String Bands in the North Carolina Piedmont

Rating:
Summary: An important book for all interested in Traditional Musics
Review: A couple months ago, I was discussing an aspect of old time banjo playing with one of the most eminent scholars of the five-string banjo on the planet, someone whose work has literally changed my life, someone who has been based in North Carolina for several decades. I illustrated my point by referring to the pictures alone in this book. She turned to me and said, "I have to read this book."

So do you, if you really want to have an understanding of string band music, not only in North Carolina's piedmont, but throughout the South. He takes you from the 1890s to the 1960s, and without presenting heavy conclusions of his own, presents information that will allow you to see much, learn more, and will treasure forever.

This is an important book, whose relevance may be dimmed by the misplaced expectations of those who have awaited it. With Bob Carlin, master banjoist, accompaniest of John Hartford and Joe Thompson among others, and not a shabby guitarist as I can testify, most folks expected a book about the techniques of band music here. That isn't what this book is.

This book is really about who was and is a string band musician in Piedmont Carolina, although there is also much in this book about other parts of the state, and how this fits in to what was going on in the whole South and the nation. This is about who became musicians, how they grew up, where they played, how it fit into lives farming, factory working, or bumming around, how it changed as we went from the 1890s until the 1960s. I've been reading about Old Time Music for 40 years, but I have never seen this done in such a concentrated way.

One of the joys of this book is the many pictures of musicians, bands, band wagons, bands playing at functions, and of musicians showing off their instruments. For several musicians he has shots of them starting in the 1920 or before on up to the 40s, or 50s or 1960s in which you can see the change or lack of it of selection of instruments that were accumulated. In fact his pictures confirm two of my pet concerns: the inclusion in the old time bands of the cello, and the later involvement of the tenor banjo in the whole deal.