Author Description

The analytical literature and memoirs about the old-time string band revival in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s suggests that specific bands brought unique musical capabilities and talents to the mixture of music that shaped old time fiddle festivals, concert performances and recorded music during those years. These bands were said to represent a continuum of sorts that described string band evolution. In that way of thinking, The New Lost City Ramblers derived their music from old recordings. The Hollow Rock String Band was a deliberately focused band, studiously focused on the way old timers fiddled tunes. The Fuzzy Mountain String Band was more invested in singing and jamming, less fixed on concerts or public performances, more on the drive that came from a good gathering of musicians who played together frequently, with attention to tunes that spoke to them. The Highwoods String Band was a raucous, big time party of a band. The Red Clay Ramblers that emerged in Chapel Hill in the early 1970s with Tommy Thompson at the helm was a unique band with a range of creative interests beyond archaic fiddle tunes, but they were, at the outset, firmly rooted in old time string band. The essay looks at where the Red Clay Ramblers fit in the "continuum" of old time string bands, how other revival string bands - such as the New Lost City Ramblers and the Hollow Rock String Band - shaped the creative trajectory of the Red Clay Ramblers, and how the Red Clay Ramblers influenced aspects of the old-time string band revival in the early 1970s.