ought not to be considered a traditional singer?
Point well taken, Peter. There are a number of classically trained
musicians--past and present--who do a great job of playing old-time
music, but they're the ones who've really studied the old music and
learned to appreciate it for what it is (or who've grown up with it,
as did Buell Kazee). I was referring more to the violinist "with an
attitude"--the violinist who figures that formal training is the be-
all-and-end-all.
--John
Lyle Lofgren
Classically trained violinists who thought that "formal training is
the be-all-and-end-all" and tried to play traditional tunes as if you
could use classical techniques were (fortunately) a short-lived
phenomenon during that grim time during the early 1960s when everyone
was trying to make a buck off the back of tradition. Now that there's
no profit in it, the only violinists who play traditional tunes are
ones who are actually interested in the tradition, and have put the
effort in to learn its subtleties. Popularity isn't always a good
thing, particularly if it comes too easy. At least that's one less
thing for me to worry about.
Lyle