The New Deal String Band, with Tom Paley
Joe Locker - Banjo, Guitar, Tom Paley - Banjo, Guitar, Fiddle.
This was this years highlight. Now 70-year old Tom Paley is
one of the most respected musicians in Old-Time and Bluegrass music. The
audience really enjoyed this music, which is a little slower and more quiet
than the regular Bluegrass-music.
Washington Square: 1945 had a man named George Margolin started to show
up with his guitar at Washington Square in Greenwich Village in New York.
Sunday afternoons at Washington square became a center for folk music
enthusiasts around New York. After a few years, young musicians started to show up
with five string banjos. One of them was Bronx Science High School graduate
Tom Paley. He was then attending Yale and had become a banjo virtouso. Other
musicians at these gatherings where Mike and Pete Seeger, Eric Weissberg and
Marshall Brickman (later known for the Deliverance soundtrack - Duelling Banjos),
Roger Sprung and many more.
Tom Paley
New Lost City Ramblers: The band was founded in 1959 with Mike Seeger, John
Cohen and Tom Paley. They where all wellknown instrumentalists and had learned
from old recordings. This was the second generation of folk-music musicians
that did not come from a rural background, instead they where city-folks with
an academic background and a great interest in the old style music.
NLCR began to use the term "old-timey music". They used that term to refer to
hillbilly recordings made between 1925 and 1942. In order to duplicate this
vast variety of recordings, they carried a large number of instruments with them.
Every song seemed to involve new combinations of instruments and voices. That
meant many pauses for retuning, which the NLCR turned into a part of the show.
They became very popular in the sixties folkmusic festivals.
Joe Locker, Tom Paley
Joe Locker did a great job in backing up Tom Paley and he
also sang some songs himself. They both live in London these days. Tom is
retired so he is available for performances most of the time (european
festival organizers: give him a call!). Tom Paley appears on many, many
records. You can see more in the
Folk Music Index. If you are interested in this kind of music, read for example
"Bluegrass a history", by Neil V. Rosenberg, ISBN 0-252-06304-X.
Joe Locker, Tom Paley with festival president Bengt Ericson
