Oldtime Virginia Music

Arnie Taylor was my neighbor from down the street. We met sometime in 2014 while I was in high school, and Arnie was retired. Arnie was born 1933 and he grew up in Southwest Virginia in a musical, mountain family. Both his father, uncle, and grandfather played music banjo or fiddle.

Whenever I met with Arnie, we’d do yard work, and then we’d play tunes together. When we played, I tuned the fiddle down to match his pitch. Plain and simple, we just played music together. We never had lofty goals, other than to listen to each other, and fit-in with each other. See at the top are two polished recordings from our meeting in 2016.

Typically we’d play in his extra bedroom, I would ask permission to record, and Arnie always granted it, then I’d place the recorder (SONY IC RECORDER MP3 3.1.1) somewhere in-between the middle of us. Arnie would play the banjo and I would play the fiddle.

In 2015, Arnie and I released a homemade album called: Oldtime Virginia Music. It had been many years since I revisited this material, but it was time for a re-release it after light editing. It is certainly rough around the edges, but the energy is high, and Arnie’s banjo playing is unique and in a style seldom heard at festivals. Hope you all enjoy it.

We played oldtime music together from 2014 up until Arnie’s passing in 2017 when I left home after completing community college.