Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA

Subject: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: GUEST,Dazbo at work
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:59 AM

Couldn't fit the title I wanted but it struck me watching what I'd call bluegrass (and it's precursors) on YouTube that these bands seem almost entirely string based (fiddle, banjo, guitar etc). Many other traditions in USA (and Canada for that matter) use diatonic accordions (Cajun, Tex-Mex etc).

Are there any reasons why bluegrass didn't adopt the diatonic accordion (difficult to acquire/make, cultural reasons)? Just a curious melodeon player from England

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:29 AM

At least one of Bill Monroe's early bands did have an accordion player. I believe it was a chromatic piano accordion though, not diatonic.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:46 AM

Bluegrass uses a much wider range of keys than any diatonic accordion can handle.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 12:28 PM

The accordion was used a lot in the background and theme music for "The Beverly Hillbillies", which featured music, and occasional appearances by "Flatt and Scruggs", and was how a most Americans became familiar with Bluegrass music in general.

The accordionist was Leo Mannes, who used the stage name "Zeke Manners"--he had been the founder of the original "Beverly Hillbillies", which, if you don't already know, had been a "Hollywood Cowboy" band, playing on radio, in films, and recordings, in the early 1930's.

He played and performed with Roy Rogers, Elton Britt, and the like for many years, and worked as a musical consultant for films and TV--I am not sure how relevant his work was to "Real Bluegrass", but he did create the sound that passed for hillbilly/western music in movies and TV--

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:11 PM

Thanks, M.Ted. I was intrigued, and I found this site:

http://www.mp3.com/artist/zeke-manners/summary/

However, I can't find a way to listen to Zeke's band. Is it possible, or must I sign up and download something?

I don't get involved with mp3's much.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: HiHo_Silver
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:30 PM

I am a Canadian and play Diatonic Acccordion. I have gone to several Bluegrass Festivels in the area and was politely told that there is no place for Diatonic Accordions in Bluegrass music. Granted you need to carry several to acommodate all the keys used in Bluegrass music. Seems the Bluegrass musicians are great fans of the "CAPO"

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:10 PM

Some Bluegrass folks are not the most open minded, and because of that kind of thinking, Bluegrass has kind of gotten painted into a corner--It needs folks like you who want to explore some of the unexplored possibilities--

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:32 PM

Looking at the thread title, who in hell equates Bluegrass with the USA?

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: GUEST,Dazbo at work
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 03:46 AM

Dick I couldn't fit in bluegrass in the title and if I'd used melodeon manu USAians would think I was talking about a pump organ.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 04:58 AM

The thread title is very confusing really, given that Tex Mex, cajun and zydeco represents to many the finest flowering of the diatonic accordion in the world.
   A lot of players of diatonic accordions in England happily play along with what might be called "bluegrass" music(in the wider sense I suppose).Tony Weatherall springs to mind(both on the cajun accordion and the Tex Mex style Hohner D/G)who is a great player on general American music, as well the narrower field of cajun.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Ernest
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 07:27 AM

Hey Dazbo: Bluegrass musicians adopted the banjo - ain`t that enough?

Getting my coat...
Ernest

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Mr Red
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:26 AM

Well I have been known to slide into the back of the Malvern Bluegrass Festival session with my bodhran and only one person (non-sessionist) remarked. He thought I was brave. But then I was quieter than the banjos. And the bodhran is in YOUR key (OK?).

FWIW the organisers at the Didmarton Festival (see cresby.com > festivals) have welcomed me - at their sessions though I have not had the opportunity to test the musos!

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: GUEST,DannyC
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 02:51 PM

There's a oldtime banjo fella from the Virginia Highlands that states his grandfather played the accordion... that's all I know.
He's right
here

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 08:09 PM

I play a B/C button accordion: all the notes, sharps and flats are in there in the right hand if only I could find them! But getting better at playing in Bflat and F for those who have to use the capo. A basic knowledge of scales helps, coupled with a good ear.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Stringsinger
Date: 03 Feb 08 - 05:08 PM

Dick you have posed a thorny question. Bluegrass is a self-styled attempt at a pseudo-Americanism. Not many players are African-American (if any) or Hispanic. The Rebel Flag has been known to fly at some of the bluegrass festivals.

Did Zeke Manners actually play a diatonic accordian? I know he was a piano player and used to accompany himself with it on a morning show in Los Angeles in the Fifties.

He was kind of a Lew Childress and a Bob Burns. He had a running repartee with his song selections.

Many early so-called Country and Western bands used the piano accordian. A great carry-on of this tradition is a group called "Riders in the Sky" who recreates the "Sons of the Pioneers" who also used piano accordian.

The accordian is basically a dance music instrument worldwide and bluegrass is not a dance music. The accordian therefore would be more appropriate in the category of the so-called "Old Time" music.

The diatonic accordian is found in Irish music. They spell it "accordeon" or something like that.


Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Feb 08 - 06:24 PM

I think one thing that may be involved is regional migration patterns. Diatonic accordions would first have come from Germany and Austria. Both Tex-Mex and Cajun accordion are the products of a certain amount of German settlement in those areas--according to Barry Jean Ancelet, Germans set up shops in Louisiana, and it was there that you could first buy accordions. In the polka areas, settled by Germans, Czechs, etc., stretching from Pennsylvania and upstate New York westward, you find plenty of accordions--but these were often replaced by piano accordions when such became available.

In areas with more purely anglo settlement, like the hollers of the southern Appalachians, you wouldn't have as many accordions. Bluegrass is a genre consciously created around Appalachian traditions--hence, not much accordion to begin with, and because of the orthodoxy of most consciously-created genres, not much room for adding them.

Subject: RE: No Bluegrass accordions?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Feb 08 - 07:52 PM

The heading above this post is perhaps a bit closer.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: GUEST,ancient briton
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 02:36 PM

there are no diatonics in Bluegrass

great

so keep it quiet or the Colonists will infiltrate and take over the squeezebox world in the way that US banjo experts of the 5 string persuasion seem to be trying to mechanise the Irish tenor banjo tradition.

americans play great bluegrass

europeans play other great music

vive la difference.

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 07:49 PM

Pedantic note - "Colonials" not "Colonists"

Subject: RE: Absence of Diatonic Accordian in USA
From: Greg B
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 09:27 PM

Well--- the 5-string banjo *is* diatonic, to the keys of G and C
basically. Hence the capos.

And bluegrass is an artifact. It has as much (or little) claim
to being 'traditional' as does Benny Goodman's music. It's the
invention of a few musical geniuses who happened to be at
the right place at the right time--- when banjos went from
semi-decent junk to Mastertones and Tubaphones and guitars
went from questionable Spanish copies to C.F. Martin's D28s.

The only thing that makes it traditional is the same thing that
use of the B/C accordion for Irish music 'traditional': The current
players are too young to remember the guys who invented the
method of playing the instruments.

So anybody that says that an instrument is or is not part of the
Bluegrass tradition is full of shit. There IS no 'Bluegrass
tradition.' Doesn't make it any less fun.