Bluegrass Music

Subject: Bluegrass Music
From: Richie
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 07:50 PM

Here are some thoughts about bluegrass music. There have been several threads on similar topics in the past. If anyone has any suggestions or other ideas please post your thoughts. I hope this isn't too long.

Bluegrass Music (Part 1):

Preface and Definitions

Bluegrass music has become popular again. There are more bluegrass pickers today than ever. With the popularity of the movie, "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and the hit crossover song from the movie, "Man of Constant Sorrow," bluegrass music has become a national and international phenomena.

Even though "O Brother" used the "hayseed" or "hillbilly" stereotype that was originally associated with early country and bluegrass (as portrayed in the 70's on TV show's like Hee Haw and the Beverly Hillbillies), the music today is a sophisticated concert music with virtuoso performers. There are many styles and categories within the "Bluegrass" label. Media and press sources often try to define parameters of "what is bluegrass" without understanding the origin or any definition of the word.

New progressive groups (including Alison Krauss and Union Station; Nickel Creek) have been labeled "Bluegrass" by the media. Many groups have evolved from traditional bluegrass that have become popular not only in the country market but also in the popular mainstream. Whether they are "bluegrass" or not depends on your definition of bluegrass.

My Journey: The Bluegrass Messengers

In 1980's in South Carolina I learned some of the bluegrass repertoire while playing with Derrick Phillips. When I started my bluegrass band, The Bluegrass Messengers, in the mid 1990's, I renewed my love affair with bluegrass and old-time music. Since I teach guitar, fiddle, dobro, bass, and banjo, the band began as an opportunity for some of my talented students to perform "live" the music that they had been studying.

As one of the guitarists and singers for the Messengers I have seen the evolution of our group through the last 7 years and four CD's. Although we aren't a professional group, we enjoy playing and have had the fortune to perform with Doc Watson and other talented musicians.

Some of the students that have played with the Messengers have gone on to become successful bluegrass musicians and have won top prizes in bluegrass competitions. This has been the most rewarding aspect of organizing the Messengers.

For more information see the Bluegrass Messengers Online: BluegrassMessengers.com


What Is (Blue Grass) Bluegrass?

The word, "bluegrass," or originally two words, "blue grass," is a species of grass (Poa pratensis) identified with "Kentucky blue grass," which has running rootstocks and spreads rapidly. It is valuable as a pasture grass, as it endures both winter and drought better than other kinds, and is very nutritious.

Bluegrass is not really blue-it's green, but in the spring, bluegrass produces bluish-purple buds that when seen in large fields give a rich blue cast to the grass. Early pioneers found bluegrass growing on Kentucky's rich limestone soil, and traders began asking for the seed of the "blue grass from Kentucky." The name stuck and today Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State."

Bill Monroe (1911-1996), the Father of Bluegrass Music, created the bluegrass genre. By the 1920's Monroe had settled on the mandolin as his instrument. After performing first with brothers Birch and Charlie (Monroe Brothers), then as a duet with Charlie, he formed his own band in 1938. Later that year in Atlanta he organized the first Blue Grass Boys, which he named in honor of his home state, a trio with guitar, fiddle, and mandolin.

The band's personnel changed much over the years, but the classic bluegrass group was formed by Bill Monroe in the winter of 1945, when a young banjo player named Earl Scruggs, and guitarist/vocalist Lester Flatt, joined the band. The origin of bluegrass music is generally attributed to Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys' 1945-1946 band with Earl Scruggs featured playing three-finger style banjo. Many believe bluegrass music started that day that Earl Scruggs joined Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Chubby Wise, and Cedric Rainwater on the stage of the "Opry." His three-finger banjo roll style is what gives the bluegrass its "drive."

A Definition

The term bluegrass is a nickname from the "Bluegrass State," (Kentucky) that is applied to the music of Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys in the late 1940's. Bluegrass music is an acoustic ensemble music characterized by driving rhythms, improvised instrumental solos and close (high) harmony parts. The five primary concert instruments established by Bill Monroe are the guitar, the mandolin, the upright bass (or bass), the three-finger style banjo, the fiddle. Other instruments include the dobro (resophonic guitar played with a slide), electric bass, harmonica and sometimes percussion (drums, spoons etc.). Each instrument has developed a distinct role and style of playing within the bluegrass group.
Bluegrass music is considered a part of country music. Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, explained it this way: "To me bluegrass is really THE country music. It was meant for country people."

The Origin of Bluegrass and the Bluegrass Genre
While some fans of bluegrass music date the style back to 1939, when Monroe formed his first Blue Grass Boys band, most believe that the classic bluegrass sound began in winter of 1945, when Earl Scruggs, a 21 year old banjo player from North Carolina, joined the band.
Scruggs played an innovative three-finger picking style on the banjo that energized audiences, and has since become simply, "Scruggs style" banjo. Equally influential in the classic 1945-46 line-up of the Blue Grass Boys were Lester Flatt, from Sparta, Tenn. on guitar and lead vocals against Monroe's tenor; Chubby Wise, from Florida, on fiddle; and Howard Watts, also known by his comedian name, "Cedric Rainwater," on acoustic bass.

The bluegrass genre (it take two groups to create a genre) was created when Ralph Stanley's band played a cover of Monroe's "Molly and Tenbrooks" arrangement in 1948.

Some Categories of Bluegrass

Traditional Bluegrass- is the authentic bluegrass music as the founding fathers played it. If Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers or Flatt & Scruggs didn't play it, and if it isn't played exactly as they played it, then it isn't bluegrass. This the 'classic' bluegrass sound.

Contemporary Bluegrass- isn't that far from traditional except it has more modern chord progressions with jazzier chords and some substitute chords. There are more distinct harmonies sometimes in three or four parts. Groups like the super group Seldom Scene or the Tony Rice Unit fit in the contemporary category.

Progressive Bluegrass- also known as newgrass, dawg music, jamgrass, and many other names, this type of music is often instrumental but always of a completely different arrangement than traditional or contemporary bluegrass. It commonly crosses genre borders by using electric instruments or fuses bluegrass with rock or jazz or other more mainstream music forms. Often younger with a varied music taste, the fans of progressive bluegrass don't care what you call it as long as it's good. Bela Fleck & The Flecktones (jaz), Leftover Salmon, and Nickel Creek are examples of what can be considered progressive bands.

Roots of Bluegrass

Bluegrass music evolved from music indigenous to the Southern Appalachian region including fiddle tunes, folk songs and blues. Monroe called it, "the old Southern sound."
Music from the Southern Appalachian region draws heavily on older forms including:

1) English ballads and songs brought to the US by the early settlers
2) Fiddle and instrumental music both from overseas and the US
3) Minstrel songs from the mid 1800's
4) Gospel or shape-note hymns and tunes
5) Popular songs and broadsides from the 19th Century

Around the turn of the century (1900) came the tin-pan alley songs, the medicine shows, ragtime, blues and jazz. Later in early 1920's the emergence of the rural string bands like the Leake County Revelers, Weem's Stringband, the Carter Brothers as well as solo performers like Fiddlin' John Carson, Doc Boggs, French Carpenter, Uncle Dave Macon and Clarence Ashley laid the foundation of bluegrass. These and the early country music artists like the Carter Family, Charlie Poole, the Mainer's, the Stoneman's, the Delmore's and the Blue Sky Boys played the old songs and old tunes now called "Old-time" music.

Old-time Music

Old-time music was the name given to mountain folk music. Old-time music is the main foundation for bluegrass music. It is the kind of music that Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers and in fact most rural people prior to the mid nineteen twenties, were raised with. It is the old unaccompanied English ballads like Barbara Allen, new American songs like Wild Bill Jones, old fiddle tunes like Devil's Dream, and newer banjo tunes like Cumberland Gap. It's a rich and varied heritage of music - as rich as the roots music of any country. It was played throughout rural America but has been identified with the rural Southeast, especially in the mountains. It is sung and played on a variety of acoustic instruments including the guitar and mandolin, which were newcomers to it in the early twentieth century. It was played by African-Americans as well as the English and Euro-Americans. Generally music before the 1940's is called "Old-time" music.

Old-time music is traditional folk music of the Southern Appalachians mixed with the influences of African-American musicians. The fiddle came over from Europe with the immigrants, the banjo came from Africa in primitive form and was refined and developed in the US cities in the minstrel era which started before the Civil War. The Civil War spread the banjo and the minstrel tunes into the remote Appalachian mountains, where they were adopted. So a general time frame for "old-time" music would be from the 1840's to the 1940's.

The term, "old-time music," can be traced back to 1923, when Georgia's Fiddlin' John Carson waxed "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" for the OKeh label. Ralph Peer deemed Carson's performance "pluperfect awful," but enough rural Americans disagreed to make the record a hit, the first in the history of what's now called country music. Carson remarked at his first whiff of success: "I'll have to quit making moonshine and start making records." Carson's music appeared in OKeh's popular music catalog under the "old-time music" category.

Most of the "old-time" musicians were white rural agrarian Southerners. They had no formal music training and played primarily stringed instruments. Their song repertoire could be broadly divided between secular and sacred and further subdivided into categories of traditional, commercial (often of sufficient vintage to have entered oral tradition), and original (often topical and tragic) songs. These general elements are found equally in the commercial "old time music" recordings of the 1920s and in the performances captured decades later.
Similarities and Differences Between Bluegrass and Old-time Music
Bluegrass has some of these characteristics of the old-time string bands from the 1920's and 30's. Certainly the vocal style is similar and some string bands sang a high harmony part. The vocal style is also similar the to the old gospel and shape-note singing found in rural churches in the south. The rhythm guitar style of the string bands with bass notes on the beat, off beat strums and bass runs is very similar to bluegrass rhythm guitar. The style of fiddling is also very similar.

The main difference between an old-time string band sound and the bluegrass sound is the banjo. Some bluegrass enthusiasts credit Earl Scruggs and the development of the three-finger or "Scruggs" style banjo playing as the origin of bluegrass. Most old-time bands have a claw-hammer or mountain style banjo player. Although other old-time performers like Charlie Poole played three-finger style, the banjo was usually used in an accompaniment or back-up role.
From the unified sound of old-time music, bluegrass music developed distinct styles for each instrument of the group. Today each member of the bluegrass group should be a soloist and provide specific rhythms and fills.

-Richie

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Stewie
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 09:45 PM

Richie

I think your definition of old-time music is unnecessarily restrictive. 'White, rural, agrarian Southern' covers most bases - certainly more than 'mountain folk music' - but not all. I favour Jeff Todd Titon's approach to blues - and it can be applied to gospel as well and, I suggest, also to old-time - whereby he has a concept of 'downhome' which is an idea, an approach, a style, a spirit rather than something that is found in specific geographical locations. This also gathers in the old-style musicians - blues, gospel, old-time - who were urban rather than rural dwellers.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Janie
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 10:27 PM

Thanks, Richie, for taking the time to post this. I don't have any comments to contribute, but I found your thoughts informative and helpful, and look forward to reading the discussion that ensues.

Janie

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Richie
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 10:56 PM

Stewie,

Thanks for your post. I certainly agree that many old-time musicians were from urban areas. If anyone know about old-time music-- it's you. I like they word, "downhome." Perhaps there are other words that can be applied besides "rural, agrarian Southern," and "mountain folk music." It's not easy to try and define some of these styles and I appreciated your feedback!

Janie,

Thanks for your feedback. There are some other good threads on this including the "Genealogy of Bluegrass."

-Richie

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: GUEST,GA Cracker
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 11:32 PM

Genealogy of Bluegrass- 22511: Bluegrass
Agrarian? Webster's: of or relating to or characteristic of farmers and their way of life.
Some were farmers, but others were wood harvesters, small town business employees, some worked in mills and stockyards. Southern, Rural and small town, I think, cover it better. Agrarian also has the aura of some of the farmers' political movements.
Bluegrass, by your emphasis on Monroe and Scruggs, pretty well puts emphasis on the more commercial aspects of the music as developed in Nashville. Too restrictive.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Stewie
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 11:58 PM

Of course, as has been pointed out by many, 'old-time' was also a marketing label by commercial recording companies for certain pre-WW2 recordings. In that sense, 'Old Time Tunes', 'Old Familiar Tunes' etc embraced a variety of styles.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Stewie
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 12:14 AM

Here is a link to some thoughts by Allen Feldman, posted on Dwight Diller's site, which gave rise to an extensive discussion on the old-time newsgroup some time back:

Old-time and bluegrass

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Mark Clark
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 01:23 AM

Sigh.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: GUEST,ghost
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 06:11 AM

Much, if not all of the music described here, started out as the music of the poor. Poor people's music, therefore seems an appropriate name. The names we call the various range of styles, hillbilly, old-time, etc. isn't adequate to cover all and neither is the list of the various occupations, coal miners, farmers, mill workers etc. or places of origin, mountain music, southern, rural, urban, of those who played. This unique mixture was born of many influences, but the common thread was poverty.

The gap between the haves and the have nots was never greater than the years following the first great depression. As a result, many sang about their hard times to try to comes to grips with what they faced. Always hoping for better times ahead many folks looked to the church for support and the gospel music of "hope in the here after" became their comfort. Others just sang the blues and found support from listners who themselves were going through the same hard times. Some folks could not face such times without turning to laughter and wrote songs to evoke such from their audiences, hoping to help them forget, if even for a moment, the tragedy of their situations. Some folks wrote songs about escaping to exotic locales, where they idealistically imagined that things continued in a utopian way, untouched by the troubles of the day. All were reactions brought on by the one overwhelming hardship of poverty.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: ballpienhammer
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 06:59 AM

I like it! AKUS, III Tyme Out, Monroe, Vassar Clements, Rhonda Vincent, Carters, McCoury's, Hazel Dickens, and on and on and on. FYI,
IIIrd Tyme Out will be in Hanover PA next week. We also have an annual BG fest in Gettysburg every May.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Fortunato
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 09:05 AM

Ritchie, glad to see your 'treatise'.

Odd, I thumbnailed your definition and statement of the roots of bluegrass at a party on New Year's Day. I was speaking to a young man who was "getting into Blue Grass". He asked how the music Susette and I play differed. "Well, you'd hear the difference immediately," I said, because we don't use the 'Scruggs' three finger style banjo". I told him that we share many of the same songs, but "Old Time Country Music" lacks (yes, there can be exceptions) only that style of banjo and it's inherent rhythmic nature.

Recently we did a guest spot with the Pawtuxent Partners, bluegrass friends of ours in a pure T, dyed in the wool bluegrass club. We sang "When the Bluebirds Sing". The song was recorded by Mack Wiseman (traditional bluegrass) and The Country Gentlemen (contemporary), but is traditional. Our "Carter Family sytle" autoharp and guitar version fit seamlessly with theirs. But when the banjo came in on a break the perfomance moved from old time country to bluegrass without a bump. I don't know what the audience thought, but a better illustration of the dividing line I don't know. cheers, Chance

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: JedMarum
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 09:41 AM

I think you miss one of the major influences; the Scottish tunes and many of the Irish tunes/lyrics. Maybe these evolved out of the "old time music" but these are major inlfuences.

I disagree with GA Crakcer's comment re: Monroe and Scruggs. Like or not there should be emphasis on their influence - and their commercial influence was NOT done by design, as it is today. These created a musical genre and the commerce followed.

Good article, all things told, Ritchie. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: allanwill
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 10:01 AM

I've got a video at home - must be at least 10 years old - called "High Lonesome". It's basically a documentary on Bill Monroe, but has lots of live performances, including a young Allison Krauss.

Allan

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Richie
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 11:21 PM

Allan,

I think the "high lonesome sound" should be included in my post as it frequently attributed to bluegrass music.

-Richie

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 01:48 AM

Were the Greenbriar Boys - John Herald, Ralph Rinzler and Bob Yellin, all Northern urbanites - Bluegrass or not? They had the driving, rhythmic banjo, mandolin and guitar, as well as the high harmonies. How about the Dillards?
Two of my favorite groups.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Stewie
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 03:20 AM

Seamus,

They are among my favourites too. I regard them as similar to groups like Seldom Scene and the Country Gentlemen - they had elements of bluegrass, played bluegrass, but drew also on wider sources. Other contemporaneous groups - the Johnson Mountain Boys, Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys, Tasty Licks etc - kept more closely to the Monroe-Stanleys-F&S model.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 02:26 PM

Stewie, One great thing (among many) that I liked about all the old-time bluegrass bands, including the Dillards, was that they had a band member who did comedy bits. Sometimes the bass player, sometimes the dobro, sometimes the fiddler, but they were excellent musicians who added the "entertainment" to an otherwise all music show.
Novelty songs, clowning, telling the jokes, etc., whereas the younger newgrass bands do the fast and flashy picking. Impressive, but not entertaining.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: Songster Bob
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 03:47 PM

Lots of fodder for discussion here. I'll stick my neck out and say that the poster who called the "commercial" background "too restrictive" is not quite accurate. Basically, bluegrass started life as a commercial "sound," sought for the purpose of claiming a niche in professional music. Monroe was looking for a distinctive and easily-recognized sound for his various bands, and finally hit "it" when he put together the '45-46 band with Flatt and Scruggs and Wise. When other bands, such as the Stanley Brothers, started to copy his sound, he was not pleased, and he was less pleased when Scruggs and Flatt left the band and subsequently formed their own. It was years before he became comfortable with the moniker "father of bluegrass." It was always a commercial music.

However, once it hit the airwaves, through radio and records, its infuence was felt even among down-home (non-commercial) musicians. Archival recordings of banjo players who never had any commercial asperations show the influence of Scruggs in particular, and bluegrass in general. So, yes, there are non-commercial musicians who play bluegrass for their own enjoyment, but without the commercial performance nature of the style, it would have been at most a regional style, and possibly not even collected by folklorists.

But country music as a whole has always been beholden to the record and radio media, from those early days of Fiddling John and the Carter Family and Ralph Peer, whose idea it was to make forays into the south to record the indigenous music and sell the recordings back to those same people (sort of a living example of a consultant -- one who asks you for a number and then sells it back to you). Peer, in fact, was responsible for changing the sound of the actual music, because his concept of a string band didn't include the piano, so those bands who used them (such as Charlie Poole's band) did NOT do so on the records they made, leading to the idea that the classic old-time band included fiddle and banjo, plus guitar and sometimes other instruments, but not piano.

Anyway, like I said, there's lots of fodder to chew on in this topic and its related ones (commercial influence on styles, the position of the musician in rural communities, urban vs. rural stereotypes, etc.).

Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Bluegrass Music
From: GUEST,Mary V
Date: 09 Feb 03 - 08:54 PM

I recently got the video High Lonesome at the library.
It is an excellent video.
There are many wonderful videos that you can take
out at the library ........of bluegrass music.
Another great one is
Will the Circle Be Unbroken....by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Thats all from me, Mary V.