Pre war sound

[john]

Remember when talking bout the good ole pre war sound of banjos and guitars and mandolin the expression pre war sound is rubbish.
Just made up to sell more instruments.
The pre war sound you hear on old recordings is noise from scratches
and recording equipment. You can talk bout instruments made before
ww one and ww two. The quality and sound of these and how the are made. There are written several books about this subject.
jOHN

PS.
Sonny Osborne has written a fine article in Banjo News Letter some years ago dealing with the expression Pre War Sound

[tobias]

Another thing that strikes me questionable about the Pre War sound. Is the arrangements and the bands.
In the golden age, the recording companies had an emmence influence on the recordings. Often bringing in studio musicians (with little or no Oldtime experience) to back-up fiddlers and the likes. Alot of the classic stringbands were assembled by the recording companies and never really performed in that setup. The first "real" band (and family band) to record was Fiddlin Powers and Family. (1925 I think it was) It was strickly business and one has to be careful labeling alot of this music as authentic oldtime-music. Alot of it was commercial pop-music.
An alternative is fieldrecordings (my favorite source). But once again one has to be carefull not to see these recordings as the truth about 19th century american folkmusic. The fieldrecorders often also had an agenda. They would often be such puritans that they would avoid anything that sounded like commercial music...even if the musician actively played this music around the house.
The truth should perhaps be found between the two types of sources.

/Tobias

[tobias]

I got a book this christmas called "The Devils Box - Masters of Southern Fiddling" by Charles Wolfe.
Fantastic book! Great amounts of research had been put into it, but its written in an easy accesible form.
It deals with people like: Eck Robinson, Jimmy Thompson (uncle, that is), GB Grayson, Clayton McMitchen, Bob Wills and lots more.
www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-Box-Masters-Southern-Fiddling/dp/0826513247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199620984&sr=8-1

/Tobias

[Ptarmigan]

Thanks Tobias ~ Lucky you, I'm sure it's a fascinating read.

I've posted it over on the Book Board.

Cheers
Dick