Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?

Subject: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: ballpienhammer
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 08:25 PM

not leaving out Piedmont style blues?

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Fingerbuster
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 09:19 AM

If it's got picked banjo it's near enough.

:-}

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: kendall
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 09:32 AM

Sure it is. It stems from traditional folk music, and it's done in a particular style. Tom Dooley is a folk song whether it is done acapella or with a banjo, Dobro and mandolin.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:08 AM

No, it's not. Bluegrass is a commercial, "designed" music style. Yes, it has some roots in the Appalachian folk music, and it shares many tunes, but it has "come a long way, baby"!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Willie-O
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:20 AM

I'm with Dave. Bluegrass was very specifically invented by Bill Monroe, a strict my-way-or-highway guy. You can play a song as bluegrass, the essential elements are:

A mandolin played with chop, not just tinkled upon.
A banjo, picked Scruggs style
An acoustic guitar flatpicked Carter style

Almost essential:
Standup bass (electric for heretics only)
Fiddle - once again, bluegrass style with lots of that double-stop and bow bouncing.   

So lots of those mountain songs can be bluegrass, so can Gordon Lightfoot and some Beatles songs, ("Falling") but only if they are played according to the formula.

Them thar's the rules!

Newgrass was invented to get around them.

W-O

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Allan C.
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:38 AM

Seems like not so long ago that a song was hardly considered to be truly "FOLK" unless it came from Appalachia...

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: 53
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:46 AM

good answeres

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 11:09 AM

Hi Willie. You said...


"An acoustic guitar flatpicked Carter style". half to disagree with you.

Which Carter do you mean? If it's Maybelle, she used thumbpick and finger-brush, same with Sarah.

ALL the original 'Bluegrass Guitarists' used thumbpick and finger pick. From Charlie Monroe through Clyde Moody to the most influential of them all, Lester Flatt.

If ya wanna have some fun and do a bit of 'diggin' as well, check out recordings by The Morris Brothers. Two of them claimed that "they" were playin' Bluegrass before Bill Monroe. (and they DID have a very young Earl Scruggs in their band)

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 11:17 AM

I go along with ths school that says Bluegrass came out of simple
Appalachian Folk Music.But that all came out of British traditional music in the first place,with a few other European influences thrown in.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Fingerbuster
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 11:31 AM

I'm in total agreement with Leadfingers.
Here's a sticky one; Is the 5-string banjo American or not?

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: DADGBE
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 11:34 AM

Well, there are certainly British and other European influences in it but it might be simplistic to claim that that's all the influences there are. After all, the banjo is of west African origin. Also, bluegrass singing harmony is strongly influences by the country blues.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 01:15 PM

Appalachian=bluegrass? Sure, not! One is pre-industrial with clear roots tracing back in to Elizabethan times, and the other is a recent style that is very different, media-oriented, and only intersects in that some of its forebears are directly drawn from Appalachian styles.

A

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Iggy folk
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 01:38 PM

Good grief, this again?

I wouldn't be surprised if the people who actually know what constitutes Bluegrass, simply throw their hands up in frustration as each new thread on the subject gets more and more simplistic.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Willie-O
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 05:05 PM

Not to let good grief have the last word, Rick, dang, ya learn something new every day.

I don't know from Sarah from Maybelle, I guess, and I sure didn't know that bluegrass guitar wasn't always flatpicked, as the norm.

But what defines the sound to me, acoustic bluegrass guitar, is an alternating bass/treble strum with occasional bass runs.

How you get it is your business.

Did the Morris brothers CALL it bluegrass before Monroe did?

Hmm.

W-O

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: ballpienhammer
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 06:00 PM

all good answers; I'll just sit here in the corner whilst youse all
give a go! GOD, I love to stir the pot!

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: toadfrog
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 06:24 PM

Unfortunately, we don't have the power to decide what "bluegrass" is. The people who put labels on CD's make that decision. And the definition seems to be evolving. Maybe the question is best answered with another question: "Is Jazz the same thing as Black American folk music?" Sure, they're related; they're definitely not the same thing.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 06:57 PM

Ah, ya put your finger on a toadfrog, Spot....


I mean.... you hit the head on the toad, Froghammer....

no, no -- sorry -- been along day....

I agree with you, sir.


A

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,-Richie
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 09:33 PM

Here's a definition by Mark Clark from a recent thread named "Genealogy of Bluegrass:"

The term bluegrass, referring to a particular style of American country music, is derived from the band name of its progenitor, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. Proud of being a Kentuckian, Monroe named his band for "The Blue Grass State." Bluegrass music is acoustic ensemble country music characterized by driving rhythms, separate and distinct parts for each instrument and voice, improvised solos and strident high harmony singing with the tenor often placed a fifth above the lead or melody voice. The primary instruments found in bluegrass music are fiddle, mandolin, 5-string banjo and Dobro (resophonic guitar played with a slide) with guitar and double bass added for a rhythm section. Occasionally, a second guitar is added as a lead instrument. A uniquely bluegrass style of playing has evolved for each of the instruments that is generally distinct from the way that instrument is used in other musical styles. Created in 1945, bluegrass music draws heavily on older forms including blues, jazz and the earlier string band music of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Today, bluegrass music is played in countries all around the world with a faithfulness to the original form that is ofen astonishing. Mark Clark

I'd still like more info and feedback. Does this define bluegrass?
What about the 5-string banjo played 3-finger style, is that the difference between old-time and bluegrass?

I don't think that "Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass." There are too mnay other influences. What about songs like"Bill Bailey," "Home Sweet Home" or "Alabama Jubilee," they certainly aren't Appalachian Folk Music.

-Richie

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: greg stephens
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 09:48 PM

Don't think Bluegrass versions of Bill Bailey or Beatles songs affect things one way or the other. The old-time string bands did pop songs of the day as well as folk material. There are serious differences between bluegrass and oldtime Appalachian folk, but including pop-songs is not one of them.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:21 PM

If you're talking about the music that Appalachian Folk (as opposed, for example, to professional) musicians currently play, a fair share of it would be bluegrass or bluegrass-related.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Fingerbuster
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 10:44 AM

Where is the cross-over then? Snuffy Jenkins for instance played a sort of three finger style way before Bill "invented" B'grass.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: chip a
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 11:55 AM

My Jeep Cherokee sits outside looking for all the world like a Stutz Bearcat. Well, it has four tires, a steering wheel and an engine that runs on gas. Or is it a buckboard that it looks like? They are all on the evolutionary string that began with the invention of the wheel. Or is it the evolution of the platform and wheels are just a part of that lineage? Everything is connected to everything. We just cut up our world and label the pieces. Bluegrass is such a piece. Old Time is such a piece. Most times the pieces can be easily defined. Just look for the shape that was first cut out and labeled. That's your answer. It doesn't have to fit your likes or persuasion. A lot of people who play a certain type of music from a certain time period began calling that music old time. The name stuck and now it's fair to say that's what the label "old time" refers to. It doesn't matter that other types of music were played in olden times. It doesn't matter who the music's mommy and daddy were. It doesn't matter if old time bands or musicians also play other types of music from the same or different time periods. Same is true for other lables. Cabbage, Bluegrass, Jeep etc. We don't have to make our labels more inclusive. The nature of labels is to be exclusive. Always. We already know everything is connected. So......bluegrass is not appalachian folk!
:-), Chip

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: chip a
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 01:10 PM

For an interesting discourse from the Dwight Diller camp, go here: dwightdiller.com/bluegrass.html

Chip

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 10:43 PM

Great post Chip! I also liked the article.

If you don't know what something is, it sure makes it hard to talk about!

-Richie

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 05:13 AM

Heard Dolly Parton saying in an interview last night that although some of what she's been doing lately is Bluegrass, where she comes from is mountain music. So if Dolly knows there's a difference, that's good enough for me!

BJ

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Fingerbuster
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:28 PM

She wears her mountains with pride!

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Allan C.
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:56 PM

I think an old quotation, reportedly originating in Appalachia, fits well here: "Folk music? Hell, when we was comin' up we just called it 'music'." Now that I look again at how the question is phrased, I can't help but think it is backward somehow. It seems to me that it might be more appropriate to ask whether bluegrass belongs in the realm of Appalachian folk music. At least that question might be partially answerable.

My thinking is that bluegrass is a musical style, born in Appalachia, that may be used to express a wide variety of music. In fact, I have heard some wonderful "bluegrassing" of some classical themes, for instance. Many traditional Appalachian songs and tunes have undergone similar treatment. At the same time there have been songs and tunes that were specifically created to be played in bluegrass style.

So, in effect, we have a chicken and egg question here with little doubt (in my mind) that it was an Appalachian chicken that laid the bluegrass egg.

An aside to Fingerbuster: Clearly the banjo has African origins; but I am certain that the addition of the fifth string was an American contrivance that was added in the mid nineteenth century. However, I have no documentation to substantiate this. Perhaps a separate thread would bring about further information.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Walking Eagle
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 10:21 PM

In a word - - No. Many of the old time players on radio used to get the admonishment before going on the air 'and don't 'grass your playing' from the producers.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Willie-O
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 10:31 PM

I'll go with Mark Clark's definition and Chip's clarification of the question.

They're only labels. The labels are useful so we can define what the hell we're talking about, but they don't have to limit our playing in any way, unless we're booked at a string-tie-compulsory, no drums-or-electric-bass, every-band-must-have-a-fiddle, BlueGrass Purist event.
Which I wouldn't be. (I did not make those up, except about the string-tie)

W-O

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 06 Nov 02 - 07:14 PM

(a) I agree with those who say that "Bluegrass" originally meant what Bill Monroe said it was: five specific instruments, a specific pattern of vocal harmonies, neckties, and no smiling on stage because you don't want to be mistaken for doofus hillbillies. I just play trad/folk/roots, but whenever I pick up the banjo (excuse the pun), some enthusiast says, "Oh, Bluegrass!" and I smile modestly (grandma made me practice) and say "I wish."

(b) At the risk of starting the Civil War over again, the 5-string banjo is not a North American invention. See Groves' Dictionary of Music. Various sea-captains, be they merchants or slavers [or explorers looking for Stutz Bearcats], reported five-string banjos prior to 1800. MAYBE they were spin-offs from some Portuguese instrument, since the Portuguese started slaving and trading along the West African coast as early as 1444.

Jean Richie, I believe, will tell you that the Kentucky dulcimer is a North American instrument without European antecedents. The autoharp was invented here, though by a recently arrived German instrument maker. I believe the ukelin and the sousaphone were invented in America also, but not the banjo.

CC

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 02:37 AM

I'm always amazed to see this question come around “one more time.” I'm astonished (but pleased) to see how many musicians from so many wonderful traditions and styles are anxious to have their particular tradition labeled as bluegrass. This is remarkable to me because throughout most of my playing career, almost nobody wanted their music associated with bluegrass in any way. Old-timey musicians would go on and on about how their music not only wasn't bluegrass but was far superior in musical interest. Folk musicians didn't like the “hillbilly” association that came with the bluegrass label. Now that bluegrass music is enjoying some(probably temporary) media popularity, everyone wants to come in under the bluegrass tent. Well I say “Welcome one and all. Now let's pick a few tunes.”

Perhaps the most important bluegrass identifier is that it's an approach to or way of playing music that is markedly different from any other. It isn't limited to traditional sources for material and the sound doesn't come so much from the choice of instruments assembled but from the particular manner in which each instrument is played and contributes to the whole.

It's usually easy to spot a guitarist who has heard some bluegrass but hasn't studied the idiom. The player invariably tries to imitate, rhythmically, the sound of an entire bluegrass band rather than confine himself to the notes normally played by the guitar in a bluegrass band. This attempt to imitate the feel of an entire band usually results in far too heavy a chord stroke resulting in a loss of proper timing and rhythmic emphasis.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Allan C.
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 02:55 AM

Thanks, CC. I'm always glad to be wrong when confronted by a better resource.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 10:23 AM

My Groves Dictionary (1935 edition) says the banjo is an "American" instrument. Jefferson in 1784 said it was called 'banger' by the negroes.

There may be other similar instruments found elsewhere that are the "parent" instruments but I think the "banjo" is regarded by musicologists as American.

-Richie

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 11:40 AM

In 1935, that was the prevailing opinion. I believe modern scholars are united in their opinion that the banjo is originally an African instrument and some believe that even the drone or thumb string was developed there.

Cantwell, in his remarkable work Bluegrass Breakdown even “catches” Alan Lomax in this common error.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 05:08 PM

Appalachian Folk music is a much broader and older genre than Bluegrass. They are not one and the same. If there is any argument here, it is whether bluegrass is an entity of Appalachian Folk Music. Since the origin of the term "bluegrass" and the related musical style can be placed a specific point in the historical past, some may argue that they cannot rightly be designated as folk even if the use of commonly accepted folk songs are involved. On the other hand, there has been some evolving of "bluegrass" that is natural and unorchestrated. It has taken on a life of its own.



A comment on the five string banjo. I wish I could recall the sources. I have read that the fifth string was added in America to an instrument of African origin. I had always assumed that the short string was the 'added' string until seeing an old painting depicting a banjo and player. It showed a short string with a peg in the side of the neck and three long strings. Doess anyone know anything about this painting?

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 06:20 PM

I'm told that Joe Sweeny added the 5'th string to what had been a 4-string banjar. It wasn't the short drone string, though--it was what we now consider the 4'th or bass string.

I haven't seen any evidence that the 5-string as we know it is not an American instrument. As is the Glass Harmonica. Not sure about the dulcimer, though.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 11:28 PM

The Appalachian dulcimer has a good few Northern European ancestors, some scarcely distinguishable from it. It was probably introduced to America by Scandinavian immigrants, though forms are also known in France and Germany, for example. The Glass Harmonica was an improved, mechanised form, developed by Benjamin Franklin (and called by him Armonica), of the "musical glasses" popularised by Gluck and Pockrich some years earlier. It wasn't new when they toured the theatres with it, though.

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 07 Nov 02 - 11:57 PM

Mark-

The 1935 Groves edition has a detailed explanation about the "bania" from Western Africa which is described by Carl Engles as the "parent" instrument as well as other other explanations.

Perhaps you could shed some light on this issue.

-Richie

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 08 Nov 02 - 02:53 PM

Sorely tempted as I am to simply reply, "Bugger what they thought in 1935," I won't go there.

The 1980 ed. benefits from 45 more years of research. Vol. 2, p.120,
attests to pre-1800 'thumb' strings.'

Quote: "The invention of the short string is often erroneously attributed to Joel Walker Sweeney; nevertheless, as the first well-known and widely travelled white banjoist, Sweeney played a role in bringing the banjo to the attention of urban audiences ... and presumably in popularizing the type of banjo that he played." On the preceding page, illus b. shows an 1846 William Boucher banjo from the Smithsonian, with everything Sweeney is credited with inventing ten years later.

My 326 BC edition of Groves says the world is flat, so there.

CC

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 10 Nov 02 - 10:33 PM

I am waiting for the more evidence that the banjo is not an American instrument. Here's more info on the banjo:

Background - The Blues Banjo

The banjo is considered the only truly native American instrument by most experts. The idea of using a drum as a soundbox over which strings are plucked or picked is actually a universal one. For example, the Japanese counterpart would be the shamisen. However, in terms of what became the banjar in America, the origin can be traced back from the then Moslem-controlled northern regions of Africa. It was called the "Bania."

A Bania was a three-stringed instrument constructed out of hollow- ed out gourds. The skin used to cover the hollow part were made from any available animal. Pig or possum skins became the most common later on in the American South.

-Richie

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 12:31 AM

Richie, I'm not sure this constitutes “evidence” but it certainly suggests that academics regard it as African in origin.

Over in a thread titled “Genealogy of Bluegrass” I was quoting from Cantwell and alluded to the following quotation without including it in my post. On page 61 of his book, Cantwell is discussing the Alan Lomax essay “Bluegrass Background: Folk Music with Overdrive” that appeard in the Esquire issue for October 1959. The essay is significant because it “initiated the intelectual discussion of bluegrass music.” Referencing the Lomax essay, Cantwell writes:

Lomax's brief essay … is worth quoting at length. “Out of the torrent of folk music that is the backbone of the record business today,” he wrote in 1959, “the freshest sound comes from the so-called bluegrass band—a sort of mountain Dixieland combo in which the five-string banjo, America's only indigenous folk instrument, carries the lead like a hot clarinet.”

Cantwell then goes on to quote Lomax at length, much of which I've reproduced in the other thread. Then, on page 63, Cantwell comments:

… even Lomax's innocent but much criticized error—the banjo is indigenous to Africa, while the origin of the fifth string, once attributed to the nineteenth-century minstrel Joel Walker Sweeney, is in dispute, but may very well be African, too—displays his strong instinct for the aesthetics of culture.⁴ While the banjo may be African, it arouses powerful regional and historical associations peculiar to America, as do many other of the African contributions to American music; few would argue, I think, that the five-string banjo is not is some sense an “American” instrument, with an indelibly American sound.

So Cantwell, a serious scholar, appears to take it as a fait accompli that the banjo is originally an African instrument. The footnote (4) refers to Jay Bailey, “Historical Origin and Stylistic Developments of the Five-String Banjo,” Journal of American Folklore 85(1972):58-65; and Dena Epstein, “The Folk Banjo: A Documentary History,” Ethnomusicology 19(Sept. 1975):347-71. JEMF Reprint, no. 33.

Cantwell, while saying the banjo is African, certainly seems to believe that the modern five-string banjo and the music commonly played on it is distinctly American.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Review: Is Appalachian Folk Music= Bluegrass?
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 12:55 PM

Thanks Mark,

I've ordered the Cantwell book, also enjoyed listenening to the Charlie Christian link you posted.

-Richie