Portland Old-Time Music Gathering

On the Saturday of the Portland Old-Time Music Gathering, the doors of Alberta Abbey, at 126 NE Alberta Street, open at 11:00 in the morning, and by noon every floor of the building is in use. In 2026 the auditorium held the instrument workshops. Clinton Davis taught “Guitar Rags 101,” an introduction to rural American ragtime guitar for anyone who knew their first-position chords. Judy Hyman, with Jeff Claus, taught a tune from the repertoire of the Kentucky fiddler John Salyer in cross-key A tuning, AEAE. She gave the bare notes first and then laid bowings over them for the advanced players, while less experienced fiddlers kept to the melody. Jake Blount led a banjo master class on moving past the bum-ditty pattern and past a melody built for the fiddle. At 3:45 Davis returned to the same stage for an hour’s concert of tunes and songs.

Partway down to the basement, in the Abbey studio, the day went to singing. Sallie Sublette and Rick McCracken led an old-time sing-along, the Portland Sacred Harp Singers led shape-note singing, and Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms taught vocal harmony. The Strongbacks (Brendan Best, Tim Borden and Evan Coombs) led what the schedule called the first shanty sing in the Gathering’s program, run in the manner of a traditional pub sing. At 5:00 Sue Truman taught the making of matchbox crankies. The schedule describes the crankie as a folk art popular in the 1800s. Each maker colored a scroll, loaded it into a matchbox, and took it home. In the basement green room the jams changed hands about every hour: a hosted jam, a jug band jam with Arlo Leach, a teen jam. From 6:00 until closing the room ran with no host.

The ballroom in the basement

Until evening the basement ballroom belonged mostly to children. Dan Fish and Sarah Ells Fish kept an Instrument Petting Zoo at the back of the room. The afternoon ran through a kids’ and family jam, a kids’ open mic, and a crankie show with Sue Truman, Jerry Gallagher and W.B. Reid. At 3:00 came a family square dance, with Caroline Oakley calling to the band Hog Dog. Children 16 and under are admitted free. At 4:15 Amy Hofer taught square-dance calling to people who had never called before, and a slow jam followed at 5:30.

Meanwhile Cookhouse, made up of Sophie Enloe, Maggie Lind and Patrick Lind, played an hour in the bar. At 7:30 the giant square dance began in the ballroom. Three bands played, Katy and the Kates and Rats Gone to Rest among them, and eleven callers took turns: Suzanne Girardot, Tony Mates, Ava Honey, Jane Palmieri, Melissa Takush, Steph Noll, Maggie Lind, Andy Grummon, Bex Bee, Amy Hofer and Caroline Oakley. The raffle is drawn that night, and the building closes at 11:30. Wikipedia’s entry on the festival notes that some participants wear traditional clothing.

The Friday before is the concert night. In 2026 the Abbey opened at 5:00 for open jamming, with music in the bar from 6:00. The Bubbaville schedule names Ellie and Annie Davis as the bar band, and Portland Living on the Cheap names Annika Brooks, River Scheuerell and Gus Tritsch. The 8:00 concert bill listed Jake Blount, the Bubba Award, and Judy Hyman with Jeff Claus, Gus Tritsch and Huck Tritsch. KOIN called Hyman a “nationally recognized fiddler.”

Hostel cafe, pizza parlor, pub

Most of the Gathering is free, and most of it happens away from the Abbey. The 2026 edition began on Wednesday, January 14, with an opening jam at the Moon and Sixpence Pub on NE 42nd Avenue, hosted by the Old Barn Preservation Society. On Thursday night The Waysiders and the Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms Band played a honky tonk kickoff at the Spare Room Lounge, a few blocks up the same avenue. Several of these pub and lounge events are 21 and over.

Through the rest of the week the cafe of the NW Portland Hostel, on NW 18th Avenue, held hosted jams in the afternoons and again late at night. Its program added a ragtime jam on Friday and an Americana happy hour on Saturday. Mississippi Pizza, on North Mississippi Avenue, held afternoon jams on Thursday and Friday. On Sunday the Spare Room hosted the cabaret, an open-mic-style show run by Brooks Masten, with minors welcome until 4:00. The Portland Slow Jam, a regular session that falls on Gathering weekend, met at the Genesis Project on SE Kelly Street. That evening Caroline Oakley and Steph Noll called a square dance at The Showdown on SE Powell Boulevard to the band Big Chimney Barn Dance. At the Moon and Sixpence, The Horsenecks and members of Foghorn Stringband played session style in the corner. On Monday, January 19, The Canote Brothers closed the week with a show and open mic at the hostel, open to all ages.

Bill “Bubba” Martin’s name

The Gathering is staged by Bubbaville, Inc., a nonprofit run entirely by volunteers. By Bubbaville’s own account, the organization grew out of the Gathering, which began in 1999 and now brings together more than 1,500 traditional musicians, fans and practitioners each year. Its stated aim is music “as meaningful as it is when we gather to swap tunes and play in a friend’s living room or meet to play at a campsite during a summer festival.” The volunteers say they fill every role, “whether we are taking tickets, sweeping the floor, organizing an event, or playing music for a concert.”

The organization is named for Bill “Bubba” Martin, a square dance caller, musician and community organizer. Bubbaville places him at the heart of the Portland old-time scene until his death in 2012 and says he was known for his guitar picking, his dance calling, and “very unique sense of style.” Oregon Art Beat profiled him in 2003. Since 2008 Bubbaville has funded, promoted and supported dozens of projects beyond the Gathering, among them campouts, albums and dances.

From the Scottish Rite Center to Alberta Street

In 2011, at the 12th annual Gathering, KBOO radio was a media partner. Its listing called the festival “a big old music party” that featured mostly Portland musicians and was meant for players, “not just for sitting audiences.” The Friday concert that year was held at the Scottish Rite Center, with Pharis and Jason Romero, Ron Kane and Meghan Merker, and The Brainstormers. Around 11:15 the crowd moved to the ballroom for square dancing with Bill Martin and the Tallboys. “Saturday requires some explanation,” the listing went on: from noon until 1:00 Sunday morning the whole Scottish Rite building was filled with jam sessions. Among the afternoon concerts, Martin played old-time finger-style guitar on a bill that included The Canote Brothers. The Saturday night dance ran on two floors with seven bands and seven callers, among them Caroline Oakley, Suzanne Girardot and Tony Mates. The bands included Triple Chicken Foot, Striped Pig and The Pork Pies.

That year Miz Kitty (Lisa Marsicek) hosted the Sunday cabaret at the Mission Theater, a program of ten-minute performances. Foghorn closed the week at the Moon and Sixpence with what the listing called its “traditional warm-hearted long goodbye, unamplified, good food and drink, time to visit, make farewells and wind down.” It added: “Some say this is the best part of the Gathering.”

In 2014 the Oregonian previewed a five-day festival, Wednesday, January 15, through Sunday, January 19. Bellingham’s Happy Valley Sluggers, an old-time fiddle and Louisiana Cajun band, opened the kickoff at the Spare Room, and Alice Gerrard headlined Friday night at the Scottish Rite Center. The paper reported a different square dance each night. “We are trying to bring together the kind of people who like this music,” the organizer Jinny Macrae told the paper. “A lot of people are trying to stay true to what we understand are the origins of the music. We’re really trying to stay in the old-time tradition.”

The 2018 Gathering marked the release of “Gathered,” a two-disc compilation of nearly 30 tracks by Gathering concert performers, reaching back to 2005. In 2021 the festival went online as the Quarantine Edition, held January 14 through 17. It offered streaming concerts, workshops over Zoom, online jamming and a Sunday Cabaret, all free, with donations accepted for performers and for Bubbaville. The Southeast Examiner reported that the 2021 program put a special focus on the ways Black, Indigenous and other communities of color have shaped American roots music. The performers that year included Hubby Jenkins of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Houston’s Keyun & the Zydeco Masters, the North Carolina fiddle and banjo player Paul Brown, and the Portland fiddler Annie Staninec. On Sunday, January 17, Tatiana Hargreaves and Jake Blount led an online discussion of the Black and Indigenous roots of old-time music.

KOIN reported the 2026 Gathering as the festival’s 27th year, and Portland Living on the Cheap counted 26 performers across its stages. The 2027 Gathering is set for January 13 through 17, with Rayna Gellert as artist-in-residence and the Oregon-based Buffalo Kin on the bill.