About fifteen years ago I attended what is still my favorite OT concert. Tom, Brad and Alice in Fayetteville, AR. Beyond the great renditions of the songs and tunes performed by these living legends was an epiphany that has affected my approach to the banjo ever since.
I had always enjoyed the playing style Elders such as Kirk McGee, Roscoe Holcomb George Pegram and many other Old Timers who's playing style was almost right on the dividing line of Old Time and Proto-Bluegrass. Indeed their playing was hard to define as though the older stylings had collided with the more contemporary, releasing an audio earthquake of unbridled energy. Even the sound, louder and sharper than most Old Time but without the fully modern sound that defines Bluegrass in my mind, and renders such playing enjoyable only in limited doses, became my favorite sound, whether played fingerstyle or clawhammer.
And yet, I had never heard that sound live until I heard Tom Sauber that evening in Arkansas. Mr. Sauber was one of the first contemporary Old Time banjo players I saw play a resonator banjo in person. He moved back and forth between a clawhammer sound akin to Wade Ward's and a fingerstyle that did remind me of McGee's three finger or Pegram two finger style. Tom Paley's banjo picking also came to mind.
I write this not to discredit the other sounds and textures to be found in the broad array of OT banjo styles. In fact, the very notion that OT banjo can offer so many different sound possibilities is a large part of what thrills me about OT music in general. But for me the best sound is where the old and the new collide, that's where the earth moves and the sparks fly.
Here is a clip of Tom, Brad and Alice playing a familiar OT tune. Looks to me as though Mr. Sauber is playing an RB-1 from the 1920s.