Jerry,

I want to return to the initial thread. African-American people do like folk music. There are representatives notably in this form of music. Odetta, Josh White, Leadbelly, Leon Bibb, Jackie Washington, Sparky Rucker, Taj Mahal,
(many names not known these days) and more.

One of the problems is that the music has been segregated along cultural lines and redefined for cultural reasons. Bluegrass is essentially a newer form of music with Bill Monroe as the leading icon. Maybe it is opening up now to African American people and musicians and this is certainly a better trend. I haven't seen it yet but I will take your word for it.

There was a time before the music marketing forces began to take over bluegrass, blues, old-timey, celtic, ethnic etc. would have fallen under the rubric of just plain folk music. That obviously has changed.

Now the folk music label seems to have narrowed due to the insistence of the bluegrass community that they are not folk. For some reason, probably political, they have narrowed the definition of folk to be constricted to protest or topical music and/or the stereotypical coffee house singer (many singer/songwriter) playing for urban audiences.

I find this tendency toward exclusion to be unfortunate and as a result, bluegrass becomes a rubber stamp rather than a growing and innovative musical expression. A lot of this has to be placed at the cultural rather than musical level. Lets face it. Many bluegrass musicians are hard-nosed because they are prejudiced against the urbanization of America. This includes being uncomfortable with the presence of black people. It works in reverse. black people have no real interest in bluegrass because they feel it alien to their interests and needs. The same type of snobbery found in bluegrass, used to take place amoung the traditionalists of folk music which at that time was defined differently though ironically the definition came from folks who were mainly from the cities.

Today, there is a rich growth in the field of music whereby there are musicians out there who can play a variety of musical styles well, far better than when I was growing up. Fortunately, they are often not drawn into the semantic wars of bluegrassers, folkies etc.
They play and enjoy.

I happen to like all kinds of music including bluegrass but I see these lines drawn basically by non-professional musicians. i also see this as a manifestation of just plain old prejudice and a mythical ideal of what constitutes a rural or southern landscape.

Bluegrass started in the oil fields of Indiana and is a johnny-come-lately to the deep South.

It has to be seen as part of a larger picture of American music and not segregated to exclue anyone who isn't a mythical white rural southerner.

Frank