Berkeley Old-Time Music Convention

Cecil Sharpe, the English musicologist who collected and recorded the music of Appalachia in the 1920s, predicted that the unvarnished old-time style would be a thing of the past a generation later. But this weekend's Berkeley Old-Time Music Convention in Berkeley CA proved again that he was wrong.

While the style has given birth to a variety of derivative styles—from string bands to bluegrass to folk music to mainstream country—the original old-timey sound remains a vibrant form with plenty of practitioners and even innovators keeping the tradition alive.

The convention demonstrated that in a series of performances and dances at The Freight & Salvage and other Berkeley venues featuring artists such as Sheila Kay Adams, The Brandy Snifters, The Stairwell Sisters, Rayna Gellert and Foghorn Stringband. But the panel discussion with Adams, Gellert and Lyle Lofgren provided the best context for why old-time music remains relevant today.  Read more »

Among the highlights of the upcoming Berkeley Old-Time Music Convention are the instrumental workshops led by the featured festival performers. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. The instructors include Rayna Gellert (fiddle), Paul Brown (banjo), Evo Bluestein (autoharp) and more.  Read more »

The Berkeley Old-Time Music Convention has roots that go back to 1968, but the modern edition of the event has been running each September in the East Bay university town since 2004. The event's mix of concerts with national artists, square dances, band contest, panel discussion and more makes it an important event for old-timey, string band music, as distinct from related music styles such as bluegrass.

The 2008 convention, running September 11-14 at venues around Berkeley, features 88-year-old fiddle master Benton Flippen, ballad singer and storyteller Sheila Kay Adams, Uncle Earl fiddle star Rayna Gellert, local old-timey favorites The Stairwell Sisters, a duo comprised of members from Foghorn String Band, multi-instrumentalist Evo Bluestein and more. Concerts run Thursday and Friday evening at Berkeley folk hangout Freight & Salvage.  Read more »