Here’s an unsympathetic portrayal of an old-time fiddler’s contest, from a 1909 article found in the Journal of American Folklore (22:238-250) by Louis Rand Bascom (“Ballads and Songs of Western North Carolina”): The convention is essentially an affair of the people, and is usually held in a stuffy little schoolhouse, lighted by one or two [...]
Archive for November, 2008
Everyone’s a Critic
Posted in fiddlers & fiddling, old-time music on November 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Spoon River Fiddlers: Homespun Philosophy from the Grave
Posted in fiddlers & fiddling, fiddlers in literature on November 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The characters in Spoon River Anthology (1916), by Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950), deliver their rambling, pickle-barrel-philosopher monologues from the grave. The fictional poetic epitaphs were said to be based to some degree on real people from the two Illinois towns, Petersburg and Lewistown, in which Masters, later a Chicago lawyer, grew up. One of most [...]
