Y’all know me to post a lot of eclectic videos spanning a variety of genres. Just wanted to throw a few out there from the genre that underlies everything I do musically: old time.
And oh my goodness listen to this, kids:
I like old time because it constantly reminds me how often we forget the extent to which much older forms influence modern music. For example, when I was in my early 20s and heard I Got A Man, I thought it was the dumbest fucking thing I ever heard (and also hilarious). Today, I understand the song is one of a long line of Dozens songs and it totally cracks me up even more.
And don’t get me started on metal as folk music. Because it is. It totally is, and it has its own folkways.
As a wee young lad growing up in the 60’s, I didn’t really recognize the fact that I was surrounded by a musical family. But on my mom’s side, virtually everyone was a musician of some sort, and on my dad’s side, there were a few old uncles from Kentucky who told stories about throwing their guitars over their shoulders and riding the old mule to the their sweetheart’s house to court their future brides. My grandma used to tell how her dad would always grumble, “Here comes that Bradley boy again with that guitar”, every time he would see my Uncle Luther coming up the creek on the mule to see my grandma’s sister Julia.
But some of my fondest memories are watching my grandpa sitting in his living room, surrounded by a cloud of smoke from the Marlboro cigarette that was dangling from his lips, as he played tunes from his youth on his old Les Paul.
And I still recall vividly my great uncle in Kentucky, who died in 2000 at the age of 95, plinking this tune often while sitting on their porch on a hot summer night, down in a holler in Eastern Kentucky. What I wouldn’t give for one more of those days. This is one of the songs I had to learn when I got my first guitar for $49 in the mid-70’s.
“Devilish Mary” is such a good song.
My brother’s youngest child has picked up the violin. I’m giving him a bunch of fiddle music for Christmas, turn that boy into a fiddler.
I am told that my great grandpa was quite a fiddler in his day. I have seen old newspaper clippings about awards that he won. His fiddle is still in the family. Sadly, no one has picked up where he left off.
never too late to learn. it’s a shame to let a good fiddle go to waste.
I also need to start taking lessons on my grampa’s violin (he wasn’t a fiddler). My fiddling friends love to play it, and I’d like to as well, but my mitts are so used to upright bass, I’m not sure they’d adapt to the tiny spacing so well.
How many different kinds of national treasure is R. Crumb?