With a little imagination thrown into the mix, the crowd ambling into the Andover Town Hall could be from another century, the men in their work shirts, denim, and boots, the women with children and knitting on their laps. They talk of wood chores, harvest, and weather, and their voices mingle with those of other residents who have gathered in this meeting place for generations. But today, they have gathered here to hear music. And if you close your eyes when the fiddler raises his bow, the music will take you back to hardscrabble pioneer cabins tucked into mountain hollows, and to circles of musicians singing and playing before a smoky hearth. The Old-Time Music that fills the Andover Town Hall during a Columbus Day weekend concert …show more content…
Andover, Vermont fiddler John Specker keeps this tradition alive today. “I’m just a link in a long chain,” John tells his audience, with both humility and pride. It is his life’s work and goal to celebrate this music and to pass it on to future generations. John’s repertoire comes from the legacy of songs first planted by British and Celtic newcomers who settled in the Blue Ridge and Appalachia mountain regions. The music spread over time, altered by each new wave of pioneers. Old-Time Music “is the kind of music that ... most rural people prior to the mid-1920s were raised with,” Mike Seeger (half-brother of Pete) explained in an essay titled “What Is Old-Time Music?” (Bluegrass Unlimited, May 1997). He said the music endured over the centuries “because it filled the needs of the people, who, after all, created it for themselves.” But as waves of Americans moved to the cities, they tended to abandon this music along with their rural roots, embracing instead the “cooler” city sounds of ragtime, bluegrass, and jazz. It was “rediscovered” when new recording technology inspired anthropologists and music historians to take