Music from the American South

Hi everyone,
I know that there is some connection between Irish music and music from the Southern US, especially Appalachian music. Although I’m from the US, I’m not from that area, so I’m not too familiar with the traditional music, although sometimes American tunes will be included in traditional Irish or English groups I like.
My question is, is there a band of Southern US traditional music that is very well-known? Like how the Chieftains were very influential in Ireland, and the Battlefield Band and Tannahill Weavers in Scotland.
And, if you listen to music from the Southern US, what’s your favorite band or artist?
Thanks!

I don’t know if the Carolina Chocolate Drops are still going they were very popular a few years back , an Afro American take on old timey music, blues and ragtime - Bruce Molsky, Jay Ungar, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch all worth a listen. Going a lot further back in time you have musicians like Doc Watson, Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys , Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers………….the list is endless really.

Thanks Christy, I’ll take a look at these later. Are there a lot of tune sets just like in Irish music?

“Are there a lot of tune sets just like in Irish music?”

In Southern Appallachian music, tune *sets* are rare – a tune is usually played on its own, repeated ad infinitum (often 10 or more times).

There are certain tunes in the repetoire that have clear links to Scottish, Irish and English tunes, some that have developed out of song melodies (rather than dance tunes), and some that have no obvious ties to any tune from Britain or Ireland. There are influences from other European traditions (German, Scandinavian, Eastern European, French, Spanish…) and, in no small part, African-American music. Perhaps the main thing Southern Appallachian music has in common with Irish and Scottish music is the reel rhythm (albeit with quite a different feel); but it is fallacy that this music simply evolved from Irish or Scottish music.

Whimbrel, there have been some interesting threads here over the years on the link between Appalachian ‘Old Timey’ , Bluegrass and Anglo/Scots/Irish trad music, worth a browse through the ‘Discussions’ link.

Robert Johnson?

Thanks everyone. I’ll check through these threads. When they play the same tune over and over, is it usually with variations, or played the exact same way?

The Chocolate Drops broke up 6-8 years ago. The closest equivalent (and it’s not very close) to the Chieftains is maybe the New Lost City Ramblers (1958-1968 or so). Appalachian/Southern traditional string band music doesn’t sound much like Irish, here’s a couple of compilations to listen to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFDszNMJ-_w&list=OLAK5uy_n4ai5aPlEHiG3M2lJUR0PlAEQMgAsqBnQ

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oVPcfCm3JA

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I think the choice of tunes (& putting them together/remembering bits) has been influential in American traditional playing. Definitely in various recordings (not strictly Irish) which were made in the 20s and since.
I get a sense of this when the tune choices are danceable; hornpipes, schottisches & such. Here is one such tune/medley which has been played by many people over the years. Just google YouTube for “Brilliancy”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsLrcAOdp8o

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I think most of the points brought up here are valid. There is some shared repertoire between ´Southern´ music and music from the Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland. But to have a distinctively Southern identity you have to bring in the ´Old South´ and the ongoing echoes from our Civil War and the Confederacy. One group that encompasses this would be ´The 2nd South Carolina String Band´, re-enactors from the Confederacy. They have a composition not unlike a good ceilidh band: fiddles, banjoes, frame drum, whistles, fife, and simple flute.
They aim to play traditional Campfire music from the 1820´s to the 1860´s.
One examplehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXJeghuSAMM&list=RDEMdSgldEvfEX3iUyftJSzULQ&index=9

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“famous bands”, “Chieftains of the South”. I doubt it. It’s the South, not New York City.

Sure, there were bands that recorded and left behind several CD-fulls of excellent music. During the mid-1990-ies I had a connection with Richmond, VA, two bands were active around there then, take a taste:
- Mandomafia in Charlottesville (Flatworld Waltz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pnKj4Vpo-o

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- Virginia Company in Colonial Williamsburg (Banish misfortune) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7GQzHIK6pk&list=OLAK5uy_neVHPcY85gxz1c8nwpHkCEB2CtGaBxz5A&index=4

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Of course Virginia is still technically “the North”, so head deeper into the hills, Deliverance, Bruce Molsky, the Holy Modal Rounders.

As for the music, connection to “celtic” tunes is well established. Campbell’s Farewell (“to the red gap” in the Appalachia and “to the red castle” in Scotland). Highlander’s Farewell (old time tune traced to the US Civil War, obviously a Scottish tune, but without a corresponding Scottish tune in Scotland).

Thanks so much for all the responses! I really like the string band music!
I find it interested that the 2nd South Carolina string band uses whistle and fife, because I remember once reading a thread on Chiff and Fipple about Appalachian music not using flutes. I haven’t had a chance yet to look through the other discussions, so I won’t comment further, but I really appreciate the responses and YouTube links. I enjoyed how the 2nd South Carolina String Band had various instruments and yes, they do sound like a ceilidh band.

“I really like the string band music”…
Yes, me too. I’d never heard them before, so that was a good find. Thanks postie.

Highly influential traditional American musicians would include:

- Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs (Flatt and Scuggs) and the Foggy Mountain Boys
- Doc and Merle Watson
- Ralph Stanley of The Stanley Brothers and The Clinch Mountain Boys
- Bill Monroe
- Kenny Baker

For musicians still playing (some rather young):
- Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves
- Jake Blount
- Nora Brown

Alison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves are touring the UK in a couple of months. I need to get myself a ticket before they sell out… Highly recommended.

If nobody has mentioned it yet, Nickle Creak.
Lovely music.

best I know, the “fife thing” is of British colonial origin. not old time and not yankee. fife music in New England is of same origin.

A few more current old time players.

Anna Roberts Gevalt (Boating up Sandy. Circle right! Allemande your corner!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs4wZ7LFR3I

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Alice Boyle and Dave Firestine (STEAM!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66SXfxcxhm8

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The fife has a long presence in the South. Familiarize youself with Othar Turner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyqf-jf2B_4&t=12s

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An excellent source for Appalachian tunes/songs is Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, second edition, As Sung by Jean Ritchie. There are definite connections with Scotland/England, etc. as the book contains songs such as Killy Kranky, Fair and Tender Ladies, and Nottamun Town. There’s a nice bit of background information with many of the songs.

Bill Monroe’s band ultimately comes out of the old time tradition and is one of the most influential bands in American music — the term “bluegrass” comes from his band’s name. They played reels and as others have mentioned some of the tunes had a clear link to tunes from Irish and Scottish traditional music, as well as blues and other forms of AA traditional music. They were also around for a long time and many members of the band were famous in their own right. I’d say they were about as analogous to the chieftains as you can get for that type of music, but the music they were making was not intended to be a preservation of tradition — Monroe clearly had a mission to play the music in a modern way, including improvisation and speeding the tunes up to blistering speed. So I’d say the mission was different.

Chocolate Drops were probably closer in terms of mission, but they were fighting a serious historical bias against the preservation of black American music, so the project might have had a shorter shelf life even if the members didn’t want to do other projects. They were great though and it will be some time before we get another group with that level of talent.

Incidentally, this music is not limited to the south. Take a stroll through some of Alan Lomax’s work and you’ll find very clear links to the folk music of the British Isles preserved in rural New England as well! Lomax is actually a decent place to go for “authentic” recordings of this stuff.

Bill Monroe’s bluegrass had a traditional substrate, but . . .

as he was creating it as a genre he was not living in some dark hollow away up in the mountains, he was slinging oil drums and doing other work like that in the refineries and steel mills of Gary and other industrial towns in the Midwest. The music on the radio was Basie and Ellington and their rivals, and what made bluegrass bluegrass was Monroe’s adaptation of the jazz he listened to; it’s quite clearly there, the ensemble statements of the basic melody punctuated by improvisational solos, the syncopation, the sense of swing. The Bluegrass Boys were modernizers, not a revivalist or preservationist band as the Chieftains were.

Sounds like a potential Master’s thesis project.

thank you for the reference to Othar Turner, this is new for me. I quick read wikipedia and I do not see the connection with today’s “old time” music (which has no drumming nor fifing). (I do see the British colonial influence, both drumming and fifing could have been imports from Africa). Does this tradition continue today or did it die out?

No one yet mentioned Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys - Bob Wills did all the things Bill Monroe did, introducing jazz improvisations and solos into old time fiddle music but went way beyond Monroe’s innovations, whereas bluegrass uses strictly acoustic string instruments Wills added drums, trumpets, saxes, electric steel guitar and piano to a twin fiddle line up and drew massive audiences across Texas and Oklahoma. Western Swing fiddle is possibly even jazzier than bluegrass fiddling, to my ears anyway…………………..

ps mandocello - Othar’s granddaughter Sharde Thomas took up the fife and drum tradition I believe its still popular in the North Mississippi hill country.

Oh, Mandocello8, Thank you for that clip of Steam. I danced with Alice Boyle in the late ‘80s - early ’90s when she still lived in Tucson, before I did. She left, and ended up with Robert in Kansas (frailing the banjo during Greasy Coat & switching to guitar for Tipping Back…).
Dave has been an influential musician here in Tucson since the early ’80s, mostly on mandolin, but mandola, octave mando, & tenor banjo, as well. He can play any style of music there is and has done much workshop teaching in various weekend/week long music camps. If you ever get to Walnut Grove in Winfield Kansas in September, look for the Carp Camp.
Claire Zucker has been a percussionist, bodhran & clog dancing, here in Tucson since the early ’90s. She worked herself into quite an accomplished Anglo concertinist (which instrument is not evident in the clip above) and plays with Dave in town as a duo called Puca, primarily doing Irish tunes & songs in Irish (but English, also).
They teamed up with Alice & Robert to form Steam, specifically to play Contra dance tunes and, while the above clip was from the American Old Time tradition, much of their repertoire is full on Irish.
As for the dance, itself, that is Albuquerque’s own lawyer & judge, Merri Rudd doing the calling and I recognized & have danced with many of the dancers on the floor, including Lonnie Ludemann & Julie Schwartz from Las Cruces & El Paso.
Note the prevalence of tie-dyed garments, both in the band and on the dancers. Kind of a trademark for Dave Firestine.
Thanks again…

(Alice and Robert stayed in Vancouver BC for a few years, great musicians and dancers, we miss them greatly. locally, old time music is on the up-swing and Alice is one (remote) influence)

Western Swing is just what it says on the tin, swing music played with country & western instruments (and more: there was at least one band that included a harp (no, not a harmonica, a concert harp) and a couple with vibraphones). Great music, but even less like the Chieftains than Bluegrass is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFDMaY73QBo

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For anyone interested in the fife in folk/traditional music in America:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Dance_to_the_fiddle_march_to_the_fife.html?id=3_7ZAAAAMAAJ

You’ve got to listen to Clifton Hicks. He’s on youtube and spotify and is one of the few musicians (for my shame) that I give money to on Patreon.

He goes on gentle diatribes against the organised nature of modern “Old Time” music which give a real understanding of the nature of authentic/organic southern folk music, most especially on the banjo.

For example, the session culture of modern Old Time music (the folk music of hilly areas of primarily Appalachia, which preceded Bluegrass and Country/Western) is an urban, more modern phenomenon with its roots in the 60’s folk revivals.

If you go to an old time music festival, it is most likely to be very fiddle-heavy and centred with banjos taking a back seat. It is also, according to Clifton, unlikely that banjo players and fiddle players ever played often in large session type groups with multiple fiddles and banjos as people and communities were traditionally more isolated in these mountainous regions. Most people who played banjo sang as well as playing tunes, and as was mentioned before in this thread, not really in sets like Irish music. The whole thing is so interesting to learn about and compare.

Clifton, who is from Florida/Tennessee and learned from the best and most authentic folk musicians out there, has very funny stories about entering banjo competitions at some of these festivals and being kicked out or competing miserably - despite being absolutely the real deal as far as I’m concerned.

Old Crow Medicine Show is a favorite band of mine that I’m surprised hasn’t been mentioned yet. Maybe not as pure drop as some but it’s great stuff.

Yes, here’s a popular American folk tune to check out…
Old Crow Medicine Show playing “Wagon Wheel” (starts 1:00)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4b8tJnRNvp8&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE

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As a fiddler I’m worried about that crack on his fiddle! 🙂

Yeah, I saw the Darius Rucker tune coming into the thread as soon as Old Crow was mentioned.

But let me know what everyone thinks about this Gangstagrass session.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r72-j1hbYdk

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I want to try to answer your question in line with your Chieftains comparison. I saw the New Lost City Ramblers mentioned and I think I agree, but I want to try to provide some more context. This is specifically referring to old-time, which I think, at least in terms of social function is much more closely related to Irish trad than say, bluegrass.

Much like the trad revival of Irish music in the 1970’s, old-time and “folk” music had one in the US in the 1960’s, sometimes known as the “folk scare”. It was during this period when a lot of people became aware of old-time music, largely due to the work of Alan Lomax as mentioned earlier, but also the Harry Smith anthology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology_of_American_Folk_Music

If there was a band the might be correlate to the Chieftans, Bothy Band, et al. in this context, it could be the New Lost City Ramblers, who were a group of New York musicians who learned from the aforementioned anthology and other associated recordings, and they had a remarkable impact on the growth of interest in this music. A few of their contemporaries include the Hollow Rock Stringband, Fuzzy Mountain Stringband and the Highwoods Stringband (especially influential from what I can gather).

There is of course an interesting conversation to be had about this group of northerners being responsible for spreading this southern music largely learned from recordings and not from the local traditions, but that’s for another time.

As far as I can surmise, a lot of interest in bands from before this time period that are now considered seminal was generated well after their recordings were made. Some examples include The Skillet Lickers, Camp Creek Boys, Georgia Yellow Hammers, the East Texas Serenaders and Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers.

One way to learn about Old Time music and its traditions is to attend Old Time Week at the Swannanoa Gathering. First rate teachers/performers. www.swangathering.com To my way of thinking, Old Time string bands are the closest to the great Celtic groups. New Lost City Ramblers were mentioned and the lesser known greats like the Red Clay Ramblers and Highwoods String Band bring great energy similar to great Celtic groups. Old Time sessions proliferate around Western Carolina/East Tennessee. Asheville NC is a hub.

I’d check out Brittany Haas (fiddle playing sister of Natalie Haas, who plays cello brilliantly with Alasdair Fraser). Also Daryl Anger and Bruce Molsky, her mentors. Also Tim O’Brien.

My wife and I usually end the evening watching and listening to music videos on YouTube (streamed to our TV). YouTube’s algorithm does a fairly good job of suggesting videos by similar artists, so those might be good to get started.

“And, if you listen to music from the Southern US, what’s your favorite band or artist?”

Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake.

Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Wynton Marsalis…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUwILC0nOWM

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Everyone that Steamwilkes said + Rev Gary Davis, Elizabeth Cotton, Fred Mc Dowell, Sonny Terry, Skip James………..I didnt realize we were going outside the bluegrass/stringband genre.

Re: dance to the fiddle, march to the fife. big thanks. UBC library have a copy: https://webcat.library.ubc.ca/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=501930

Being from Appalachia, West Virginia specifically, I have to point out that we’re not part of “the south” per se.

Rather, we sit in between southern and northern states, and Appalachian traditional music and instrumentation has various influences, for example both of our indigenous instruments, the lap dulicmore and the hammered dulcimore, come from the Pennsylvania-German immigrants.

I grew up on both fried chicken and sauerkraut.

I also want to point out that much of the music people have been referencing isn’t “traditional” music but new 20th century styles.

I very much recommend giving a listen to Eddin Hammons, a genuine 19th century traditional Appalachian fiddler, and Dwight Diller (who we recently lost) the greatest tradition-keeper of traditional Appalachian banjo music. I dearly love our traditional “mountain music” but I have zero interest in “country music” and Bluegrass. At banjo-fiddle contests Bluegrass players compete in their own category.

Re: dance to the fiddle, march to the fife. have the book in my hands. introduction, “the tunes given comprise nearly all … music gathered in southwest Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia between Summer 1928 and Autumn 1963” (sounds like Richard D Cook’s home land), followed by hand-written transcriptions of 650 tunes, 4/4, 2/4, 6/8 and a few waltzes (no 3/2 or 9/8 tunes), annotated “F” played on fife, “V” on violin, “FV” mostly on fife, “VF” mostly on violin. Most tunes have multiple versions. Did not try any yet. fwiw, introduction touches on many topics recently discussed here.