Ragtime Week #1 — Smith's Garage Fiddle Band — "Dill Pickle Rag"

In the beginning, and despite what The Sting and Marvin Hamlisch might have you believe, ragtime wasn't exclusively piano music. The genre has its roots in stringed instruments, actually, particularly the banjo. Composers like Scott Joplin would also transcribe their work for string bands, in order to take advantage of instrument fads (mandolin and banjo orchestras were quite the thing back then). Despite the period's enduring image of the derby-wearing ragtime "perfessor" tickling the keyboards, few of the earliest ragtime recordings feature pianists. Singers of ragtime or "coon" songs, full orchestras, and banjoists like Fred Van Eps, Vess Ossman, and Olly Oakley dominated Edison cylinders. As ragtime faded in popularity, so too did ragtime recordings... until around the 20s. Travelling out into the boonies, record company reps started recording old-time country string bands, many of whom had rags in their cobwebby repertoires. Smith's Garage Fiddle Band was one such band.

I don't know much about Smith's Garage Fiddle Band, but they were a sparky little group, and their cover of Charles Johnson's "Dill Pickle Rag" (a string band ragtime standard just behind "Ragtime Annie") is a toe-tapper. I advise picking up the above CD. It's a keeper.