I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass

Subject: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Celtaddict
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 12:15 AM

For a gift, I would like to find a CD of traditional Irish, Scottish, or similar instrumental music that is related to American bluegrass music. I can hear similarities but I generally listen to songs, so am at a loss to choose one. Any suggestions?

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 09:36 AM

I can think of a few "crossover" recordings where Irish & Scottish musicians play WITH bluegrass musicians in a kind of hybrid style - one is by the Chieftans (The Old Plank Road is the title I think), and the other is under the title "The Transatlanic Sessions", and has been discussed quite a bit here in other threads.

As far as trad Irish or Scottish music as a pre-cursor to bluegrass, that gets harder. Any collection of fiddle tunes by a good Irish or Scottish fiddler should work.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: greg stephens
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 10:28 AM

I know a lot of assumptions are made about the so-called "Celtic" roots of bluegrass, but I'm sure that rationally a much stronger case can be made for England, rather than Ireland or Scotland or Wales, as being the most significant factor in the early roots of Appalachian folk music music and its development into bluegrass.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 01:36 PM

DeDannan has done some of this.....but not all on one album.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 01:46 PM

Well the lovely Hedy West sings a song called The Wife Wrapped in Wethers Skin, with a 'clatter me latter me lingo' end line to each verse, and 'dan doo dan doo' between each verse line. This iis a direct descendant of The Wee Cooper o' Fife which has a similar nonsense chorus which goes, [are you ready!] 'hey willie wallochy auld John dougall haw lane quo rashity roo roo roo', and has a between verses bit 'nickety nackety noo noo noo'. Both songs tell the same story. However this is the only sonng I've related back to it's Celtic roots, mind you I'm no ethnomusicologist.
Giok

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Teresa
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 02:01 PM

Tim OBrien's _Two Journeys_? Admittedly it's not a chronology of musical evolution, but it's great, IMO.
T

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Teresa
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 02:15 PM

My dim memory is reminding me that there was at one point an album released sometime in the 80s(?) that had old-timey stuff and Scottish bagpipes? I only heard snippets. sorry I can't remember more. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?
T

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 03:25 PM

Not so, greg stephens. The most significant factor was surely the "Scotch-Irish" migrations of the early 18th century. These were Scottish Calvinists who had settled in Ulster, then found it less than welcoming to their brand of Calvinism and decided to come to America. A similarly uneasy relationship developed between these folks and the New England Puritans, so after a few attempts to settle around Boston they shifted to Pennsylvania as their initial point of entry. They settled in lands west of Philadelphia, then ultimtely began making their way south into Delaware, Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and ultimately the whole Appalachian region. Although there were of course English and German settlers who followed the same path, the Scotch-Irish people became more or less the base ethnicity of the region.

Now, whether these people can be considered "Celtic" is another matter. They were not Gaelic-Speaking highlanders, but Scots-speaking lowlanders, thus their cultural heritage was primarily northern Anglo-Saxon as opposed to Celtic. In modern unscientific popular terms, though, where Scottish music is thought of as "Celtic," one could consider the musical background of Bluegrass to be in "Celtic Music."

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 04:06 PM

In the early 18th century there weren't many Anglo Saxon descendants in the lowlands of Scotland. Many of the Scots Irish who emigrated to America were themselves part Irish in the first place. The tradition of itinerant tinkers, and agricultural workers is an old one, and many seasonal workers came from Ireland to Scotland to work, and stayed.Hence although there weren't many Gaelic speakers in the lowlands, it was not a strange tongue in that region. don't forget that 1745 and all that was Bonnie Prince Charlie time, and he didn't get all the way to Derby, with only Anglo Saxons to help him.
Giok

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 04:23 PM

Agreed Giok. The problem is that ALL the people of Britain, including most of the English, have been primarily Celtic, racially speaking, since Caesar and considerably before--if indeed this idea has any meaning. But culturally, most of England and Lowland Scotland accepted (or were forced to accept) an overlay of Anglo-Saxon language and culture, to the point where the original Celtic language(s) of Scotland, both Pictish (If indeed it was Celtic) and British, are no more. The Gaelic speakers in Scotland were, as you say, immigrants from Ireland.

So what do you call English-speaking Lowland Scots? In many cases, they have roots in all four cultures, Pictish (which may or may not have been "Celtic,") British, Anglo-Saxon and (Irish) Gaelic. In some cases, of course, they have ancestry in France and elsewhere, which have similar histories of Celtic base and Germanic/Roman overlay.

The extent to which they are "Celtic" is thus debatable, but by no means can the claim be dismissed.

Funnily enough, most of the MUSICAL forms that make up "Celtic" music, Jigs, Reels, hornpipes and the like, originated elsewhere anyway. So even if the people ARE Celtic, one could argue that the music is not "Celtic," but simply the Anglo-Saxon, Scottish and Irish variations on West European folk music, as carried by Scotch-Irish settlers into America.

Or one can just throw up one's hands and say "Celtic Music."

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 04:27 PM

All sorts of definition problems here, since bluegrass is generally defined as beginning with Bill Munroe.
Students of Bluegrass, such as Richie- thread 55312, Bluegrass Music: Bluegrass take a broader view of the music's origins.
It is true that many of the Appalachian settlers were originally lowland Scots, but many English settlers followed the same route, as did some German and other immigrants.
The Scotch element already had lost much of their Scots language by the time they came to North America, and it had essentially disappeared by the time they settled in the Appalachians. As Nerd says, their cultural heritage had become mainly Anglo-Saxon.

In light of this background, Richie is correct when he says southern Appalachian music draws heavily on English ballads and songs (of course including Burns writings and a few more ballads, perhaps originally Scottish but spread to England and in Anglo-Saxon style) and fiddle music from Europe and the United States, with infusions from the blackface minstrels (who included Irish routines as well), gospel, and of course composed pieces diseminated by broadsides and traveling entertainers. The importance of the English roots is a point taken in the post by Greg Stephens.

In brief, "Celtic" roots are much diluted and difficult to isolate.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 04:53 PM

Allen Feldman: Bluegrass defines bluegrass as "a modern, very urbanized genre, connected to the 19303-1950s industrialization of rural southerners, that drew on a diversity of musical genres that were available through radio and phonograph...." He would go beyond the concept given by Richie. He says that there can be no name that covers both.

Going beyond Feldman, modern groups are attempting in various ways to fuse (add, subtract or change these monikers as you wish) Old Time, Appalachian, Country, Bluegrass, urban, rural, Celtic, Breton, Irish and whatever- but this remains modern Fusion music- interesting, but depending upon a sophistication that is foreign to the separate genres.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Mark Clark
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 04:58 PM

There really aren't any Celtic roots of bluegrass that you could trace as a musical progression. Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass Music,” was of distant Scottish heratige, visited Scotland, and wrote a babpipe-sounding instrumental piece called Scotland but that's about as many roots as there are.

Bluegrass music owes far more to African Americans than to Celts or Anglos. It was the African Americans who began the fiddle traditions that were picked up by the “old-timey” string bands to form one strand of the bluegrass influences. Monroe actually considered himself a blues singer and, as a young man, accompanied the black Kentucky ragtime/blues musician, Arnold Shultz.

Even though some bluegrass instrumentals have been constructed on melody lines of Celtic origin, the most obvious sounds that contribute to bluegrass owe more to jazz (Earl Scruggs), blues, popular songs, and nineteenth century heart songs than to Celtic music or peoples.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 04:58 PM

Gee, now that's a link with a message. Correcting the link, since my comment should not be blamed on Feldman:
Feldman

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Mark Clark
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 06:51 PM

Celtaddict and others may enjoy an older thread called Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?. A lot of folks contributed and the thread links to other major threads on the subject. Good reading.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Celtaddict
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 08:15 PM

I thank all for the input, and debating the meaning of "Celtic" or "bluegrass" (or "traditional" or the dreaded "folk") is certainly beyond the intent of this thread. (Though I did figure this was likely, and at least no outright tempers are yet flaring over definitions and such!) I don't suppose anyone could argue that any body of music (or literature or other cultural attribute) can have many and varied roots. I simply enjoy lots of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Manx, music, the huge and varied family of western European music often loosely grouped as "Celtic," and I enjoy the English as well, and the Canadian, Australian and such offspring of it. Naturally as people move around the world they take their music with them, and naturally it evolves over time (in both new and old worlds). I just have a brother who loves the old-timey and bluegrass type of music, and we have both observed there is a good deal of overlap in styles, and sometimes in the actual melody, of some of the instrumental music, and he has asked me, and I would like, to come up with an album or two that might be considered to fall into that overlap, not necessarily any sort of scholarly progression.
So, Guest of 0936 and Teresa, thank you particularly, I really appreciate something specific to look for. (Had not thought of "Old Plank Road" and it is a great album.) Giok and Greg, I will follow up the leads. Any other suggestions anyone?

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 03:24 AM

JP Cormier is a great bluegrass musician who grew up in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia and plays mean Scottish-style fiddle, mando, guitar, etc, along with the bluegrass. He has a number of good albums.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 08:09 AM

"Bringing It All Back Home" is a double CD from the BBC series of the same name which attempted to chronicle the evolution of Irish music and its impact along the way on American music. I'm not sure that the logic extended to Bluegrass, but it certainly did to Old Timey and music from the Appalachians.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 10:44 AM

Mark,

to say that Bill Monroe "considered himself a blues musician" is a little misleading. He ALSO considered himself a country musician, and a bluegrass musician.

I think it's equally wrong to overstate the African roots of Bluegrass as to ignore them. Clearly, there are blues and jazz elements: the soloing, the syncopation, the use of the banjo to name a few. But equally clearly, Bluegrass has roots in oldtime ballad singing, in white hymnody, and in English/Scottish/Irish instrumental music. The fact that Bill Monroe had a black mentor in itself doesn't mean that the black roots of his music were the most important; AP Carter had a black mentor as well (I think his name was Lesley Riddle), who went with him on his collecting trips, where they picked up songs almost entirely from white folks. Although Carter sang a lot of songs that were blues, the ensemble was definitely based in oldtime ballad singing and picking. And further, Bill Monroe's OTHER great musical mentor was his uncle, Pen Vandiver, who was a white fiddler.

The statement "It was the African Americans who began the fiddle traditions that were picked up by the 'old-timey' string bands to form one strand of the bluegrass influences" is also an oversimplification. The mere fact they were playing fiddles, mandolins, guitars, etc makes the European influences on these string bands clear. The further fact that they were often playing for white audiences made it necessary for them to play what whites wanted to hear.

"When we started out in the small town where I was born," Howard Armstrong remembers, "we mostly played for what we called the `good white people.' We'd serenade them, and they'd pay us with money and food."

What remained to be recorded of black string band tradition by the time collectors got to it suggested that Celtic music was indeed a strong influence, with tunes like "soldiers joy" and "give the fiddler a dram."

Most of the scholarship on black string bands supports the ideas that

1) Black slave musicians were intitially purposely trained by their masters in order to provide music that they, the masters, wanted to hear.

and

2) the string band tradition that developed out of this was a shared tradition with roots in both communities.

Here's a quote from the PBS website, which cites Charles Wolfe (a country, blues and bluegrass scholar).

DeFord [Bailey]'s family played tunes that were part of a rich tradition of string band playing shared by both blacks and whites in the early nineteenth century.

"White and blacks would be playing music and dancing at what you'd call a barn dance?you clean the ground off and put sawdust down on it and make it soft where you can dance. Well, they'd look out and see the Baileys and they'd say, ?Here come the Baileys, we'll turn the thing over to them. They would usually have a fiddle, guitar, banjo, harp, mandolin, and drums.?"

During slavery times, musicians were highly valued. In fact, many slaves were sent to New Orleans to train on the fiddle in order to entertain at plantation dances. After emancipation, many of these fiddle players kept their instruments and developed their own playing styles. DeFord's grandfather, Lewis Bailey, was one of these musicians. He was a champion fiddle player, considered "the best in Smith County." DeFord learned much of his style and repertoire from the early influences of his grandfather.

This style of music, which DeFord later called black hillbilly music, started to fade in the 1920's when the record companies came south to record traditional music. For marketing purposes, the record companies segregated music into white and black series. They believed white people would buy only country music performed by white musicians and that black people would buy only blues and gospel music performed by black musicians.

What makes Bluegrass different from Celtic music is primarily the influence of African American musical forms. But what makes it similar is the direct impact of the "Scotch-Irish," and as others have pointed out, English, Welsh, etc, who joined them.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: black walnut
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 10:47 AM

Tim O'Brien.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 10:59 AM

Oops. The last paragraph above was mine, not PBS's. I forgot to close the italics!

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 11:12 AM

These Scots-irish who dominated the Appalachians ...or formed the "base ethnicity" etc. You hear a lot about them recently, but not so much a while ago. Of course there were all sorts of people who contributed to the population and culture in the area, but this theory of domination by some "Scots-Irish" Celtic people who somehow moved en bloc from Scotland to ireland, and then decamped and became hillbillies, invented oldtime music and then it turned into bluegrass. Where is the evidence?
    Seems to me the area is dominated by mainly English derived placenames, and inhabited by fiddlers playing Soldiers Joy. Now, if you found a group of peple in some corner of the world speaking English, living in places named after English places, playing English fiddle tunes like Soldiers Joy and singing old English ballads....applying the principle of Occam's Razor, I would say your initial assumption would not be that they were "Irish-Scots" from Ulster. Of course. this initial assumption, that they were descened from English people mainly, might be completely wrong, but we need evidence for this.
   I entirely agree that there is a huge black influence of oldtime music, but the general structure of the oldtime American fiddle tunes seems to me to have come largely from British Isles roots, not African. Of course, the general style of playing and approach is extremely"black". You see the same effect in Louisiana...the whire cajuns play French music, but it is norhing like French music. It's had a big dose of African culture to change it.
    I think the "Celtic origins" stuff is a load of Mel Gibson, frankly. If you want genuine history, not modern urban myth, think British Isles and Africa, not Celts v Anglo-Saxons.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Teresa
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 12:07 PM

I was listening the the carter family and heard "Sinking in the lonesome sea" which seems to be a direct variation of "Lowlands Low" or the song of many titles. :) I do keep hearing songs about sailors in oldtimey music. So if you can get your hands on some old-timey music, you're likely to run into ballads and sea chanties that have a strong flavor of England/Ireland/Western Europe.

However it's happened with many crossings and re-crossings of the pond, trading songs even now, etc. it is still a living process, IMO. that's what I really love about folk music.
T

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 02:04 PM

Well, greg, what you're calling "British Isles" many would call "Celtic." I know that many do so out of misguided ideology, but again there is a legitimate claim to be made that there is a Celtic background to all "British Isles," including England. I'm not partisan the "Celtic" point of view, not because I think there is no claim to be made, but because we're often arguing over names rather than over what they mean. In other words, is a Scot a "Celt" or not? But in this case, you seem to be disputing what is a very widely-held opinion of modern historians of the region, by claiming that the "Scotch-Irish" were NOT a hugely influential ethnic group in the Appalachian region. You won't find too many scholars of the area to join you in your claims.

First, I would dispute the claim that most of the place names in the Appalachians are "English-Derived" in the sense of mirroring place names in England. Sure, they are English-derived linguistically, but no one has disputed that the "Scotch-Irish" were English speakers. In many cases, place names are Native American in origin, or reference geographical or botanical features, or they're named after people. Those places that are named after English places are nearly always named after places in the Scottish borders (eg. Cumberland Gap). Remember that many Scottish lowlanders were allied to the Duke of Cumberland.

Also, remember that place-names often reflect the earliest settlers, but not the ones whose descendants are dominant today. Places named after English places may have been named by early explorers and the very first settlers, but that doesn't mean the ethnicity of the later settlers is English. Are people living in Massachusetts Native Americans? Are black people living in New London ethnically English? Am I English because I come from New York, or Welsh because I now live in Pennsylvania, or Greek because I live in Philadelphia, or Lenape because I live in a neighborhood called Wissahickon?

Finally, taking out the place name issue, your statement "if you found a group of peple in some corner of the world speaking English...playing English fiddle tunes like Soldiers Joy and singing old English ballads....applying the principle of Occam's Razor, I would say your initial assumption would not be that they were "Irish-Scots" from Ulster." isn't very convincing, because we KNOW that the Irish-Scots ALREADY spoke English, sang old English ballads and played Soldier's Joy when they were in Scotland.

So once again, I think it's disputable whether these people were "Celtic," but they were certainly a significnt part of the area's ethnic makeup. Many scholars consider them the definitive part.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Celtaddict
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 08:29 PM

Thanks John in Brisbane and Teresa, and Nerd for the specific suggestions. I will be searching some of these out before the trip!

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Mark Clark
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 10:01 PM

Nerd,

Excellent posts. Thanks. I especially enjoyed the history on DeFord Bailey from the PBS website.

Monroe said he considered himself a blues singer, not a blues musician. He thought of himself as a country musician and cited many of the influences you mention in your post. He often said he wrote and played for the country people first (meaning southern, white, and rural). Still, his post-1945 mandolin playing was arguably closer to that of Yank Rachell than it was to, say, Ira Louvin's.

Still, western Kentucky seem to have given us different music with different influences than we see from much of Appalachia. Not only was Monroe from western Kentucky but so were Kennedy Jones, Mose Rager, Ike Everly, and Merle Travis, all heavily influenced by African American music and musicians. The music that came from this region is so strikingly different from that of other regions one must acknowledge the heavy African American influence. Sure they played many tunes whose titles and core melodies came from the Brittish Isles but the rhythms, harmonies, and arrangements were very far from anything we could term Celtic. Miles Davis played Bye Bye Blackbird but I'm not sure Ray Henderson would have recognized it.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Cluin
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 11:37 PM

Peter Rowan's album "Walls of Time" had a lot of Celtic influence on it, while still being fairly bluegrass.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:01 AM

Mark, good points. Thanks for the distinction about Monroe being a blues singer, and a country musician. I think you could say the same about the Carter family: A lot of the time they were blues singers and country musicians (when they weren't being ballad singers or and country musicians).

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:30 AM

Nerd: I dont think we are really disagreeing. I am disputing whether a very narrow group of people(Sotcs Irish...people who went from Scotland to ireland, and then to the Appalachians) where the dominant or "base ethnicity" of a whole region. I absolutely reject this. If anybody seriously supports this view, lets see the evidence. Of course they represent an element in the mix. And of course I take your point that a placename doesnt prove anything on its own. Neither does a surname. (I doubt if Amadee Ardoin grandfather came fom France, for example, given that he was black). But a lot of placenames taaken to gether, and a lot of surnames likewise. I am very ready for you to call the whole of the Brtitish Isles Celtic in this context, if you like. What I am querying is the thoughtless, often repeated but never argued, statement that Appalchian music's roots lie in Celtic(as in Irish,Scottish and Welsh) as opposed to English culture. I am saying it comes from a mix. And we should not neglect the English contribution. This contribution is more or less totally neglected on loads of intenet sites, TV shows, videos about bluegrass, sleevenotes, magazine articles etc.
    I think Cumberland music could be the defintive music that exemplifies the origins of American oldtime and bluegrass. From the northwest of England, close to Scotland and Wales, with a name that means "land of the Celts". And such a good placename connection with the Cumberland gap. The best recorded source of Cumbrian tunes, I would say, is the CD "A Trip to the Lakes" by the Boat Band. The guitar playing is particulalrly fine, though the violin and accordion are more immediately striking.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Mark Clark
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:24 AM

I don't think there's any question about the blues influence on the Carter Family. As key progenitors of commerical country music, both the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers relied heavily on blues rhythms, themes, progressions and vocal treatment.

One really interesting excersise is to listen to the Carter Family's cover of Bessie Smith's famous tune Jealous Hearted Blues. If you heard the Carter Family's version first, you might not realize it was a hugely popular blues originally recorded with a full orchestra in that slow low-down-and-dirty tempo that Bessie did so well.

When we think of the influence of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon immigrants on American traditional music, I think we're really talking about the haunting, unaccompanied singing—or perhaps with a drone fiddle accompaniment—that folklorists discovered in isolated Appalachian communities when the first modern roads were built into those regions. It was in those communities that the original songs were preserved and performed. I've read that, when the first roads were built, people in some remote regions still spoke in the manner of the original English settlers because their isolation had prevented any corrupting influences. Interestingly, the Brittish completely changed their way of speaking after those settlers had emmigrated. The original English accent was evidently something closer to that of the Gomer Pyle character on the old Andy Grifith television program.

Recording artists from Eck Robertson—the first person to record a commercial country music record—to Rhonda Vincent have always focused on record sales and producing a musical product that—in addition to satisfying their own artistry—people will buy. They've consciously relied heavily on African American influences because because African influenced music of all kinds has consistantly outsold other forms in the US.

JMHO

      - Mark

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:53 PM

I think we've met halfway, greg. I'd agree with most of that. I think the reason why the English contribution is neglected is that there isn't a big American population that feels strongly about its English heritage. Scots and Irish Americans are much more vocal, and speak with their wallets as well as their voices. So the "Celtic," "Scotch-Irish" side gets played up.

However, I will still say that many experts consider the "Scots-Irish" to be the base ethnicity of the region, or certainly the base culture. Look for example at McCrumb, Cran and MacNeil's "The Story of English," published in 1986. It strongly argues for a Scots-Irish dialect and culture.

It also points out, for example, that the Hicks-Harmon family is a Scots-Irish family. Doesn't mean much until you realize that Richard Chase and Cecil Sharp both collected from this family, and identified their cultural artifacts (Jack Tales for Chase, Folk Songs for Sharp) as English. In other words, your point that we didn't hear much about the scots-Irish until recently doesn't necessarily mean it's newfangled revisionist history. People like Sharp didn't do genealogical research and simply assumed they were talking to descendants of English people. (Sharp DOES admit that he doesn't really know the specific ethnicity of his informants when he says that they are descendants of settlers who came "from England, and I suspect, the lowlands of Scotland.")

Also, the Scots-Irish, at the time they came here, were seen as "nothing but trouble" by the other ethnic groups around them, so they didn't advertise their ethnicity and nothing was marketed as "Scots-Irish."

A few other scholars who support the "Scots-Irish" theory include Appalachian Studies pioneer Cratis Williams (Southern Mountain Speech) and Folklorist Ted Olson (Blue Ridge Folklife). Much of the evidence is of the micro-linguistic sort: how mountain folks pronounce things, how they construct sentences, and how that is most closely related to Scots dialect.   

One of the "Four British Folkways in America" chronicled by David Fischer in Albion's Seed is that of the Scots-Irish and closely related English borderers. There are reams of evidence in this book, but I can't find my copy right now!

Some scholars, like folklorist Michael-Ann Williams, refuse to argue for a dominant culture at all and simply point out that there were English AND Scots-Irish, along with smaller numbers of German, French, Swiss, Scandinavian, etc., and of course Cherokee and African-Americans.

So as you say, everyone agrees the Scots-Irish were ONE of the most important ethnic groups of the region. Many, but not all, extend that to make them THE definitive group, but that may be overstated.
I guess it becomes a question of what one would consider "predominant," among other things.

It's not that hard to believe, though, that "people who went from Scotland to ireland, and then to the Appalachians" could become the base culture for a region. Certainly people who went from France to Canada, and then to Louisiana did; the Germans, Anglos, and even black people who came to that region adopted and adapted Cajun speech, cooking, and song. Musically, of course, Germans brought the accordion and African roots were important in Cajun country too.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:04 PM

Mark, another good post. Only one thing I'd correct:

" I've read that, when the first roads were built, people in some remote regions still spoke in the manner of the original English settlers because their isolation had prevented any corrupting influences. Interestingly, the Brittish completely changed their way of speaking after those settlers had emmigrated. The original English accent was evidently something closer to that of the Gomer Pyle character on the old Andy Grifith television program."

This is an old canard that's been largely debunked. It was common in the early 20th century to romanticize the Appalachians and claim that folks there spoke "Elizabethan English," etc. The fact is, the language did continue to change, but it went in a different direction from English in England. So English in Appalachia preserved SOME older features (people say "a-going to the fair," just like in old folksongs!) which became uncommon in England, but England preserved other old-fashioned features (like the distinction between will and shall) which became uncommon over here. Thus Appalachian English can provide clues to what seventeenth and eighteenth century English was like, but you can't just say they're identical.

As for the accent, purely speaking no one knows. There are no sound recordings to tell us how Shakespeare sounded. The only clues become things like rhyme (what words were perceived to rhyme with what others). So relative traits can be determined to some extent, but the absolutes of what each vowel and consonant sounded like are lost to history.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Mark Clark
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 03:22 PM

I've made no study of the way 17th century English people spoke, I've only heard modern academics talk about the differences when speaking for a lay audience. They've said, for instance, that the Gomer Pyle way of saying the word good (something like gu-hd maybe, with the vowel formed in the lower throat) is similar to the way the 17th century English would have pronounced it. Modern Englishmen seem to use a pronounciation more like gooood with the vowel formed at the top of the hard palate. And isn't gud or gude the archaic spelling for good?

Anyway, the pronunciation thing is only an asside. The real issue is that the Anglo-Celtic traditions were best preserved in those isolated Appalachian communities but in commercial society, they quickly became heavily influenced by African music. I'm just happy that we still have something of both today.

I can't remember the scholar's name now, but there was an author who discovered that the Appalachian Mountains are, geologically speaking, the same mountain range found in Scotland, Ireland, and Nova Scotia. There is a streak of some mineral that runs through those mountains and only those mountains. It breaks off in Ireland and picks up again in Nova Scotia. Her theory was that when the Anglo-Celtic immigrants found the Appalachian Mountains, it had the feel of home for them. Presumably because they are really the same mountains just broken apart by plate tectonics and continental drift.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Teresa
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 03:46 PM

Very interesting, Mark. I'd never heard about that.

I thought I saw a reference on the web to standing stones in Appalachia but the one link I found when I googled is broken.
T

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: pdq
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 04:47 PM

Someone recomended Tim O'Brien. His record "The Crossing" is a fine work, and may be close to what you want.

         Releases:
Year: 1999
Type: CD
Label:   Alula, catalog #1014

However, this may be a better example of the Bluegrass roots of modern Celtic music! Next time you see an Irish band playing a Martin D-18 or D-28, a 5-sting banjo and a Gibson flat-back mandolin, you will know that statement is not entirely flippant.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: jimmyt
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 05:54 PM

I have the Bringing it all Back Home CD set that John ofBrisbane mentioned. I think it is right on the money for your request

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Nerd
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 05:59 PM

pdq is quite right, of course. Modern Celtic music has borrowed a lot from American folk and bluegrass, too.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Celtaddict
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 09:37 AM

I have always thought it would be wonderful if music had DNA. It is so fascinating to try to trace the musical genealogy of an individual song or of a genre of music, but there is no absolute way to know.
Thanks, all, for the concrete suggestions and the abundant food for thought as well.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: pavane
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 10:12 AM

Partial reconstruction could presumably be done in a similar way to the reconstruction of dead languages (such as Proto-Indo-European).

For example: by comparison of surviving descendants, deriving the common features and any 'rules' by which changes occur.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Celtaddict
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 12:42 PM

Certainly, and I find that exercise so intriguing I really wish there were a way to "check" it. There were certainly biological relationships we thought we had figured out then found were surprisingly different when we had DNA. There are fascinating threads and similarities and patterns of change, but not so many tools in the music world.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Teresa
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 01:21 PM

My favorite way to make such discoveries is to just listen to music and suddenly think, "Hey, I've heard a different version of that song ...how did it wander from these folks to those folks?" Sometimes it's a matter of passing songs around at festivals, and sometimes it's a more indirect route, and sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction. :)
T

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 05:27 AM

The remarks earlier about turning the question round, and looking for the blugrass roots of Celtic music are very interesting. There are innumerable recordings of what one might term "real" Irish traditional music: "real" is not a good word because it is value-loaded, what I mean is say something like "pre 1950,not too much outside influences". Anyway, you will hear a certain consistency of sound, and you can think "OK, that's how Irish trad sounds". Then get out a Planxty record, and have a listen. Or maybe to some "Celtic"-sounding film soundtrack music, or whatever. They won't sound anything much like the old Irish recordings, will they? And a major factor in the difference will be the influence of the American folk music revival on Irish musicians(in particular those who were further "contaminated" by the London folk-scene in the 60's). Influences go in both directions, and not just from east to west, and it's fun to track them. With a big emphasis on the word "fun". there's no great threat to our ientities to discover that musicians influence each other, it's the way the world goes roumd.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Torctgyd
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 07:44 AM

I think the Scot part of the Scots-Irish is a misnomer in some respects. The plantations set up in Ulster around 1600 were largely populated with people from both sides of the English-Scottish border. That is the very troublesome border reiver families who had created so much anarchy in the region for the previous 300 years. Most, if not all, the families had branches in England and Scotland so to generalise them as Scots or English is incorrect. The saying of the border people is (paraphrased as I can't remember it exactly) something like "Scottish by nature, English at will'. Also the border has moved up and down so if the families had not moved they would have been either Scottish or English, in the modern sense, depending on which date you happen to pick.

There are many examples in the England vs. Scotland battles where the locals only pretended to fight each other when on opposing sides and weren't really interested in killing friends and relations just because they lived on the other side of the border. Also they were quite happy to gang up in cross border co-operation to beat up on some other unlucky family.

I don't know the figures, if any are available, but I would imagine that a fair proportion of the Scots-Irish were from the English side of the border and as has been said elsewhere in this thread they were all English speakers and had been for hundreds of years (perhaps all the way back to the founding of the kingdom of Northumbria).

On the accent discussion I remember reading about the film called (I'm sure) The Coal Miner's Daughter directed by an English director but with an American crew mainly from New York IIRC. The director could understand the accents of the locals, and they could understand him, so much better than their fellow Americans from NY. The director also commented on never having seen such poverty amongst these rural whites, even in the black ghettos of New York.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Goose Gander
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 10:20 AM

I think that when considering the Scots-Irish / Ulster Irish we should be thinking of region more than nationality, and we should be considering culture rather than ethnicity. Also remember that while many came to North America by way of northern Ireland,others migrated straight from Scotland. Further, consider the effects of generations of life in Ulster, and after a while it becomes silly to think of these people as Scottish, English, or Irish exclusively.
Historian David Hackett Fischer refers to these migrations as "northern British" in character, and that's probably as accurate as any other label.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: Torctgyd
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 10:45 AM

I agree except that wasn't North Britain a euphamism for Scotland? Perhaps we should just stick to British?

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 11:00 AM

My suggestion of my own CD "A Trip to the lakes" earlier in this thread was a little tongue-in-cheek, but I think, in view of the direction the discussion has gone, that it wasn't a bad choice. The far north-west of England(where the "Trip to the Lakes" material came from, with its proximity to Scotland and Ireland, probably represents as good a "centre of gravity" as you could find for the cultural mix that went into the oldtime Appalachian music, and thence to bluegrass. Minus, of course, the black element.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: GUEST,Michael Morris at work
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 12:10 PM

Gregory-

I agree with you, maybe we can call it a north Britain / Irish Sea culture area.

Regarding the African-American element, there are further connections in blackface minstrelsy and early 20th century string bands. A lot of the "plantation melodies" employed by Foster, Emmett and others were derived or at least influenced by Scottish and Irish tunes, and minstrel performers as well as working class audience members often shared Irish ancestry. No one seems to know the degree to which minstrelsy actually borrowed from African-American music, but minstrel songs did make into the repertoires of black and white musicians, and stylistic elements attributable to black musicians are a big part of the specifically "American" sound of Bluegrass.

Subject: RE: I need a CD of Celtic roots of bluegrass
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 02:11 PM

The theme/title of this year's North Texas Irish Festival is "Bluegrass Has Green Roots." Presumably, the acts they have booked ~ some of them, at least ~ should provide some illustration of a connection between Bluegrass and Irish/Celtic music:

http://www.ntif.org/