The State of Bluegrass

Interesting that you should mention the folk revival since "bluegrass" as a phenomenon was of interest to the folklorists as far back as the mid-1950s (Alan Lomax's "Folk Music in Overdrive" article, etc.). But the relationship of the two cultures (that is, the people making the music and the urban intellectuals doing much of the listening) was comfy enough that there never seemed to be the kind of culture shock and resulting fallout as was evident in the blues revival, say. I've always been fascinated by the bluegrass festival circuit (which resembles the sort of entertainment that existed in your neck of the woods many decades ago) but have never taken part.

Death I hope.

Are some genres better off in obscurity?

None that I can think of.

Should such an insular, fanatical genre be fodder for dilettantes?

No.

I have a problem with bluegrass having had to endure living near to one of its hot spots in New Brunswick. This was covered in depth I think on The Lollies mailing list.

What I hate is that bluegrass music is being synergized with 'O Brother'.

Funny anecdote: Two years ago I gave my father the O Brother soundtrack for his birthday. We sat down and listened to it together, and when "Man of Constant Sorrow" came on, my father got a weird look on his face. "Is that Dan?" he asked me. "Dan? Dan who?" "Dan Tyminski. Remember him? The guy I used to play with all the time?" We look at the liner notes and see that it is, indeed, my dad's former picking partner. He was really excited by this.

my father grew up in Chicago in a pretty musical family. after college he moved to Berkeley to go to law school. he was half hippy/ half yuppie. he played in many bluegrass bands in the 60s. i'm not sure if he started playing in Chicago, Berkeley or later when he moved to Los Angeles.

but it's been out of the sticks for a long time now.

The point about the microphones is interesting (it's definitely true BTW) because it points up that bluegrass rather than being the "traditional" (pre-modern) music of some people's conceptions, it's a music that developed in the context of radio and amplification and records and the great migration of midcentury (which included as many whites as blacks, though you don't tend to learn that in school) b/c of wartime industrial jobs and waves of agricultural depression in the South. (Also the depletion/mechanization of coal etc. in Appalachia.)

I love that you mention this, Amateurist. For some reason it had never occurred to me. I'm reading it and rereading it and it makes me smile.

I've never performed around one microphone -> I am not an authentic bluegrass musician

(Amateurist do you listen to much Doc Watson?)

I haven't really played guitar in two-plus years -> I am not a musician at all anymore

haha I see Yanc3y has pre-emptively called me on my fundamentalism

And yes, that's my bosses entire thing with the traditional condenser mic bluegrass stuff. It's a historical element in the style of play.

What makes bluegrass bluegrass, as Alan Lomax pointed out long ago, is that it takes many of the raw melodic/instrumental/thematic materials of country music ca. 1920s/30s and increases the melodic activity of each instrument--and yes it places emphasis on virtuosity to an extent not seen before in the music. There is an incredible density of melodic material in one Bill Monroe mandolin solo, or Earl Scruggs banjo solo.

I think people like Trishka et al take this idea at face value and apply the same approach to a wider variety of material. Whereas for me it is those very raw materials--the early country music--that make bluegrass so interesting, and the bluegrass I like best is essentially one variation on them. Which is why the bluegrass I like best--in general, not as a rule--is from that time when it wasn't exactly a distinct genre, it was just one facet of country music. (Although Bill Monroe was always a bit of an anomaly on the Opry, even back in the late '30s when he first joined, mostly for the dignity he insisted upon in a sea of fake cowboys and minstrel stage pranksters and Hee Haw types.)

Ummm hmmm when I listen to some early bluegrass-as-bluegrass, like Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys from the late '40s or Flatt and Scruffs from the '50s and '60s, I enjoy it but in my enjoyment I recognize the very things--the need for speed, the need to impress with melodic density, the extreme formalism of it all--that made it something of a dead end for the kids who took it up and wanted to make something "more" of it in the accepted expansive '60s/'70s fashion.

I want to pause to think about this some more before I run myself into a dead end.

Actually, it's all about the lack of percussion; the mandolin generally keeps time.

I was taken to the Strawberry Bluegrass Festival when I was all of one year old, and the tradition has always been to listen to bluegrass on Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning. For 20 years now. It is SO ODD that the whole world thinks bluegrass is hip since 'O Brother'. Not good, not bad, just STRANGE. People tell me about this brand new Alison Krauss kid, and I have to say 'Yeah, I grew up with her. My dad has vinyl of hers from 1989!'. I come off as a hipper-than-thou jerk, but it's true... now my dad's the coolest kid on the block. Fads are SO ODD.

''Are some genres better off in obscurity?''

haven't heard any bluegrass but I can say that no genres are better off in obscurity. Even if it leads to the fusion type stuff that amateurist dislikes bcz I do think interesting music can come out if this 'obscure' music gets out there to the general public (even if it leads to yuppies getting hold of it, or more expensive festivals etc).

Someone's imagination can be fired up by listening to these things.

Can anyone recommend some insane bluegrass (be it local bands or whatever). I was just thinking about a band called 'Snake Oil Medicine Show' that I would see back in my day (late 90's and early 00's) at hippie events (no relation to 'Old Crow Medicine Show').

'Snake Oil Medicine Show' is obscure enough that I'm gonna have to find my old highschool friend and borrow his cd

A lot of these harvest festival type bands are going to die off in obscurity

ahhhh shiz, it just popped up in Soulseek, sweet

I don't how insane any of it is, but there's been lots of talk about current bluegrass on the Rolling Country thread the past couple days, starting right about here (and scrolling down, through today at least):

Rolling Country 2010

Split Lip Rayfield is my favorite punky bluegrass band. They play faster than any hardcore band I ever saw!

more sixties & seventies bluegrass recommendations please.
i am familiar with most of the stuff on this thread and sort of want to hear nothing but bluegrass lately. my faves include the stanleys of course, bill monroe, the lily brothers, the church brothers, dillards, mike auldridge, tut taylor, norman blake (i guess he's not really bluegrass?)...

for years i have listened to much more old-time & mountain music than bluegrass, but now i am getting the itch for bluegrass and western swing both.

oh, and i love john hartford a lot also.

the zone where bluegrass fuses with cosmic cowboy stuff is very intriguing to me. hartford & the dillards both get into this.
i got a great record by the country gentlemen the other day with this song on it --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11SOWhsawFw

i want to own more volumes of the "early days of bluegrass" series on rounder. i have only a few of them.. tell me about bill clifton. i like harmony singing.

I'm loving that Country Gentlemen clip.

maybe you'd like the two Any Old Time String Band albums (compiled together here). sort of a melange of bluegrass, old-time, Cajun, and country blues. the song selections are a little "scholarly" but in a fun way. lots of harmonizing.

also search Jim Smoak and any '60s or '70s Osborne Brothers album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmRro54vRYM

The Osbornes' Bluegrass Concerto is pretty out there (I could only find the title track on myspace of all places). it's funny to hear a grandiose bluegrass-classical fusion from an act that started out doing straight-up traditional stuff in the mid-'50s.

really great initial post (is y@ncey still around?) & ian great country gentlemen tune

i used to have an any old time string band record, but i think i sold it. it might still be around though. gotta explore the osbourne brothers more. and i want to find more del mccoury records.

BLUEGRASS FEVER CONTINUES.
SELL ME YOUR "EARLY DAYS OF BLUEGRASS" LPS

Question: with Ralph Stanley's death, who is the greatest living bluegrasser?

define "greatest" however you want.

i'm rooting for Del McCoury...

geez that's a tough one, most of the old guard has passed on in the last decade or so - I can't think of anyone left

Jesse McReynolds (of Jim & Jesse) is 87 and seems to have still been playing live as recently as last year.
www.jimandjesse.com/tourDates.php
But yeah, not a lot of players from that generation still around.

had no idea he was still alive, thought they were both dead!

I miss Jimmy Martin that's for sure. Bummed I never got to see him.

not a lotta players taking their places, either. though I will rep for much of the second generation (Sam Bush, Skaggs, Rice, et al) but even some of those guys are getting a bit long in the tooth

Mac Wiseman (age 91) is still alive and semi-active as a performer, and he's been involved in bluegrass almost from the beginning: he toured and recorded with Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs in the late '40s and became a star in his own right by the early '50s. he was one of the first bluegrass acts to defect from the genre — this article paints him as a shrewd industry guy who wasn't afraid to hop on the rock and folk and pop-country bandwagons if that's what it took to stay relevant. ex.

When bluegrass experimenter Scott Rouse was looking for the right singers to be part of his GrooveGrass Boys bluegrass-funk experiments of the '90s, with Bootsy Collins as a key player, he brought Mac in to sing.

I think 'progressive bluegrass' owes a lot to his influence even though he's rarely cited for his efforts (partly because he has retreated to the safety of trad-grass in recent years). his Gordon Lightfoot covers album is surprisingly successful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KOxWKIegVY

and I'd also recommend his gospel LP Beside the Still Waters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvLbnxBNJxs

I'd also recommend his 1959 gospel LP Beside the Still Waters. it's a great showcase for his vocal talents, and the stripped-down arrangements have aged better than a lot of his other output from that era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvLbnxBNJxs

my revive was more McCoury-driven than I let on. writing something about him and trying to think if my premise - that he's the top bluegrass dog w/ Stanley gone - is reasonable or not. basically ... did I forget anyone? and the answer seems to be "not really" ... i thought of Skaggs/Bush/Rice. Krauss and Jerry Douglas. J.D. Crowe. good on McReynolds and Wiseman for hanging in there.

but yeah ... Monroe, Martin, Flatt, Scruggs, Watson, Stanley, then ... a void.

although, the void beyond McCoury may be even bigger.

although, the void beyond McCoury may be even bigger.

I agree with this, but I would also argue that there are probably fans of a certain age who are coming out to the shows as much for his sons now as Del himself. Those guys are shredders (not in the pejorative sense). I guess like most things the crowd for this stuff has become more specialized--I mean, it's difficult to imagine bluegrass as we know it ever going full-on mainstream again, but bands like Steep Canyon Rangers--like 'em or not--pack houses. Ditto guys like Tim O'Brien, etc. It's relative. My sister and her husband (mid-thirties) are not the kind of people who you'd ever see on a message board called "I Love Music" and might not know Bill Monroe from Bo Diddley, but they never miss Jerry Douglas and guys like that when they come to town. They also like jam bands, fwiw.

That said, I do think your premise is correct, and framing Del as one of the last of the old guard (despite very much putting his own stamp on the genre wrt adding more blues-y stuff than Monroe ever did) is not something I'd challenge. I do tend to think of him the last living bonafide bluegrass 'star,' for whatever that's worth (Wiseman notwithstanding). Good luck!

Ah, thanks, that makes me feel better about it. Don't disagree about the McCoury sons being a draw.

I like Steep Canyon Rangers. I live in the Northwest, where jammy bluegrass bands play all the time, and there are several that lean more trad, less jam that I think are quite good. Of course, there are terrible ones, too.

But it's hard to imagine the guys from, like, Yonder Mountain String Band or Hot Buttered Rum or whatever taking the torch from the legends. Which is fine! But it does feel like, for example, the big rock stars of the past 20 years have taken their place alongside the big rock stars of 50 years ago, whereas, like ... i'm not sure we'll ever be adding anyone new to the bluegrass Mt. Rushmore.

Yeah, totally agree with this, and the comparison with rock and roll is apt. Like, REM and U2 and RHCP and Pearl Jam probably have more in common with Led Zep and Pink Floyd at this point than, say, The Killers ever will. Which is a little weird.

Dunno where to start with Steep Canyon. They seem alright to me. That banjo player is excellent. But I think the last 'new' bluegrass I paid any attention to was Hot Rize! (I really like Hot Rize)

Been really enjoying the Jake Eddy s/t - I'm not very up on contemporary bluegrass, but he has a great sound and style and I could see him becoming a big name in the circuit soon.

Really enjoyed this piece from the writer Alex Sujong Laughlin talking with her grandma about the latter's decades working with the Walnut Valley Festival:

https://defector.com/an-interview-with-my-grandmother-who-knows-everyone-in-bluegrass-music?giftLink=988eafe813c214e70ed71371341e4a67