Musicians coming to town for Old-Time Fiddlers’ Convention
Matt Downer staged his first Great Southern OldTime Fiddlers’ Convention at Lindsay Street Hall in 2010 as a way to bring back a part of Chattanooga’s history. He also did it because he likes the music.
A picker himself, Downer was fascinated by “Chattanooga Fiddlers’s Convention History,” a collection of newspaper clippings from The Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga News put together by Ken Parr.
The 2010 event drew about 400 artists and fans with players competing in banjo, fiddle and string band events. This year’s convention, set for Saturday, March 11, will have all those instruments and also include a dance contest.
Downer says few people outside the fiddling world realize Chattanooga was home to a national fiddlers competition from 1925 to the ’40s when World War II brought it to an end.
Those early events in Chattanooga drew players and fans from all over the world. People like “Sawmill” Tom Smith, Jess Young, Clayton McMitchen and Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers all played here.
Downer says many towns held fiddlers conventions back in those years, but Chattanooga’s was considered the Southern championship. Then as now, performers and competitors played without any amplification or microphones.
But the conventions are as much about community as music, Downer says. It’s not uncommon for complete strangers to join together to make a little music out on the lawn or in a hallway corner during the convention. It was one of the advantages of being “unplugged,” or unencumbered by the need for electricity or amplification, back in the day.
“This music is community music,” Downer says.
“People would gather on porches after working all day and relax. It was also about passing on oral histories through the songs,” he says.