John Meade and Joe Huff (Albany) play Appalachian old time music. Meade, whose family comes from Appalachia, began playing in high school after he heard renowned old time fiddler, guitarist, and singer Roscoe Holcomb. A friend taught Huff to play his grandfather’s old fiddle and after that life "went from Pink Floyd to Tommy Jarrell overnight." The duo, which has played together since the early 2000s throughout the Willamette Valley, do so at small venues close to home where they sit in the corner, unamplified, and play for hours.
Bio
John Meade (banjo) and Joe Huff (fiddle) play Appalachian old time music, which includes influences from Anglo-Scots-Irish and African American traditional music, especially the African American banjo. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries tunes originating in minstrel, Tin Pan Alley, gospel and others were adapted into old time—a style that came to be identified with the southern Appalachian Mountains. Old time music enjoyed wide popularity in the 1930s and then again during the folk revival of the 1950s-60s. John and Joe have been playing old-time music separately for over 30 years and together since the early 2000s. They regularly play around the Willamette Valley, especially in small venues close to home, like FireWorks Pizza, where they sit in the corner, unamplified, and play for hours. "John and I don't perform," says Huff, "we just like to share the music." John Meade's family is from southwest Virginia and southeast Kentucky. While Meade himself grew up outside Appalachia, his family heritage led to his discovery in high school of Roscoe Holcomb, an old time Appalachian singer, banjo player, and guitarist from Daisy, Kentucky. Folklorist John Cohen says that Holcomb was the inspiration for the term "high, lonesome sound.” The day after he heard Holcomb, Meade recalls, he traded his brand new ten-speed bike for a banjo and never looked back. He says that playing old time music makes him feel more connected to his family heritage. Joe Huff came to old time music when he was a bit older. At the age of 30, Huff, who runs a feed store, picked up the fiddle his great uncle had carved and his grandfather played; a friend taught Huff to play "Liza Jane." The next day he went to buy Tommy Jarrell records; "it went from Pink Floyd to Tommy Jarrell overnight," recalls Huff. Jarrell, who died in 1985, haled from the Mount Airy region of North Carolina and was particularly renowned for his old time fiddling. Meade favors old banjos with gut strings. "I like old instruments. They've had the music in them a long time, and I just need to find it." Huff also prefers the old ways and plays his fiddle by holding the bow high on the stick, rather than around the frog (the lower part of the bow). According to Joe Huff, old time is "music from a time when people made their own entertainment rather than sitting in front of it."
Music samples can be listened to here.
