Old Time

[stringbuzzard]

Are there any oldtime musicians or fans here? Banjo pickers or fiddlers? If so, what are some of yr favorite tunes, artists and stringbands?

 

[river dog]

i play a banjer and i love me some dock boggs, ol timey for sure

 

[absurdtoast]

clawhammer banjo legend Clarence Tom Ashley...basically all on the American Anthology of Folk Music..if you don't have that collection..get it!! Dock Boggs is so good....Charlie Poole is amazing. Cannon's Jug Stompers, Blind Blake, Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson (old blues basically) Doc Watson. Goebel Reeves..the yodelin hobo

Henry Thomas, Jack Kelly and his southern Memphis jug band, memphis jug band, Mississippi Shrieks, Utah Phillips...I love this stuff so much

 

[absurdtoast]

OH forgot the legend Roscoe Holcomb

 

[stringbuzzard]

Great! There are folks here into this stuff. Roscoe Holcomb was my introduction to american mountain music. Changed my life forever. Everyone stated above is also great. There are so many to list, but Two really good sources are juneberry78's.com and the digital library of Appalachia. All free and lots of great recordings. Frank Fairfield is on tour. If you haven't heard him, you must!

 

[Blackout Beetle]

I love listening to bluegrass and play just about all the artists absurdtoast mentioned. FTW.

 

[absurdtoast]

Didn't know about those sites...they seem like great resources though...but yeah..there is something so real about old time music and the songs intertwine with the American experience. They tell these tales that hold so much information and insight into what life was like and the culture and the music is just...real...most are simple folk songs played by regular working class people. I wanna start a jug band and just keep these songs alive.

This is a great song about the struggles of sharecropping:


Other great old time/blues groups: Al Hopkin's and his buckle busters, Alex Jackson and his plantation orchestra, birmingham jug band, Brownie Mcghee, Carolina tar heels, chubby parker and his old time banjo, elizabeth cotten, furry lewis, Harry McClintock (haywire mac), howlin wolf, leadbelly, john lee hooker, mississippi john hurt, papa charlie jackson, Joe Hill- one of my favorites.







Of course this is getting a little off of the strictly "old time" music..but Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, Almanac Singers....all are great. Blah I could just ramble on about this...

 

[whaleofashrimp]

 

[whaleofashrimp]

if you nwanna get really old school

 

[stringbuzzard]

Word! Oldtime speaks to and from the heart. The thing i love most about this music is that everyone plays it their on way by default. Everyones approach is diff and unique. The music is and has always constantly evolved. Its also very moving. from the murder balled and lonesome, haunting model tunes, to the wild and exciting breakdowns. Most notably its an honest, simple music yet very complex.

 

[joaquim33]

yo!
at some point after high school i got a hold of HARRY SMITHS ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC: PART 2 , SOCIAL MUSIC!
which is the record that changed my music taste completely. i've wanted to learn fiddle for years after hearing "sail away ladies" and im finally learning it this winter!
im mainly a drummer, but last year i got Really into ROSCOE HOLCOMB and started learning banjo.. i can play a little bit of his two finger style, but clawhammer has really just come much more easily probably since its so similar to drumming.
these guys ive been playing old time fiddle music with recently have gotten me into stuff like charlie poole and THE SKILLET LICKERS! and Earl Johnson..good stuff!
one of them runs a awesome blog about music , check it out:
http://oldtimeparty.wordpress.com/

also, have yall seen this fellas blog about the Harry Smith collection? he's covering every song, google THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA, harry smith..

im from western mass and these people here, including the fella who runs that blog, have formed a HARRY SMITH COMMITEE that puts on live reenactments of the Anthology series in greenfield mass in the summer, performers can just come and perform. yall shuold come o\ut!

 

[absurdtoast]

awesome man! I must GO! Im in rhode island..and agreed...discovering the anthology of american folk music...completely changed my musical interests. I want to learn so many of the songs on that album but am having a hard time really teaching myself the banjo..so at this point I've hit a plateau and can't seem to find a banjo teacher or anyone into the same kind of music..THUS...I must go to western mass!

Do you know when the summer thing is? I'm totally goin!

As for more old time music check out this hobo song:

I am obsessed with that song and am having the hardest time trying to figure out how to play it....so if anyone can help with some tips as to what he doin...would much appreciated! I wish there were more how to videos cause I can't seem to look at tabs and translate that into playin...but I've gotten much better...Anyway...that guy Vgo...is amazing..and great song too!

 

[lungfish]

ah!
I play fiddle and clawhammer banjer, as well as some other odds and ends.... but whoopee for this here thread.
as far as tunes go, i've been loving the dickens out of classy things like Angeline the Baker and Cluck Old Hen and stuff. Simple but really fun to play with a lot of people. also trying to wrap my brain around a version of Betsy Liken's fucked with and put into 6/8.
Fall on My Knees is an incredibly satisfying song too, as is Sugar Baby. Sorry I'm just name dropping right now, but youtube is being fucky for me.

And! If any of you folks are up in the Maine area in June or August, I highly recommend Maine Fiddle Camp. Beautiful people and music. It's a little pricy but the guy who runs it is swell and lets you work it off and stuff. http://www.mainefiddle.org/

 

[absurdtoast]

I love playin the simple old timey banjo tunes..cluck old hen, old joe clark, cripple creek, boil em cabbage, cuckoo, foggy mountian breakdown, june apple etc...and i love the old sawmill tuning and g minor tuning for banjo...both turn the banjo into this real darker instrument...you can play some really awesome soundin dark Appalachian mountain type stuff in both those tunings.

I gotta get out more! now I gotta go to Maine too....I'd love to find a fiddle player to just mess around with!

 

[lungfish]

Come! There's a pretty swell old-timey/folk scene up here.

 

[Bandito Dan]

I play banjo, been teaching myself clawhammer over the past couple of weeks. I'm pretty happy with the progress, actually. Before, I mostly did fingerpicking and strumming type stuff, but I love the old time sound that clawhammer gives.
I listen to a lot of the stuff mentioned above. A really awesome new band that plays old timey music (though they're kind of big now, so I'm sure a lot of you guys have already heard of them, but are still great) is the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
I also like a lot of Irish folk, which at times is pretty similar to a lot of Appalachian folk, so if you're running out of neat American songs to play, definitely check out some old Irish tunes. And if you like ragtime guitar, check out Blind Willie McTell, always been a favorite of mine.

 

[absurdtoast]

love Blind Willie McTell and yeah Carolina Chocolate Drops are great! I tried learning finger pickin the first week I got the banjo and something about it...just wasn't for me...I don't really like the idea of memorizing these rolls and plus I'm not too big on a lot of bluegrass banjo...which the Scruggs style really focuses on. Maybe I'll try and learn one day....but yeah..there is something about clawhammer that I just love...something really therapeutic about doin the basic bum-ditty along with the rich history of the tunes...PBS did an amazing special on the history of the banjo not to long ago..it was great, really understanding the banjo as a cultural instrument and its African roots.

 

[joaquim33]

hey whats up lungfish, i was actually just listening to lungfish at work today!
wheres gardiner maine at? i live not too far from portland maine and have travelled round maine a little the last few summer, never went further north than mattawamkeag but would like to explore further north and climb mt. Katadin some time. went to the black fly ball three summers ago in machias and there was a good square dance up there.

this man (roscoe) is my favorite banjo player, favorite singer, hands down, i love this man: !!!

part 1
part 2

first video hes doing clawhammer, up picking the "bum" in bum ditty with his index, theres some great regular clawhammer later in the videos..he also plays 'two finger, thumb lead' banjo, which i like a lot more than scruggs style bluegrass..though guys like dock boggs and charlie poole did the three finger style and i would like to eventually learn to play like them better.

toast, the website for the harry smith frolic is here: http://www.sacrasoft.com/HarrySmith/
i think the pictures make it look kinda like an old person party, i think the night time involves much more young people and partying and what have you, i may or may not be around this summer. you should check out this guys blog for old time events in the mass/vermont/ny area: oldtimeparty.wordpress.com

also, if you cant find a banjo teacher, you should teach yourself to read banjo tabs. some stuff on this site is kinda cheesy, but i basically taught my self to play banjo with it until i found people to play with, and then i had a jump start on my basics: http://www.bluesageband.com/Tabs.html

-cory

 

[absurdtoast]

Yea I learned some tunes from that site. Man I wanna go to that Harry Smith thing so bad.





So haunting!

 

[Chapman Jones]

Just happened upon this thread ... very cool. One of my favorite old tyme string bands was the Reeltime Travelers... I've been frailin' a few years and love the old classics. But here's an original old tyme song I wrote a while back.