Seth Shumate

I am standing in the backyard of my house with a bag of trash. I look up at the house and it is glowing, with music and laughter escaping from every window. I think the house is actually swaying. I come in and count...

“I feel like calling Willard Hodgin the McGonagall of old-time music,” music historian Tony Russell writes. “William Topaz McGonagall of Dundee, Scotland (if you are not familiar with him), was one of the most prolific poets of the nineteenth century and is generally accounted...

Most every moment playing oldtime is lost to eternity, and that, perhaps, is a great part of its joy. As we sit with friends old and new, we dig into the now, riding the wave of notes rising and passing away, inviting the elusive...

2020 and 2021 have given us little to look forward to. If I were to pick one word that best encapsulates the past year, "exciting" would not be the one (in fairness, neither would "boring"). One thing I have found to be excited about is the...

These 19th century cowboys dancing to fiddle tunes, posted to a Facebook group, is but the latest case in point. A kindly member of our oldtime community ran across the photograph, found it interesting, and chose to share it with others. The result: a...