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Concept
Old-time music
Summary
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin. The genre is considered a precursor to modern country music.
Reflecting the cultures that settled North America, the roots of old-time music are in the traditional musics of the British Isles and Europe. African influences are notably found in instruments such as the banjo. In some regions French and German sources are also prominent. While many dance tunes and ballads can be traced to European sources, many others are of North American origin.
Old-time music represents perhaps the oldest form of North American traditional music other than Native American music, and thus the term "old-time" is an appropriate one.
Fiddlin' John Carson made some of the first commercial recordings of traditional American country music for the Okeh label in 1923. The recordings became hits. Okeh, which had previously coined the terms "hillbilly music" to describe Appalachian and Southern fiddle-based and religious music and "race recording" to describe the music of African American recording artists, began using "old-time music" as a term to describe the music made by artists of Carson's style. The term thus originated as a euphemism, but proved a suitable replacement for other terms that were considered disparaging by many inhabitants of these regions. It remains the term preferred by performers and listeners of the music. It is sometimes referred to as "old-timey" or "mountain music" by long-time practitioners.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tunes originating in minstrel, Tin Pan Alley, gospel, and other music styles were adapted into the old-time style. People played similar music in all regions of the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, but in the 20th century it became associated primarily with the Appalachian region.
Official source
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