The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #113475   Message #2505830
Posted By: GUEST,Side Street American
02-Dec-08 - 10:08 AM
Thread Name: BBC making documentary on bluegrass
Subject: RE: BBC making documentary on bluegrass
My husband is actually the bluegrass fan of the family. He tells me a newly configured New Riders are soon to be hitting the road.

If the film series is to be about the folk revivalists, why aren't they doing a cross country mescaline induced pilgrimage to Bakersfield?

All the big so-called "country rock" musicians had roots here and there in their backgrounds. I once read a very interesting musicological sort of book about the Band, which traced each member's musical roots. Fascinating stuff.

But this series doesn't seem to get that the Left Coast was just as much a part of the 60s folk revival as the Nordeasters. They just played a lot better with herbs and mushroom cuisine, is all.

Think Gram Parsons, Emmylou, Burrito Brothers, Poco, New Riders, Grateful Dead, The Band. There is a definite "continuing link" to older American traditional music through them. And the "southern rock" bands of the era like the Allman Brothers, et al--same thing.

Midwest had a lot links to the past too, as did the southwest. But those weren't the alpha areas of the country politically, culturally, or musically, so we don't hear as much about the "living link" musicians from those areas as we do the musicians who made it big in the corporate music industries in New Yawk, Hell-A, and NASHville.

All the same, these shows are always fun to watch.