Hello readers! Any guesses to this week’s topic based on the title? If you are thinking bluegrass music then you are correct! Those of you who know me know that I am not the biggest fan of country music and therefore may be asking yourselves, why bluegrass?
First reason is I like bluegrass music and it is not considered country music, though several country artists dabble in it. Second reason is that growing up in the mountains of North Carolina, I can remember this music being played in stores, sidewalks and fairs and it brings back good memories.
This week I’d like to share with you the history of bluegrass, give you some old school bluegrass examples and some great “new”grass selections as well.
The history of bluegrass
It may be hard to imagine, but most historians credit the early 17th century with the founding of bluegrass. The reason being is that the various types of music brought with the people who began migrating to America in the early 1600’s included dance music and ballads from Ireland, Scotland, and England, as well as African American gospel music and blues. (In fact, slaves from Africa brought the design idea for the banjo an instrument now integral to the bluegrass sound.) As the early Jamestown settlers began to spread out into the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Virginias, they composed new songs about day-to-day life experiences in the new land. Since most of these people lived in rural areas, the songs reflected life on the farm or in the hills and this type of music was called "mountain music" or "country music." The invention of the phonograph and the onset of the radio in the early 1900s brought this old-time music out of the rural Southern mountains to people all over the United States.
The Monroe Brothers were one of the most popular duet teams of the 1920s and into the 1930s. Charlie played the guitar, Bill played the mandolin and they sang duets in harmony. When the brothers split up as a team in 1938, both went on to form their own bands. Since Bill was a native of Kentucky, the Bluegrass State, he decided to call his band "Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys," and this band sound birthed a new form of country music. By the 1950s, people began referring to this style of music as "bluegrass music." Bluegrass bands began forming all over the country and Bill Monroe became the acknowledged "Father of Bluegrass Music”. In the 1960s, the concept of the "bluegrass festival" was first introduced, featuring bands that had seemed to be in competition with each other for a relatively limited audience on the same bill at weekend festivals across the country. Carlton Haney, from Reidsville, N.C., is credited with envisioning and producing the first weekend-long bluegrass music festival, held at Fincastle, Va. in 1965.
Bluegrass has had a recent surge in its popularity thanks in part to the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou and many new bands are combining the traditional bluegrass sound with rock to form a new movement many are calling “newgrass”.
So now readers, I encourage you to check out these recommendations:
Old school:
Foggy Mountain Breakdown (yes that is Steve Martin, who is a great bluegrass musician, check out his CD The Crow: New Songs for the Five String Banjo, you may also recognize Vince Gill and Marty Stuart in this clip)
Rolling In My Sweet Baby’s Arms ( I also enjoy this version by Buck Owens)
As you can see in the following clip, bluegrass goes well with Clogging. Clogging is a type of folk dance with roots in traditional European dancing, early African-American dance, and traditional Cherokee dance in which the dancer's footwear is used musically by striking the heel, the toe, or both in unison against a floor or each other to create audible percussive rhythms. Eat your heart out Riverdance.
Bluegrass has its roots in gospel songs as well:
“NewGrass”:
There you have it readers, some of bluegrass’s finest. Are you a fan of bluegrass? Anyone you like you think I should check out? Post you comments below and ya’ll come back now, ya hear?
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