The world of old-time music is mourning the loss of Tom Paley who died recently at the
age of 89. A wonderful musician and an ambassador for old-time music, Tom was resident
for long periods in the UK and Sweden, and died in Brighton, England, on September 30th.
He had lived in the UK for many years and was always appearing at gigs and workshops
around the country, which had the effect of opening the ears of many of us to the
subtleties of old-time music and blues. He continued performing on both sides of the
Atlantic and making recordings well into his eighties, and was always enthused when
playing and talking about music. His love for his craft is very evident in an interview
he did on BBC Radio 6 in 2012, which you can hear on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=fH6S4dKCnsY Tom’s wry sense of humour seasons his perceptive and gentlemanly
responses to the questions of the young interviewer, Cerys Matthews. I love his story of
Woody Guthrie’s assessment of his playing. Tom had already performed with Woody, at
Woody’s invitation, on a number of occasions, but when someone put his name forward to
join a new line-up Woody said, “Well maybe, but Tom plays too fancy.” As Tom
explains, “Woody, he didn’t go for fancy playing. He would take a few little runs
and a few little hammer-ons or pick-offs, something like that, but he concentrated on the
words and the meaning of the song.”
Fortunately there is plenty of Tom’s fancy playing available to us on recordings going
back to the 1950s, and on live performances at websites like YouTube. He was a key member
of the original New Lost City Ramblers between 1958 and 1962, although before then he had
already been playing old-time music for quite some years. But those prolific early
recordings of the Ramblers were hugely influential in bringing the music to the ears of
avid listeners all over the world who had never heard anything quite like it before.
Tom took the music with him in his subsequent moves to Sweden and the UK. In England he
frequently appeared with Joe Locker, a fellow New Yorker who, like Tom, played guitar and
banjo. They sometimes included a fiddle player in the lineup and called themselves the
New Deal String Band. In later years the fiddle player was often Tom’s son, Ben.
Like other urban musicians at this time, many college-educated and coming from a
professional background, Tom had discovered what was essentially rural old-time music and
brought it to an international audience. Another musician from the New York area, Ralph
Rinzler, played a key role in promoting both bluegrass and old-time musicians. His role
as Bill Monroe’s manager was pivotal in the development of bluegrass music to the point
it has reached today; and but for Ralph most of us would probably never have heard of Doc
Watson.
The truth about old-time music, bluegrass and the blues is that they are too important
and special to have been lost on dusty old 78s and field recordings made between sixty
and nearly one hundred years ago. We owe a great debt of gratitude to Tom Paley, Mike
Seeger, John Cohen, Ralph Rinzler, Bill Clifton and the many others who have ensured that
this music has survived in good health and will be listened to and played by people all
over the world right on through the 21st century.
John Baldry
November 2017
