Old-Time Music Night

This may have been the most fun I've ever had playing music. Definitely top ten. On Friday, October 24, 2008, I brought together all the old-time musicians I could scare up in South Florida for a night of music-making at Luna Star Cafe in North Miami. By the grand finale, half the people in the room were playing a banjo, fiddle, guitar, or mandolin, and all were singing along to Golden Slippers. Follow along and you'll get to the video.

For an idea of just how old old-time music is, consider that the term was first formally used by Okeh Records in the 1920s to label music that was, even then, old enough to be deemed "old-time." Most of the musicians whose records were labeled "old-time" were white rural Southerners for whom music-making was an integral part of everyday life. Their song repertoire included traditional ballads and fiddle tunes from the British Isles that had been circulating in the Appalachians for some two centuries, sacred songs, commercial compositions of sufficient vintage to have entered the oral tradition, and original songs that were often topical and/or tragic.

Ironically, recording technology enables citizens of the world today to savor the sounds of this music from the oral tradition as it was captured the very moment before the commercial record and radio industries effectuated its demise.

Today, throughout the United States, communities of musicians play old-time music at social gatherings and festivals. Right here in South Florida, the Pompano Beach Old-Time Jammers get together every Tuesday night to play and expand their repertoire of fiddle tunes. It is in this spirit of community music-making that I invited them to participate in Old-Time Music Night at Luna Star Cafe.

The night featured the Pompano Beach Old-Time Jammers playing as a group, plus songs played and sung by individuals and duos.

Tony Thomas

Greg Allen

The Rambling String Band

The Grand Finale

The Rambling String Band played the last set of the evening. To go out with a bang, I invited the Pompano Beach Old-Time Jammers to the front. Far too numerous to fit on stage, we pretty much occupied the whole front half of the room - some onstage, some on the floor beside the stage, and some just playing and singing from their chairs at the tables.

The first song we played together was Yellow Rose of Texas. Written for the minstrel stage by a composer known only as J.K., it became popular during the Civil War and passed into Southern fiddling tradition in a somewhat altered form. With the combined group, we brought together the popular vocal version of the song and the old-time fiddle version.

Watch the Video!

Next up was the widely-known old-time breakdown Old Joe Clark.

Watch the Video!

Oh, Dem Golden Slippers was composed by prominent black minstrel songwriter and banjo player James A. Bland in 1879. The melody later passed from the minstrel stage into folk and fiddling tradition. Oh, Dem Golden Slippers was originally a mockery of Golden Slippers, a spiritual song sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Bland's version surpassed the Fisk song in popularity and is now commonly referred to as Golden Slippers. Again, the combined group brings together the vocal version of the song and the fiddle version.

Watch the Video!