Fiddlers, Banjo Players and Strawbeaters: Alabama's First Pop Musicians
Joyce Cauthen is the executive director of the
Alabama Folklife Association, a statewide organization that sponsors research,
promotion and preservation of Alabama’s folk culture. She is the author of With Fiddle and Well-Rosined
Bow: Old-Time Fiddling in Alabama, published
in 1989 by the University of Alabama Press, and has served as the producer of
numerous recordings of traditional music of Alabama, including “Possum Up a Gum
Stump: Home, Commercial and Field Recordings of Alabama Fiddlers.” She served
as editor of Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymnbook: A Primitive Baptist Song Tradition and
produced the accompanying CD. Her last project was a CD and booklet entitled Bullfrog Jumped, which
features recordings made across Alabama of children’s folksongs and games in
1947. She is a graduate of Texas Christian University and has a master’s degree
in English from Purdue University.
In her presentation, Cauthen will discuss the
early fiddles of Alabama, the musicians who played them and the popularity of
this music in their communities. Discussions will also surround the pivotal
role played by African Americans in developing the music at the roots of
today’s bluegrass and country music. Cauthen will demonstrate use of the banjo,
“straws” (a technique in which broom straws or knitting needles were beat on
the strings as the fiddler played) and guitar in backing up the fiddle. Her
talk will be made especially interesting by the presence of fiddler Jim
Cauthen, who will demonstrate fiddle tunes that have been specifically
mentioned in historical writings, slave narratives and early newspapers of
Alabama. The audience will hear musical styles and tunes that are seldom heard
today—and will have the opportunity to ask questions and share their
perceptions of the differences in this music and the modern country music that
are based upon it.