Old-time music is said to be the first type of folkmusic created in
America by immigrants. It is a mixture of melodies from Europe, mainly
the British Isles, and rhythms from Africa. The hotbed of this new type of
music was the Appalachian Mountains in the 1800s. The Civil War helped
spread the music and its instruments throughout the South. Later, with the
advent of the radio and the phonograph, old-time music was spread farther
and grew in popularity.
The terms "old-time music" and "hillbilly music" were created by record
companies in order to label the music for its audience. It would later be
labeled as country music as it grew in popularity and became more
commercialized. Those who play the pre-commercial form of this
music still call it old-time music.
Big Hungry Joe performs this early type of old-time music. The band
tries to keep it traditional, but have decided to use the harmonica
(also called the mouth harp or French harp in the South) as the
main melody instrument. Typically, the fiddle is the main melody
instrument in old-time music, but the harmonica has sometimes
been used in that role in both recent and pre-war recordings
