Jimmie Rodgers recorded “Any Old Time” in New York on 21 February 1929, at the Victor studio on 44th Street, the same session that produced “Desert Blues.” Rodgers sang and yodeled with a house orchestra conducted by Leonard Joy. Victor issued it on 5 September 1930 as the B-side of “Anniversary Blue Yodel (Blue Yodel No. 7)” on Victor 22488. The writing credit on the label is J. Rodgers alone.
The song is a reply to a letter. The singer has heard that his former sweetheart is down and out; at first he thinks of telling her to travel on, but he remembers what she once meant to him and decides to give her another chance. He tells her to drop him a line any old time she wants to come back home, that she left him alone, and that if she says her roaming days are through he will stick by her and she will find him where she left him.
Maria Muldaur opened her 1973 debut album on Reprise with it, with Ry Cooder on acoustic guitar, David Lindley on Hawaiian guitar and Jim Dickinson on piano. In bluegrass and acoustic circles the best-known later recording is Tony Rice’s on Church Street Blues (Sugar Hill, 1983). Rice sang and played guitar alone on it; the album was recorded at 1750 Arch Studios in Berkeley, California. Doc and Merle Watson recorded it for Red Rocking Chair (Flying Fish, 1981), and Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge played it as a guitar duet on Avalon (2014). In 2022 Punch Brothers recorded the whole of Church Street Blues as a tribute to Rice, titled Hell on Church Street (Nonesuch). On “Any Old Time” Chris Thile sings lead and plays mandolin, with Eldridge on guitar, Noam Pikelny on banjo, Gabe Witcher on fiddle and Paul Kowert on bass; Eldridge and Witcher sing harmony.
