Traditional music is central to the history of Ashe County, North Carolina. From its inception, the county has produced talented musicians, most rooted in folk and traditional forms, and many… Read More →
Features
Attic #24: Gone to Texas (and Oklahoma)
It is said that in the 19th century when many Americans left the places they had settled and emigrated to what was then the Republic of Texas, they would write… Read More →
Arthur “Cush” Holston, Florida’s Fiddling Fisherman
“Do I resemble myself this morning?” The elderly gentleman greeted Thelma Boltin as she pulled into the yard of his shack one day in 1959. She had come to invite… Read More →
The Old Originals Project: A Look Back after 50 years
“The old tunes, like the old originals, they are all about gone.” This is the way fiddler N.H. Mills of Boones Mill, Virginia, put it to us that summer day… Read More →
Songs that Tell Stories: Thomas Burton and the Appalachian Ballad Tradition
Thomas Burton’s Oral History, as told to Ted OlsonIn November 2016 I interviewed Dr. Thomas Burton, hoping to generate a written narrative relating his key experiences in studying, researching, and… Read More →
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An Interview with George Wilson
George Wilson has been a mainstay of the contra dance scene in the Northeast for four decades. He has played fiddle with one of the premiere dance bands, Fennig’s All… Read More →
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A True Adventure in Field Recording
Northern Oklahoma is nearly a perfect grid. You can measure your progress through it by counting section lines, a gravel road marking each mile. It was 10 miles north from… Read More →
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Lloyd Jeptha “Jabe” Dillon
This article is excerpted and adapted from the book Fiddle Tunes from Mississippi: Commercial and Informal Recordings, 1920 – 2018, by Harry Bolick and Tony Russell, published in 2021 by… Read More →
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Attic #23: Many Strings, No Neck
All images from the collection of Paul Wells.Organologists—scholars who study and classify musical instruments—lump them into large, broad generic groupings. All stringed instruments, for example, are classed as “chordophones,” which… Read More →
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Sepia Tones podcast
This spring the Great Smoky Mountains Association released a new podcast mini-series, Sepia Tones: Exploring Black Appalachian Music. The series, they write, which is hosted by Drs. William Turner and… Read More →
“The Preacher and The Bear”: Not a Folk Song, But a Song of the Folk
In June 1984, newly hired as a ranger by the National Park Service, I was assigned to work for the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, North Carolina. My vocation… Read More →
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Rhythm and Genes: The Moonshining and Old-Time Music of Southwest Virginia’s Boyd Family
Jimmy Boyd (photo by Sam Linkous)Jimmy Boyd believes in the power of genetics. “There’s something about us Boyds,” he told me, “that just put rhythm in us. My daddy played… Read More →
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Dark-Natured Songs: The Bare Family Legacy
Lena Bare Turbyfill (photo courtesy of Elizabeth Gwyn)Listening to field recordings can be an experience of intimacy and distance at the same time: intimacy because we hear the unedited sound… Read More →
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Attic #22: Bands, Ensembles, Groups, Aggregations
Given the focus of the Old-Time Herald on string band music, it naturally has been appropriate that in most of our visits to the Attic we’ve spent the time looking… Read More →
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Erwin A. Thompson: The Music Breathed Him
November 9, 1915-March 28, 2015 If you have ever played or heard “John Short’s Tune,” a lively polka, then you have met my father, Erwin A. Thompson. He passed the… Read More →
Attic #21: Fiddle and Guitar
One of the popular, recurring topics of discussion, debate, disagreement, and disputation among fans of old-time music is the question of when guitars began to be used as accompanying instruments… Read More →
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