Who Put the Old in Old-Time? Revivalism, New Acoustic Music, and Fetishizing the Musical Past
Location
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
19-9-2018 1:00 PM
Description
To speak of “modern old-time music” may seem oxymoronic, but “old-time” was new even when the music first began to be commercialized in the 1920s. At the dawn of the roots music recording industry it was among several terms wielded by the music’s early marketers to signal a comforting nostalgia to potential consumers. The folk revival of the mid-to-late 20th century altered this set of meanings, ascribing notions of authenticity to musical styles rooted in an idealized past. Today, “old-time music” overlaps freely with “new acoustic music” in a dizzyingly postmodern blend of cultural contexts and historical references. In this presentation I examine the shifting meanings of the phrase “old-time music” over the last century, and explore the cultural implications of invoking—and modernizing—musical styles associated with an increasingly distant past.
Recommended Citation
Reish, Gregory N., "Who Put the Old in Old-Time? Revivalism, New Acoustic Music, and Fetishizing the Musical Past" (2018). Humanities Symposium. 24.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2018/2018/24
Who Put the Old in Old-Time? Revivalism, New Acoustic Music, and Fetishizing the Musical Past
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
To speak of “modern old-time music” may seem oxymoronic, but “old-time” was new even when the music first began to be commercialized in the 1920s. At the dawn of the roots music recording industry it was among several terms wielded by the music’s early marketers to signal a comforting nostalgia to potential consumers. The folk revival of the mid-to-late 20th century altered this set of meanings, ascribing notions of authenticity to musical styles rooted in an idealized past. Today, “old-time music” overlaps freely with “new acoustic music” in a dizzyingly postmodern blend of cultural contexts and historical references. In this presentation I examine the shifting meanings of the phrase “old-time music” over the last century, and explore the cultural implications of invoking—and modernizing—musical styles associated with an increasingly distant past.
Comments
Featured Speaker
Convocation Credit: Society and the Arts and Sciences