I travel by air quite a bit and as I put my fiddle in the overhead luggage bin
someone often asks what kind of music I play. Sometimes I've answered "old- time music" but soon learned that means little to the general public, as it could mean any kind of music that occurred
before the time of our conversation. Sometimes I try "old-time country" and they might say "oh, like Hank Williams?" or even Merle Haggard. "No," I say, "it's acoustic and more backwoods than
that." Then sometimes (if they're really knowledgeable) they'll say, "oh, is it bluegrass?" I wish old-time music had such a nice handle. I'm gradually learning to abandon short labels and take a
minute to describe the place and time that this music existed in and now exists in, because musical consciousness is so layered and limited by contemporary format radio and TV that most Americans'
view of music is pretty narrow. Old-time music was the old-time name for real mountain-type folk music. Old-time music is the main foundation for bluegrass music. It is the kind of music that Bill
Monroe, Earl Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers and in fact most rural people prior to the mid nineteen twenties, were raised with. It is the old unaccompanied English ballads like Barbara Allen, new
American songs like Wild Bill Jones, old fiddle tunes like Devil's Dream, and newer banjo tunes like Cumberland Gap. It's a rich and varied heritage of music - as rich as the roots music of any
country. It was played throughout rural America but was extra strong and distinctive in the Southeast, especially in the mountains. It is sung and played on a variety of acoustic instruments
including the guitar and mandolin which were newcomers to it in the early twentieth century. It used to be played by African Americans as well as Anglo, French & Scotch- Irish, etc Americans.
It nearly died out in mid-century but has found new life and is being played, mostly informally, by people all over the country. Before we had radio and phonographs, folks used the music to
entertain themselves; a lot more people played music in those days, before you could push a button and rely on others to make it for you. In the pre-electronic days you always had to make your own
music or be real near to some one who was making the music, to hear it when it was actually being made. There wasn't a music market and not much money around, so except for a few minstrel shows and
occasional schoolhouse and medicine shows even exceptional musicians gained only local, informal popularity and retained their "day jobs" in agriculture or small-town mills. The music from these
earlier, old times endured through the generations because of its rich and varied sounds and lyrics and because it filled the needs of the people, who, after all, created it for themselve. Mike
Seeger, (This article was originally printed in May 1997 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited).
