One of the first times I saw the term was the title "Old Time Music At Clarence Ashley's" Not surprisingly, when they put the album out on CD it was Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley. Watson will sell a lot more CDs..

If you look at the songs and combinations of singers and instrumentalists on Old Time Music At Clarence Ashley's they range from Lee Highway Blues and Humpbacked Mule to Rising Sun Blues and Amazing Grace. Through time, "old-timey" has become "old-time" and basically refers to string bands. Labels evolve through time, driven as much as anything by the desire to sell recordings. Rhythm and Blues in the fifties meant everything from slow ballads by street-corner groups like the Penguins and the Flamingos, to jump tunes by Little Richard and Joe Turner and rocking piano with Fats Domino. Now, the groups are called Doo wop.. a term that didn't appear until several years after the music became popular, and rhythm and blues now means slow, sensual make-out music, mostly, and the more upbeat stuff is likely to be labeled Hip Hop.

I consider old-time music to be Darby and Tarlton and Grayson and Whitter as much as Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers or Charlie Poole. I love it all, and a major reason why I love it all is that it is so indivudal... no rules to follow.

The rules and restrictions came later to reach a mass audience.

Jerry