Chances are that if you have come to this blog intentionally, you already have at least some understanding, if not a vast one, of what Old Time Music, aka: Old Timey Music, aka: Old Time Country Music is all about. However I find more and more that there are a lot of misconceptions, and some confusion concerning certain aspects of the genre among, not only fans of the music, but even among some seasoned OT musicians as well as Bluegrass musicians.
In as much as I do not view myself as the all knowing Guru of OT, I have been exposed to it all my life, (over a half century), have studied every aspect and angle of it for years, and while my musical likes, and experience cross several genres, OT has always held the most special and prominent place in my heart of any genre.
Old Time is the style in which the music is played, and while the most common songs you may hear the most often associated with the genre may be anywhere between ninety and two hundred years old, there are songs being written everyday to the present that can and do fall under that genre, again it is the style in which it is played just like with any other genre, and not the age of the song. Within Old Time Music there is also an abundance of subject matter. There are the Spirituals (Gospel if you will), Work gang songs from the farms and plantations, to the railroad workers, to prison chain gangs, etc. There are the love songs, and the murder ballads. Often people confuse Old Time with Bluegrass and vice versa, and I believe that one of the biggest reasons for the confusion is that like Old Time , Bluegrass also has not only these same "categories " , but the same exact songs, just pumped up and put on steroids for the lightning fast style of BG. Old Time Music is actually the parent music of, and the main foundation upon which Bluegrass and Country music are built, as well as all of their sub-genres of various Folk and Americana music.
Old Time came first beginning with the early settlers of Appalachia, and the south eastern part of the country, but did not have the official genre name until about 1923. The Grand Old Opry was formed about two years after this moniker was applied in 1925. Uncle Dave Macon was one of the two first Opry regulars, and was the first Grand Opry star to reach the status of superstardom.
In all actuality Bill Monroe who is known as the Father of Bluegrass was first an Old Time musician, playing with the likes of the most famous OT musician, Uncle Dave Macon. It was not until the 1940's that Mr. Monroe combined things he'd learned from OT, the traveling minstrels, and other genres of the time to create his own brand of music known as Bluegrass. He had some very important help in this from Earl Scruggs who had also been an OT musician playing banjo, in that Mr. Scruggs took one of the many OT banjo styles, put on finger picks, developed new rolls, and essentially installed a virtual turbo booster, developing the ultra fast "Scruggs" banjo style that immediately became the signature, and mainstay Bluegrass style. This, to Mr. Scruggs' credit is actually one of the easiest ways to differentiate between the two genres. While there are said to be at least nineteen different banjo picking styles for OT, including clawhammer, and a variety of one, two, and three finger picking style, the Scruggs/Bluegrass style stands out alone as the Bluegrass signature style.
While Bluegrass is a very flashy music style with a lot of embellishment, and augmentation on the instruments, especially banjo and mandolin, Old Time is more raw, straight forward, somewhat slower paced, and simplistic in nature, placing more emphasis on lyrics than on fancy instrumentation, although some of it can pretty well get to jumping.
After somewhat taking a back seat to it's children, (Bluegrass and Country), Old Time Music enjoyed a revival during the late 1950's on through the 1960's being the big attraction of many Folk festivals, and on college campuses, as well as coffee houses and such venues. After fading back again (but never going away) out of the limelight, Old Time once again gained a large amount of popularity with the production of the ever popular movie "O' Brother Where Art Thou", and continues to be quite popular across the U.S. on college and university campuses, at festivals, coffee houses, and now more mainstream concert venues. It is also enjoying a lot of popularity internationally in such places as France, the UK, Germany, Ireland, etc.
All in all, even though the amount of attention it gets may rise and fall and rise again, I believe that as long as there are people, there will be those who want a music that is of the people, for the people, and by the people, that is not diluted and polished, and placed in a strangle hold by the big time music executives of Nashville's Music Row, NY, or LA. And as long as that desire for real, raw, straight forward, honest , music exists, so will that timeless genre known as Old Time Music.
In my next posting I plan to address some common misconceptions concerning the instruments used in Old Time Music.
Until then...don't worry about the Spotted Owl.....he'll be fine....SAVE OLD TIME MUSIC !!!!
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