I listen to a lot of old time music from south of the border, and sometimes I have to remind myself that we have an awesome old time music tradition up here in Canada. Here are fiddle master Calvin Vollrath and guitarist Clinton Pelletier tearing… Read More
Here are Thornton and Emily Spencer (from the Whitetop Mountain Band) playing Soldier’s Joy.
What a spectacular fall day. Here at 27th Street, the sun warmed things up enough that I could sit on the front porch and frail my banjo for an hour or so. I spent most of that time working on a piece called Lonesome John.… Read More
Old Time music features plenty of tunes about animals small and large. Why not? You just don’t get enough animal tunes in pop music. Old Molly Hare Whatcha doin’ there? Sittin on a haystack Shootin at a bear Shot at one Shot at two Shot… Read More
Here’s a nice old video featuring Kentucky fiddler Marion Sumner accompanied by David Holt on guitar….
Often when we talk about old time music traditions, the conversation is about players from West Virginia or Virginia or North Carolina, the Appalachians, the Blue Ridge and so on, and for some people it’s all about music from certain counties or one side of… Read More
I featured Calvin Vollrath the other day. Now let’s here Manitoba fiddler Patti Lamoureux (Kusturok) along with Sabin Jacques on accordion and Jeremy Rusu on guitar, performing a Quebecois medley.
Alexander Peter Chernywech AKA Al Cherny – Le Reel de Grandpere
The musical focus of this blog has shifted somewhat this year. Although it has long reflected my general interest in what I jokingly call folky-dolky music, I had been focusing on the button accordion, because that is the instrument I was playing. Somehow or another… Read More
This is an old tune, going back at least to the 1880s in America. What does cotton-eyed mean? One story is that bad moonshine cause a drinker’s eyes to turn milky white. Another story says someone is cotton-eyed if his eyes turned milky from any… Read More
