WHAT IS OLD TIME MUSIC?
Labels are necessary components of the ideas and experiences we fit into our lives. With labels, we differentiate. Where would marketing be without them? Some labels have the ability to be simultaneously pleasing and/or pejorative, depending on one's point of view. Such a label is ‘old time music.’ We may interpret it to denote (A) hopelessly outdated music or (B) deeply authentic music. Could it be both, music rooted in pre-video (even pre-radio) rural America and thus heroically anachronistic?
Old time music may suggest sounds rooted in pre-mass media Americana, but it is no less a marketing label than is ‘urban’ (contemporary black music) or ‘young country’ (post-Garth Nashville pop). It's just an older sales hook. This one can be traced to 1923, when Georgia’s Fiddlin’ John Carson waxed The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane and The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow for the OKeh label. Legendary A&R [Artist and Repertoire]-man Ralph Peer deemed Carson’s performance “pluperfect awful,” but enough rural Americans disagreed to make the record a hit, the first in the history of what’s now called country music. (Ever the pragmatist, Carson remarked at his first whiff of success: “I’ll have to quit making moonshine and start making records.”) Carson’s paean to barnyard fertility rites and bucolic cabins initially appeared in OKeh’s popular music catalog, where it kept uneasy company with slicker stuff.
DVDs
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OLD TIME HEROES
Why Old Time? By Mike Seeger, David Holt
Sprout Wings and Fly - Tommy Jarrell [VHS] 
DVD available from Les Blank
Melvin Wine: Old Time Music Maker by Robert S. Boles
“One More Time” The Life and Music of Melvin Wine by Margo Blevin and Gerald Milnes.
VEST-DVD13026
VEST-V13079Clyde Davenport: Shades of Clyde Cedar Glade 007
VEST-DVD13071Traditional Music Classics - Doc Watson, Kilby Snow, Roscoe Holcomb, and Buell Kazee
Elizabeth Cotten In Concert 1969, 1978 & 1980
New Lost City Ramblers - Always Been A Rambler by Yasha Aginsky
Four American Roots Music Films by Yasha Aginsky
FIDDLE
Learn to Play Old Time Fiddle- Lesson 1. Taught by Brad Leftwich
Learn To Play Old Time Fiddle-Lesson 2. Taught by Brad Leftwich
Southern Old-Time Fiddle Tour. Taught by Bruce Molsky
Singing with the Fiddle-Accompanying Old Time Songs and Ballads. Taught by Bruce Molsky
Great Fiddle Lessons: Bluegrass & Old Time Styles. Taught by Brad Leftwich, Kenny Kosek
A Fiddler's Guide to Waltzes, Airs and Haunting Melodies. Taught by Jay Ungar
BANJO
Old-Time Banjo Styles. Taught By Mike Seeger
Southern Banjo Styles #1 Clawhammer Varieties & more. Taught by Mike Seeger
Southern Banjo Styles #2-Early 2-and 3- Finger Picking. Taught by Mike Seeger
Southern Banjo Styles #3- Holcomb, Mainer, McGee, Bluegrass Influences & more. Taught by Mike Seeger
Great Banjo Lessons: Clawhammer Style. Taught by Bob Carlin
How To Play The 5-String Banjo. Taught by Pete Seeger
GUITAR
VEST-DVD13004
VEST-DVD13003
VEST-DVD13016
VEST-DVD13037Early Southern Guitar Styles. Taught by Mike Seeger
DVD-Guitar Styles Of The Carter Family. Taught by Mike Seeger
SINGING
The Carter Family - Will the Circle Be Unbroken by Kathy Conkwright
Vocal Techniques For Old-Time Mountain Music by Cary Fridley
From Augusta Heritage Recordings
“One More Time” – The Life & Music of Melvin Wine DVD/CD-ROM
Reel 'Em, Boys, Reel 'Em - A Documentary of Traditional West Virginia Dance, The Mountain Dance Trail.
Old-Time Music on the Augusta Stage
Kent Lilly – West Virginia’s Old-Time Storyteller
Tribute to the Mountain Dulcimer
Icy Mountain – The Quirky Fiddling of Leland Hall
Music of Heaven – Old-Time Music from Coal River Country
The ‘CC Boys: A West Virginia Legacy
That Old-Time Sound – Old-Time Music & Ways of Central West Virginia
Fiddlin’ Leo Herron
From Arhoolie Records
Down Home Music: A Journey Through the Heartland 1963
FROM HOMESPUN MUSIC INSTRUCTION
Banjo of Ralph Stanley: From Old-Time to Bluegrass - Ralph Stanley - RAL-BJ21-DVD
READING MATERIAL
Magazines
Journals
ARSC Journal – Association of Recorded Sound Collections
Books
Amazon:
Strings of Life: Conversations with Old Time Musicians by Kevin Donleavy
Fiddlin' Georgia Crazy: Fiddlin' John Carson, His Real World, and the World of His Songs
Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South by Patrick Huber
Country Music, U.S.A.: Third Revised Edition by Bill C. Malone and Jocelyn R. Neal
In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music by Nicholas Dawidoff
Wayfaring Strangers: The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia by Fiona Ritchie, Doug Orr, Darcy Orr
The Scotch-Irish Influence on Country Music in the Carolinas: Border Ballads, Fiddle Tunes and Sacred Songs by Michael C. Scoggins
Alan Lomax, Assistant In Charge: The Library Of Congress Letters, 1935 - 1945 by Ronald D. Cohen
African Banjo Echoes In Appalachia: A Study Of Folk Traditions by Cecelia Conway
Gone To The Country: The New Lost City Ramblers And The Folk Music Revival by Ray Allen
Traditional Musicians Of The Central Blue Ridge - Old Time, Early Country, Folk And Bluegrass Label Recording Artists, With Discographies by Marty Mcgee
Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone: The Carter Family And Their Legacy In American Music by Mark Zwonitzer With Charles Hirshberg
A Banjo Pickin' Girl: The Life And Music Of Ola Belle Campbell Reed by Judy H. Marti
Alan Lomax, Assistant In Charge: The Library Of Congress Letters, 1935 - 1945 by Ronald D. Cohen
Banjo On The Mountain: Wade Mainer's First Hundred Years by Dick Spottswood
Fiddle
Play of a Fiddle: Traditional Music, Dance, and Folklore of West Virginia by Gerry Milnes
Fiddling Way Out Yonder: The Life and Music of MelvinWine by Drew Beisswenger
The Devil’s Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling by Charles Wolfe
Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes by Jeff Todd Titon
The Fiddle Book by Marion Thede
The Old-Time Fiddler's Repertory: 245 Traditional Tunes by R. P. Christeson
The Old-Time Fiddler’s Repertory Volume 2 by R.P. Christeson
Beginning Old Time Fiddle by Alan Kaufman
The Fiddler's Fakebook: The Ultimate Sourcebook For The Traditional Fiddler by David Brody
Ragtime for Fiddle & Mandolin by Steve Parker
150 Hot Tunes for Fiddle & Mandolin by Steve Parker
Elderly:
Fiddle Tunes I Learned At The Tractor Tavern (And Other Places Around Puget Sound) - The Millennium Edition (Revised) by Gene Silberberg
The Complete - Fiddle Tunes I Either Did Or Did Not Learn At The Tractor Tavern by Gene Silberberg
Fiddle Tunes Illuminated by Alan Jabbour
Banjo
Ring the Banjar! by Robert Lloyd Webb
African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia by Cecelia Conway
Old Time Songs For Clawhammer Banjo by David K Marshall
Old-Time Backup Guitar: Learn From the Masters by John Schwab
The Banjo Player's Songbook: Over 200 great songs arranged for the five-string banjo by Tim Jumper
The Art of the Mountain Banjo by Art Rosenbaum
Old Time String Band Banjo Styles by Joseph Weidlich
Minstrel Banjo: Briggs’ Banjo Instructor by Joseph Weidlich
Wade Ward - Clawhammer Banjo Master (Book/CD Set) by Bob Carlin & Dan Levenson
Kyle Creed - Clawhammer Banjo Master (Book/CD Set) by Bob Carlin
Round Peak Style Clawhammer Banjo by Brad Leftwich
Clawhammer Banjo by Miles Krassen
Clawhammer Style Banjo by Ken Perlman
The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo by Patrick Costello
A Book of Five Strings: Strategies for Mastering the Art of Old Time Banjo by Patrick Costello
How To Play The 5-String Banjo by Pete Seeger
Clawhammer Banjo String Band Favorites by Steve Parker
Mandolin
Old Time String Band Music for Mandolin by Joseph Weidlich
150 Hot Tunes for Fiddle & Mandolin by Steve Parker
Ragtime for Fiddle & Mandolin by Steve Parker
The Mandolin Picker's Fakebook by David Brody
Guitar
Guitar Pickers Fakebook: The Ultimate Sourcebook for the Traditional Guitar by David Brody
String Band
Old-Time String Band Songbook by Cohen/Seeger/Wood
Songs
Ragtime
Ragtime for Fiddle & Mandolin by Steve Parker
Other related interesting books
The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 16 – Robert Crumb
Long Steel Rail – Norm Cohen
Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women – Ricky Jay
WEB LINKS
Internet streaming old-time music: Sugar in the Gourd
Search for Old Time Music on www.youtube.com
Want to see notes for a tune? JC's ABC Tune Finder
Want to learn about a tune? Fiddler's Companion
Want to hear a tune (or snippet thereof) and iTunes doesn’t find it? Amazon Song/Tune Search
Folk Music Index, useful index for traditional fiddletunes
For all things mandolin: The Mandolin Café
Roots of American Fiddle Music
Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
Old Time Kentucky Fiddler Clyde Davenport
Old Time Music in Portland, OR: Bubba Guitar
Sources for recordings:
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