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Old time music, alive and well

By Loren Keller

Here’s a little history lesson that will be anything but boring.

Audiences will have the opportunity to hear four different takes on traditional music at the Englert Theatre Saturday at the Iowa Friends of Old Time Music show.

The performance starts at 7 p.m. and is free.

Bands set to play are Stones in the Field, the Gilded Bats, Escape the Floodwater Jug Band and the Awful Purdies.

“We don’t have a real narrow view of what old-time music is,” says Dave Hicks, an Iowa City flutemaker and fiddler for Stones in the Field. “We tried to make this show as broad as possible. I think it’ll get a little more raucous as it goes.”

Stones in the Field play mostly traditional Celtic and Ceilic music that was most popular in the 19th century. “It’s the old tradition of getting together on a Saturday evening, maybe in a house, clearing out the furniture and playing for dancers who are doing jigs, reels and hornpipes,” Hicks says.

The band plays typically plays for dance groups, arts festivals, weddings and bars — almost always on St. Patrick’s Day — but this will be the group’s debut at the Englert.

“We consider that our sit-down audience and that’s always the most fun to play,” he says. “A lot of times in bars it’s mostly conversation, so it’s kind of a treat for us to play when people are playing close attention.”

Continuing the musical progression will be the Gilded Bats, an Iowa City group that plays old-time Southern Appalachian string band music.

“We play music that would have been influenced by Celtic music when it came to the United States and got into the mountains and sat there for a couple of generations or so, and mixed with some other African influences and the banjo,” says Norbert Sarsfield, the band’s fiddler.

Fans of old-time music aren’t necessarily old. Sarsfield says the weeklong old-time music festival he played in West Virginia last week drew an eclectic crowd of all ages.

“It’s really exciting because you see people who grew up with the music in their family and other people coming to it new, a lot of college-aged kids and a lot of kids into punk music are getting into old-time music because it’s a do-it-yourself kind of thing,” Sarsfield says.

“It’s not about running out and buying a CD and listening to it or watching it on TV. It’s about doing it yourself and finding entertainment for yourself in a way that means something to you.”

The Gilded Bats have shared the stage before with Escape the Floodwater Jug Band; the bands have played at each other’s CD release parties.

Kellie Everett plays banjo for the Escape the Floodwater Jug Band — named after the Flood of ’93 — which also features a washboard, washboard bass, kazoo, guitar and singing saw.

“Our take on jug band music is kind of a synthesis of what we call the first wave, which was happening in the 1920s and 1930s. Then in the 1960s there was a revival led by Jim Kweskin. We kind of take what he did to jug band music and pick up the tempos a little bit, and there’s some influence of punk in the mix,” Everett says.

“We might have a jug-off if we think audience members will participate.”

Rounding out the evening will be the Awful Purdies, an all-female group from Iowa City with a more contemporary take on traditional music.