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By Wayne Erbsen
Eck Robertson was a true fiddle master. Fortunately, he was unafraid to step up to the plate and say so.
The story begins shortly after the turn of the twentieth century when Amarillo, Texas, fiddler Eck Robertson honed his fiddle chops enough to start winning fiddler’s conventions. Competition at Texas fiddle contests was notoriously fierce, and winning any of them was no mean trick. One story has Robertson in a showdown playoff with the father of legendary fiddler Bob Wills. In a last-ditch effort to give himself an edge, legend has it that he broke off a
Of all the many kinds of songs there are to sing, by far my favorites are what I call “real songs.” These were not written in an air conditioned office on the fourteenth floor by fancy pants professional songwriters. Instead, they were written about events that really happened, by real people who were there to witness it.
“I’ve Been All Around This World” could not be any more real if it tried. The outlaw captured in this song was reportedly hanged for murder in Fort Smith, Arkansas in the 1870s. If this is true, the chances are good that he
As we approach the 150th or sesquicentennial anniversary of the start of the Civil War, let’s pause to remember an aspect of this tragic period beyond the roar of the cannons and the movement of soldiers across the battlefield. For soldiers on both sides of this conflict, it was the music that helped them carry on. No less an authority than General Robert E. Lee said “I don’t believe we can have an army without music.”
Music touched practically every aspect of soldiers’ lives. They were awakened in the morning with the first call of the bugle, riveted into step
Several doctors I know hate to go to parties. They know that sooner or later someone is going to come up to them, describe an ache or pain and demand an immediate diagnosis. Well, this phenomenon happens to instrument repair people too. I’m always asked to find a buzz or do a quickie repair at our local tunes sessions. The thing is, I don’t mind.
While we were jamming a few months ago, a local old-time fiddler complained to me that her fiddle was hard to tune. I gave it the hands-on test and decided she was right. A quick
By Bob Smakula
You walk into a music store to check out the latest in six string guitars that might be suitable for old-time music. You overhear the salesman talking to another customer and they seem to be talking in some cryptic code: “D-35, triple 0-18, M-36, D-28s.” Should you yell “Bingo!?” No, they are talking about different Martin guitar models.
Deciphering the Martin guitar code is simple. The model designations can be broken down into two parts. Take D-28, or 5-18 for example. The letter prefix “D” or number prefix “5” represents the guitar’s size. The suffix “28” or
“There was a big crowd there and everything was decorated and all fixed up like the president of the United States would be there. It was by far the biggest and most important contest in the entire country. People who had never been to a contest before gathered with the contestants at the Old Athens (Alabama) Agricultural School. My mother had made (guitar) cases for us out of cotton sacks we used during the picking season and we had our names on them spelled out in full. I painted them on the cases with pokeberry juice.
“You know how it
By Charles Wolfe
There are dozens of unsung heroes in the annals of country music; some are instrumentalists, like the legendary Georgia fiddler Joe Lee, who introduced the “long bow” style to greats like Clayton McMichen; some are songwriters, like the gospel singer Grady Cole, who wrote Tramp on the Street; others were promoters and radio personalities like the late Eddie Hill, who helped introduce the music of the Louvin Brothers to a wide audience. But one of the most unsung, and one of the most mysterious, was a remarkable blackface comedian and singer named Emmett Miller. He flourished
By Wayne Erbsen
As you might guess, there are numerous differences between old-time and bluegrass music, although they share a lot of similarities too. In old-time music, the banjo, fiddle, and mandolin generally play the melody all at the same time. During an old-time tune, the guitar generally refrains from playing the melody and concentrates on providing the rhythm and an occasional bass run. In bluegrass music, on the other hand, only one instrument plays the melody at a time. Everyone else plays backup. So let’s explore what playing backup means in bluegrass music.
First off, it’s good to remember
By Wayne Erbsen
People have always had a strange fascination with rattlesnakes. As one of America’s most poisonous snakes, they are both feared and hated, and yet their rattles are prized for their mythical and magical properties.
While doing research for this article, I ran across an amazing number of stories, some true, some pure myth, about rattlesnakes or “rattlers,” as they are sometimes called. One old timer personally told me the following story as the gospel truth, but I have since found versions of it that were collected both in the Southern Appalachians, and in Western Europe.
It seemed
