POSTPONED

Ragtime Fred is a duo from Blacksburg, Virginia, that play ragtime and classic jazz songs from about 1880 through 1945. We use everybody’s favorite combination of vocals, 5-string and tenor banjos (Bud Bennett), and acoustic bass (Beth Kelsey), and put a slightly different spin on these old familiar tunes. 

Sometimes people forget that banjo and jazz music have a very long history together.  Scott Joplin wrote many of his ragtime pieces imitating the “ragged rhythm” of the banjo.  He heard the banjo quite a bit too, because his mother played it.  Early jazz bands, like those of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and many others, usually had a tenor banjo player in their bands as one of the standard rhythm instruments.  Banjo and jazz…they make beautiful music together!

Beth Kelsey and Bud Bennett are Ragtime Fred