String Band Country
Ensemble old-time music built around interlocking fiddle, banjo, guitar, and sometimes mandolin or bass, playing dance tunes, breakdowns, and rags at a driving, danceable clip. The texture is busy and rhythmic, with fiddle carrying the melody and banjo and guitar laying down a propulsive backbeat. Vocals, when present, are loose and shouted in the old square-dance and medicine-show style.
History
String Band Country was the dominant recorded form of early commercial country in the 1920s, capturing the sound of rural dances, fiddlers' conventions, and medicine shows. Groups like Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, and the Carolina Tar Heels sold records in large numbers and defined the ensemble old-time aesthetic. Fiddlin' John Carson's 1923 Atlanta recordings effectively opened the commercial market for this music.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- White House Blues — Charlie Poole with the North Carolina RamblersSpotifyYouTube
- Soldier's Joy — Gid Tanner and His Skillet LickersSpotifyYouTube
- Don't Let Your Deal Go Down — Charlie PooleSpotifyYouTube
- Wagon Wheel — Old Crow Medicine ShowSpotifyYouTube
- Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane — Fiddlin' John CarsonSpotifyYouTube
- Tom Cat Blues — The Carolina Tar HeelsSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Bill C. Malone, "Country Music, U.S.A."
- Charles Wolfe, "The Devil's Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling"
- Smithsonian Folkways recordings