Old Time Fiddlers Convention celebrates its seventh year
Austin Derryberry and his bandmates in Uncle Shuffelo and His Haint Hollow Hootenanny have a lot more to brag about than just winning the string-band contest at last year’s Great Southern Old Time Fiddlers Convention.
The 30- odd groups sawing away at Lindsay Street Hall hoping to claim bragging rights and a $200 prize included Possum Carvers, a pickup act featuring Grammy Award winner and North Georgia flatpicking guitar legend Norman Blake.
That Blake was there at all was a pleasantly shocking occurrence, says convention founder Matt Downer, but in the seven years since he revived the dormant Chattanooga tradition of hosting a regional old- time music competition, it’s been almost as rewarding to see teenage players like Derryberry — who also won the fiddling competition — keeping the old-time tradition alive.
“The younger generation catching on to the old- time music is really encouraging to me,” Downer says. “I’m always blown away every year. [ Derryberry] has been playing since he was very young, but he said [ the convention] was his favorite event.
“The neat thing about it to me — and young people definitely play into this — is that it’s living history. So much history is kept from us or put on display behind glass in a museum. Making Chattanooga once again a destination for the top musicians of old-time music in the modern day is pretty much exactly like it was 90 years ago.”
The Great Southern Old Time Fiddlers Convention returns to Lindsay Street Hall on Saturday, March 12, featuring guest performances as well as contests for fiddling, banjo playing, string bands, traditional songs and dancing.
Downer founded the convention in 2010 in hopes of reviving Chattanooga’s once-premiere status among old-time musicians. In the 1930s, fiddling contests in the Scenic City were like the Super Bowl of old- time music with thousands crowding into the seats at Memorial Auditorium to watch the best players in the region vie for top honors.
The stakes and the crowds are more modest these days, with 150 to 200 competitors and attendance topping out at about 500, but the talent level is every bit as high as when artists like Uncle Dave Macon and Gid Tanner were grasping the bows, Downer says.
“It started out pretty darn high, but the fact that it has maintained has been more surprising to me,” he says. “There hasn’t been a drop- off. … This is once again a very prominent old-time fiddlers convention, [ and] that’s unique. It couldn’t have happened anywhere else but here.”
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.