Deborah Justice and David Deacon are NY transplants from Southern Pennsylvania, NEar the small country town of Bird-in-Hand, PA.
We sing and play music from a mix of historically-based traditions, focusing on the roots of American Old-Time. We use instruments from fiddle, banjo, and guitar to hammered dulcimer.
In the 1820s, before we had the genres of music that make up American folk music today, a man got on his horse in rural Pennsylvania and took a trip — south to the Carolinas, west to Tennessee, and back.
When he returned, he had a wife…and a sketchbook full of stories and tunes.
Thomas Wilson drew us a literal picture—in shape notes and staves—of what the only-recently-united states of America sounded like.
Almost every current American music genre has roots that tangle their way back to tunes like these…European-derived reels, jigs, and strathspeys; popular urban show tunes of the day; sacred songs, and tunes that clearly expand beyond their European roots with subtle backbeats and rhythmic variations that begin to show the African influence on the music of the American South.
How is a collection of fiddle music a key to the past? David Deacon of SUNY Oswego's history faculty explains the importance of Thomas Wilson's 1823 fiddle manuscript.
