Guitarists always come out on the short end in Bluegrass sessions, because you don't get to solo much, and when you do it is more work than fun, and never comes across as well as the other solos. I think that this accounts for a bit of the bitterness here(or at least for my bitterness;-)), and since we allegedly hold the bottom together, we also get blamed when things fall apart.

However, bluegrass tends to be so tightly defined that it doesn't leave a lot of possibilities for creativity. The problem is that if you add anything new, it doesn't sound like bluegrass anymore--Some performers get around this by tightening up the arrangements, and adding various sorts of theatrics, but this doesn't work without a lot of rehearsal. So it ends up being niche music for a hardcore of players and listeners.

If you like the songs but not the drill, you can gather kindred spirits and play it as old timey, country, or whatever--I used to get together with a couple of other guitarists and a fiddler, and the stuff came out with a ragtime kind of feel, with a lot of room for guitar solos. It wasn't bluegrass, though--