Old-time string music on tap
Competition tunes up Saturday
Matt Downer has devoted his adult life to discovering, learning, researching, archiving, performing and preserving old-time music. Not only can he be found performing the music at places like Rock City during the summer, he helped bring the Great Southern Old Time Fiddlers’ Convention back to life.
Downer revived the competition in 2010 and has been presenting it annually ever since. The 2018 version is Saturday, March 10, at 901 Lindsay St. (formerly Lindsay Street Hall). Performers will compete in several categories throughout the day including fiddle, banjo, string band, dance and traditional song. Cash prizes will be awarded in each.
Downer said Ken Parr deserves much of the credit for documenting Chattanooga’s place in the history of the music thanks to “Chattanooga Fiddlers’ Convention History,” a collection of newspaper clippings from the Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga News.
“I don’t think people realize how big a deal this was years ago,” he said. “Back then, cities and states all over had competitions, but the Southern championship was here.”
From 1925 into the ’40s, players from all over the country would travel to Chattanooga and Memorial Auditorium to compete. Big names of the day included people like “Sawmill” Tom Smith, Jess Young, Clayton McMichen and Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers — and they all came here to play and compete.
Downer explains that old-time music was originally a community-based way of passing along old folk tales in addition to providing entertainment, especially on front porches or at dances.
Then as now, there is no amplification used. It predates its bluegrass cousin and is also differentiated from that because it lacks the “breaks” or solos that are often found in bluegrass music.
It’s not uncommon for many of the performers to gather outside of the performance venue and either play a song or two with their band mates or other performers.
“This is community music and that’s what we do,” Downer said.