Old School Banjo sound- where did it go?

[Daniel Payne]

Just having this thought and this new home at Steel Guitar Forum, it seemed like the best place to spill this, but why do albums not sound the way they used to with old school fiddle and banjo sounds? Stanley Brothers, Bob Wills. If you listen to bluegrass on XM radio then you know what I'm talking about. It's just too pretentious and there's no realness to it if I might get straight to the point.

Most importantly, if anybody can answer, what is the best way to get that sound? What is the art form of raw production? I'm everybody's student.

Certainly not recording in analog may be the most key factor, but I just threw this out there for my own education.

[Charles Davidson]

Daniel,progress is not always better[just an old geezers opinion]in the early days of recording you HAD to be a good picker or singer to make it,listen to the OLD early recordings of the great Charlie Parker,or Bob Wills,those guitar and steel players,playing through tiny amps with 8 inch speakers,no reverb,delay,chrous,flangers,fuzz tones,etc,to cover up bad picking.SMALL PA'S,bands did'nt need 3 or 4 18 wheelers to carry a sound system,did'nt have the studio gadgets that can make a bad singer sound like a good one.same with autos,remember the old classic cars of the 40's and 50's,they all had style,each one was different,now you can't tell one from the other,back then most could work on their own cars,now if it has a little skip in it,you HAVE to take it and have it hooked up to a computer [and it's not cheap]music is the same,got to have all those gadgets. DYKBC.

[Eddie Cunningham]

Back in the 30s and 40s the recording bands didn't have drums or loud guitar amps so a lot of them used the old 4 string tenor banjos for rhythm !! They really sounded out !! Back in the late 40s I played steel with a band and when they did square dances I played the tenor banjo and it worked out pretty well !! I liked the old 4 string tenor banjo as you could play chords in any key . 5 string banjos took over in the late 40s and 50s from bluegrass but it's a different style and you can play pretty much only in the keys of G or A unless you retune or use a capo up the neck . Eddie "C"

[Alan Brookes]

I prefer the Old-Timey Country Bands like the New Lost City Ramblers to the out-and-out bluegrass bands. Sometimes it seems they're more interested in creating new speed records than good music. Flatt and Scruggs and their band played some bluegrass, but it always seemed in good taste.

I also like the older country banjo styles as played by Mike Seeger, Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie, etc.

[b0b]

Back then, only people who didn't know anything else played that kind of music. Now it's all musicologists. When it's all you know, you play it better than people who study it. It comes from the heart, not the brain.

I don't like any of it, but I'll admit that the old stuff does sound a bit better.

[Peter Dollard]

Daniel you raise an interesting point. I think what you are reacting to is the use of modern chords scales and musicianship which has increased 1000%. In the late fifties bluegrass banjo was mostly a series of standard expressions played over and over again in a different order. Not that they weren't great but to me a standard Scruggs banjo player has only so many guns in his armory. They could play certain fiddle tunes like Cumberland Gap but the melodies had to be relatively simple. If you had a song like Arkansas Traveller the banjo would just play chordal rolls and fake it. Two banjo players in the early sixties (Bill Keith and Bobby Thompson) separately were able to play exact duplications of the fiddle tunes that prior to that time only fiddle players executed. Bill Monroe hired Keith to play for him and the history of banjo was forever changed. There are certainly dyed in the wool srtaight Scruggs pickers around, listen to the guy in Kentucky Thunder but a lot of the guys have stretched the limits of the instrument note wise and melody wise. I like it all and I think it broadens the appeal of the instrument when you have different interpretations of it. I also love classic bluegrass or the Golden Age From 1945 when Scruggs joined Monroe til Keith joined him in 1963....Peter

[Charles Davidson]

To tell the truth sometimes I miss those days as a kid living in the country,no TV,nor computers,I was just learning to play guitar[sixstring] friends would come over with guitars,fiddles,banjos,harmonicas,etc,we would pick those three chords for hours,That was more fun than years later when I was playing for a living,turned from FUN to WORK. DYKBC.

[Daniel Payne]

Charles, Eddie, Alan, Bob, Peter: Thank you for your insightful responses. In a broader sense it seems that, when I listen to the old stuff that it has a certain realness to it which makes sense because they were doing something that really had never been done before. I think they were making the music that will be remembered as American music for a million years, and that's bigger than life. it would be rude for me to constantly expect that these days i suppose. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I've been going to the Broken Spoke every month here lately. I got to meet and shake hands with Denny Mathis tonight, a night I'll vividly recall for the rest of my days in this world. Some very provoking commentary there Gents.

Charles- best wishes to you and I hope the fun comes back around and beats out the "work" factor.

Bob- very nice post as well. To play music so much that you become it is my only hope in life. And I know it's possible because I hear it every time I turn on these old records I've been listening to!

Will be back... have to go to a wedding in four hours and sleep is about to be very scarce here in Austin. Cheers friends.

[Marc Jenkins]

I was having a similar discussion with a friend a couple weeks back. We were talking about two mutual friends (a married couple) who play old time (and just plain old) music. It's not bluegrass per se, but some of it could be. I see a distinction in the sense that it's folk music, and they're carrying something on from previous generations. There is nothing flashy or modern or show-offy about it. It sounds wonderful because like b0b says about the older music, it comes from the heart, not the brain. I've seen quite a bit of modern bluegrass, and the one thing it's often lacking is heart.

Furthermore, my friend and I decided that while we both love old folk music, we don't love bluegrass necessarily. We did, however, decide that we could could Bill Munroe's music folk music.

[Daniel Payne]

Bob's point about it the music being all they knew is taken very well. As far as old timey goes, I have really been impressed by 2nd South Carolina String Band. It has an authentic feeling of being in the sixties- the 1860's. That's the way I feel about it and their album "Southern Soldier" comes highly recommended by your humble author. title track is my favorite!

[Donny Hinson]

Old time or traditional bluegrass bands hated electric instruments. They would tolerate a PA set (with one mike) because that was the only way they could be heard sometimes. They also played a simpler music, and weren't at all impressed with fancy chord changes the way bands are now. Some true traditional bluegrass fans look at modern 'grass bands (like Alison Krauss') the way some traditional country fans look at Kenny Chesney...in other words, something along the lines of an "anti-Christ".

To me, the old bluegrass sound cannot be replicated using modern techniques and equipment. There's just something about the "tightness" of a band or a group of singers crowding around a single mike that you simply can't get using separate mikes. Likewise, the minute you go EQ'ing with fancy setups, big amps, and speakers, you have lost the old tone and sound, the character that the music had for so many of us for so many years. Even the "stage ballet", the footwork of the players of different instruments stepping quickly up to the mike to do their little solos, and then retreating, added to the aura of the performance.

I enjoy all kinds of bluegrass, but there's different "camps" in 'grass just like there is in other styles of music. I can appreciate Rhonda Vincent - but sometimes I have to throw an old Bill Monroe or McCormick Brothers record on just to hear how it used to sound (or how it's supposed to sound, to some).

My favorite banjo players always were Walter Hensley (a local player, for a long time) and Carl Sauceman. I also spent many nights watching the old Country Gentlemen group, as they peformed quite often in this area. That old-time music is just a style you seldom hear anymore. And just like the old classic country stuff, even when it is done nowadays, it's usually "over-done" by someone who wants to improve it.

More useless thoughts from an old geezer, I guess.

[Dale Lee]

I think Donny Hinson made quite a good analysis. I'm one of those that likes the old way of doing it, with a little bit of a "rank" sound to it. I even sometimes feel uneasy about women in bluegrass, excepting Bessie Lee Mauldin.

[Charles Davidson]

In my last post,I don't mean I don't still enjoy playing,But those early days when I was a kid starting out was so much fun,every time I learned a new lick or chord was exciting,I still like to get together with friends and JUST pick,some not near as good as I am and some a lot better than I am,just having a GOOD time,When you're playing a working gig it's a little different,does not matter if you are in the mood,if you are sick,if your third wife calls and wants to come back home,or if someone stole your favorite possom hound [a first degree felony in Alabama] you still have to show up and go to WORK. DYKBC.

[Peter Dollard]

While it is true that miking all the instruments gives a different sound it is also true that it allows one to hear the dobro audibly. I have been to so many bluegrass shows where the only thing I could hear was the fiddle and the banjo. Guitars and dobros were literally inaudible or at best an occasional note here and there. The thing about bluegrass is it doesn't matter how pretty or cute you are as in modern country: what matters is can you pick?....While we can debate about old and new the talent is right on...Remember the movie Bonny and Clyde? Warren Beatty specificallly asked Flatt and Scruggs if he could use the 1951 version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown. They offered to give him a newer version and he said no the original was the one he wanted....and it made the picture in my opinion

[Alvin Blaine]

but why do albums not sound the way they used to with old school fiddle and banjo sounds? Stanley Brothers, Bob Wills.

The banjo on the Stanley Brothers recordings and Bob Wills(and most other swing bands) are two different instruments. Ralph played a 5 string and the swing bands usually used 4 string banjos, however they do have something in common, both used arch-top banjos.

Most of the tenor banjos used in the big bands(and most western swing bands) had arch-top rims, that gave them a tight, focused, preclusive, cut through tone, with very few overtones. They were great for getting rhythm parts to cut through a large group.

Ralph Stanley also played an arch-top banjo(along with a few other bluegrass pickers in the '50s) and he had a very bright percussive tone that would cut through on a recording. It was very effective when you had to record a live band just standing around one or two microphones, with five or six musician playin' and singin' at full blast.

Then technology evolved to multi tack recoding with close miking each instrument. So now banjo players didn't have to use those bright, cut through, percussive banjos to be heard on a recording. They could use a nice flat-head banjo, with big deep overtones and more sustain.

To me that is the biggest difference between banjo tones on recordings over the past 60 some years.

[Alvin Blaine]

the 1951 version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown. They offered to give him a newer version and he said no the original was the one he wanted....

The original Mercury recording of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" was recoded in Cincinnati, OH, December 11, 1949.
Earl played a flat-head Gibson on all of the Mercury cuts, but he(and the rest of the band) did tune up a half step. That also helped give the banjo that bright cut through tone on recordings. So the original Foggy Mountain Breakdown is really in Ab.

[Rick Campbell]

Bluegrass music and Old Time music are two entirely different things. I worked with Monroe in the 90's and I can assure you that he knew the difference. It's all about the timing. A lot of the newer bluegrass bands have their timing in more of an R&B gear. Jimmy Martin also knew about timing.

Correctly played, the mandolin plays the back beat rhythm in a bluegrass band, like the drums in a country band.

Old time music bands all played at the same time....not instrument solos.

Bluegrass music did not exist until 1939 when Bill Monroe appeared on the Opry and sang Muleskinner Blues. Of course, that was a Jimmy Rogers tune, but Bill did it with bluegrass timing.

It got under Bill's skin when people associated his music with wearing overalls, drinking corn liquor, etc.... hillbilly customs..... Bill was always dressed nice and wanted a lot of class in his music.

[Alvin Blaine]

Correctly played, the mandolin plays the back beat rhythm in a bluegrass band, like the drums in a country band.

To me the whole band is like a drum kit. The stand up bass is the kick drum, the mandolin is the snare, the guitar is doing the same as the high hat, and the banjo is like the ride cymbal. When one instrument does a lead of fill then another will cover it's rhythm part.

Bluegrass music did not exist until 1939 when Bill Monroe appeared on the Opry and sang Muleskinner Blues. Of course, that was a Jimmy Rogers tune, but Bill did it with bluegrass timing.

I don't know if I would say bluegrass started then. His first Grand Ole Opry performance doing "New Muleskinner Blues" was closer to oldtime hillbilly than anything that has been called "Bluegrass" the past 60 years.
For one thing he played guitar when he sang that night, so there was NO mandolin back beat, and no banjo, and the bass was doing a random 4/4 walking pattern not the 2/4 root/five that bluegrass is known for. He didn't have that drive, beat, tone, rhythm, or instrumentation that is associated with bluegrass. That night, Oct 28th 1939, was just a fast hillbilly version of a Jimmie Rodgers song and a Carter Family song(the first song they performed that night was "Foggy Mountain Top").

Now in the early '40s he started playing grooves that were closer to what bluegrass has become. I think the first recording of him playing closed chord chops on the back beat, was in 1941 on the fiddle tune "Back Up And Push". The bass was also playing a 2/4 root/five pattern. To me that's when his music started stepping away from all the other string bands of the time.
Then when he added Lester, Earl, and Chubby Wise that was the lineup to become the most copied version of the bluegrass boys ever. Even Bill himself spent the rest of his life copying that lineup and sound.

[Peter Dollard]

We used to argue all the time about what was better, arch tops cut more people said, but flat tops had a certain wider tone...My record liner notes(which were obviously wrong) were dated 1951. So now the question becomes why did Earl tune up a half tone. I tried to match the key by tuning my banjo open to the track it seems to me it is somewhere between pure G and A flat lending me to believe it was more accidental than intentional. If you listen to a lot of old tracks many of them fall into the no-mans land between the frets....Peter

[Peter Dollard]

I just talked to Bill Keith who informed me that Scruggs intentionally tuned up a tad for that song to give it a brighter sound so I will correct my previous statement. As far as flat head tone rings he said they cut just fine thru the mix whether it was one mike or six microphones. He also mentioned that the original Foggy Mtn Breakdown was recorded during a hurricane in Florida. He did say that a lot of stuff got recorded without any official tuning device per se. Someone would say give me a g and away they went..

[Rick Campbell]

Alvin is correct wth those details. I was never a huge Flatt and Scruggs fan. My favorite Monroe era was the 60's....Peter Rowan, Richard Green, etc...