User:Fiddlefeller/Breakin' Up Winter

=Breakin' Up Winter - an old-time music 'retreat'= This gathering of old-time string band musicians, which is celebrating it's 15th year March 5-7 2010, eschews the contest approach common to the larger festivals. It brings together hundreds of old-time musicians in a state park setting where the first focus is on educational programs and presentations by scholars and icons of the old-time music worlds. And, of course, jamming. It is presented by the Nashville Old-Time String Band Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that began as an offshoot of a community education class in Nashville, Tenn.

History
The first Breakin' Up Winter retreat was just that - an informal gathering of friends who shared an interest in and love for old-time string band music. Fresh from another small old-time gathering in Athens, Alabama, they wanted to create that same atmosphere in Middle Tennessee. The first gathering was held in the Cedar Forest Lodge of the Cedars of Lebanon State Park near Lebanon, Tennessee, about 30 miles outside Nashville. The retreat continues at Cedars of Lebanon, but now encompasses the entire state park. Legendary old-time fiddler Charlie Acuff was a guest of honor at that first even and has been a central "artist" ever since.

Scholars and Artists
Charlie Acuff was the first in a long line of widely respected "heritage artists" - icons of old-time music - to headline Breakin' Up Winter. There developed a program where the first day of the event was centered on 'Roots of Old-Time Music', bringing in noted researchers, authors, and performers.

Noted traditional music researcher/author/folklorist Charles Wolfe was a mainstay until his untimely death in 2006.

In addition to Charlie Acuff and Charles Wolfe, presenters and performers have included:
 * Alan Jabbour
 * Bill Mansfield
 * Bruce Greene
 * Clyde Davenport
 * Dan Gellert
 * Don Pedi
 * Evan Hatch
 * Franklin George
 * Gerry Milnes
 * George Gruhn
 * J.P. Fraley
 * James Bryan
 * Jim Griffith
 * John Harrod
 * Joyce Cauthen
 * Mike Seeger
 * Kerry Blech
 * Paul Wells
 * Ralph Blizard
 * Ron Pen
 * Will Keys
 * Walt Haden

The Focus: Old-time String Band Music
The mission of the Nashville Old-Time String Band Association is to "preserve, promote, and perform old-time string band music." A flurry of interest in "old-time" music in the 1940s, and the folk music revival of the 1960's and 70's, brought millions of new listeners to this traditional music. But in the hills and hollows of Appalachia, it was didn't need reviving because it remained the music that people learned to play knee-to-knee with other musicians who learned it in their youth the same way. Some call it "mountain music", or "old-timey." There remain many players whose introduction to the music came through family and friends who themselves learned it not from radio or recordings, but from others who were passing it down directly through the generations. It is to those roots of old-time music that this retreat reaches.

=Old-time String Band Music links=
 * Nashville Old-Time String Band Association
 * Field Recorders Collective Detailed stories of many old time musicians on the notes page.
 * Hillbilly Music: Source and Symbol
 * Old-Time Banjo and music of Rural America
 * Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame
 * Appalachian Traditional Music: A Short History
 * Old-Time Herald Magazine
 * Old-Time Music in Portland, Oregon
 * Old Time Music Source list
 * Sheet music, lyrics & midis for 200+ traditional old-time songs