Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords

Subject: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: GUEST,Peligro
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 03:51 PM

HI, I've been getting into ld time music piece by piece for a couple years, mostly because the recordings are really expensive. Can people suggest good chord and lyric books or cheap recordings. Also what's the thought on combining old time styles and subjects with other genres like punk (like early uncle tupelo did) and like a couple little DIY bands are now?

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 06:40 PM

well, as resident curmudgeonly purist-snob, my opinion is, if you combine OT with those other things, it ain't OT anymore! It's ok to do or like different music, but some things just don't translate well. Would you put soy sauce on Chicken Caccitoré and call it 'avant Chinese cuisine'?

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: BanjoRay
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 07:15 PM

The cheapest way to hear lots of Old Time is to get on the Honking Duck website. Loads of good tracks to hear and/or download and learn.
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: Cluin
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 08:13 PM

Mix it all up, I say. It'll either be great or it'll suck. We'll keep the good stuff and forget about the rest.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 06 Dec 03 - 08:14 PM

Check out the Max Hunter Collection. These are not commercial recordings but they are definitely old time.
http://www.smsu.edu/folksong/maxhunter/

Same with the LC Henry Reed Collection.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hrhtml/hrhome.html

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 07 Dec 03 - 01:47 PM

Oak Publications have a book now titled "Old Time String Band Music"
(or close) - it originally was called the "New Lost City Ramblers" song book. It contains an excellent collection of songs and a few tunes from the 1920's and 30's, plus an informative foreword on old timey music.

I'll reserve judgement, however, on mixing the styles :)

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: Mark Clark
Date: 07 Dec 03 - 04:12 PM

Actually the styles are being mixed with some success. I have a CD of some music my niece made with friends while she was at Brown. They wanted to play some of the old-timey material but they didn't really want to be Clarence Ashley. I don't know whether this is a trend or not but something interesting might come out of it.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: Mudlark
Date: 07 Dec 03 - 04:28 PM

Bluegrass to Newgrass, Olde Timey to New Timey...seems to me a certain amount of experimentation is part of the soul of the folk process, no? Fats Waller would probably roll over Beethoven if he heard me do Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, with my folkie chords and whitebread voice...but it's a great song, fun to sing and I like it!

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: Cluin
Date: 07 Dec 03 - 05:03 PM

I liked Tim O'Brien's CD of Dylan songs done bluegrass style that he put out a few years ago: Red on Blonde.

And a group called Hayseed Dixie had a bunch of bluegrass covers of ACDC songs, plus a second album of hard rock love songs done bluegrass style. Some of them even sounded pretty good.

Let's not forget that guitarists like Clarence White and Tony Rice brought new chord patterns to bluegrass too in the 60s and 70s. Now it's pretty much accepted as the standard by most players today.

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 03 - 09:05 PM

Hmmm. I wonder if I can get my son's punk band to do The Dreadful Snake....

Subject: RE: Chord Req: Old Time Music, recordings and chords
From: GUEST,Ely (still can't reset my damn cookie)
Date: 07 Dec 03 - 09:21 PM

I played in an OT band in college and our staple "reference" bands included some Red Clay Ramblers--although they're multitalented, so be selectve--the High Woods String Band, Chirps Smith/Volo Bogtrotters (Marimac Records?), the Freighthoppers (http://cheap-cds.com/), Dwight Lamb (Smithsonian Folkways), the Allen Street String Band (tapes used to be available through Marimac Records), and former schoolmate Rhys Jones.

I've also heard good recordings by the Pilot Mountain Bobcats, Red Mountain White Trash, Vulcan's Britches, and, of course, Norman Blake.

Now, none of these are old (well, they're mostly still very much alive) but they all devoted themselves to preserving pre-bluegrass stringband music, if that's what you mean by old-time.