PROVIDENCE — Lenard Lemieux gently rocked his head from side to side, his bow flying across his fiddle as he played the first few bars of an old-time tune. Within a few beats, three banjos, two guitars, a mandolin, an upright bass, and four more fiddles joined in, creating a buzzing hum of strings accompanied by tapping feet.
Old-time music is a type of North American folk music that merges elements of Scottish, Irish, English immigrant, Cajun, and African slave tunes. It is played by string bands made up of fiddles, banjos, and other stringed instruments, and developed alongside square dancing, contra dancing, and clog dancing. It was especially popular in the early 20th century, though its roots stretch back to the late 16th century.
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The musicians figure out the music as they go, learning by ear, with some joining in midway through the tune. Lemieux describes it as a “fast-paced jam,” and notes he might not even know some of the songs before they start playing.
“As soon as you hear a few notes, you kind of have it in the back of your head,” he explained.
Old-time string musicians regularly gather for these jams at venues across Rhode Island. Lemieux said he attends two to five old-time jams each week, and each session has something different to offer.
A recent gathering at the Crook Point Brewing Company in East Providence was a fast-paced jam, but on the first Thursday of every month there is a slow jam at the Guild in Pawtucket with a focus on learning. Every third Saturday, Nick-a-Nees in Providence hosts a jam in which “all of the ringers come out of the wood-working.” Professionals show up for the higher-level jams, Lemieux said, and by “professionals” he means they play at farmers markets, usually “getting paid in fruits and vegetables.”
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Robert Smith, a former director of the Division of Endocrinology at Brown University who has played banjo for 17 years, has seen his fair share of farmers markets. Those who play old-time music are not in it for the money, Smith laughed.
“There’s something about it that captures people, and part of it is the music itself and part of it is the community and that is helped by the way much of the music is played,” Smith said.
The music is “not without its raw edges,” Smith said, noting: “Parts of this culture are inseparable from racism.” Many old-time tunes have lyrics that are racist toward Black people, he explained, and many minstrel shows — performances where white actors used blackface to perpetuate negative stereotypes — featured old-time music. He believes it is critical to consider this history when playing this music.
Brown University professor emeritus Jeff Todd Titon, the author of “Old-Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes,” agreed. “Every musician who plays old-time music has to confront this heritage and figure out what to do to face it,” he said. At most jams, the small talk between tunes is interspersed with discussions of the origin of the song.
Sam Duling has been going to old-time jams in Rhode Island for three years. He’s lived in Ohio, New York, and Charleston, S.C., but said Rhode Island has “probably the best scene I’ve been a part of.”
“When you get locked into a circle and everybody’s buzzing and everybody’s playing really fast and there’s a lot of energy, it’s something primal and something that’s ingrained in the human soul, to connect with people in that way,” Duling said.
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He used to host a jam of his own at his Southern-inspired restaurant, Hunky Dory, in Warren. When the restaurant closed in early 2024, the jam relocated to the Crook Point Brewing Company, but the faces remained familiar.
The first step to make your way into an established old-time scene is to go to your first jam, he explained. It may be intimidating to just show up, but, “It’s the friendliest music scene you could ever get into,” he said.
Mareva Lindo, a musician who plays the fiddle and the guitar, agreed there is something special about this type of music. She grew up surrounded by music, but she said that with old-time, it felt like she had been seeking it her whole life without even realizing it.
“The feeling you get after a jam, you just feel full in your soul,” she added.
While there are often new faces, Lindo said that many of the jams in Rhode Island have a core group of dedicated and friendly musicians.
“From the beginning, I found it to be a really welcoming community, which isn’t the case everywhere,” she added.
Sandol Astrausky and Rory MacLeod, directors of an old-time string band and teaching associates in music at Brown University, have been playing old-time music together since they met 30 years ago. Together, they host ValleyTop, a music festival modeled after West Virginia’s CliffTop, the largest old-time festival in the country. Each August, about 50 musicians flock to their 10-acre property in Hope Valley, a village in Hopkinton, R.I., to jam and camp.
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“For me, playing this fiddle made my life,” said Austrasky, who learned guitar and banjo in order to play with his wife. “I don’t know what I would be doing without it. It’s my religion … I just want to give it back to the community.”