American Music: Bluegrass (Part 2)
My friend John Adams, guitarist, and bluegrass artist commented the other day about the date of the beginning of bluegrass as a genre. There is actually some debate about this. Some consider Bill Monroe's beginnings with his group The Blue Grass Boys in 1939 the official start of bluegrass, while others argue that it isn't until the style matures with the addition of Earl Scruggs and his famed 3-finger style banjo playing that the genre truly takes shape. The fact that interests me the most is the contributions that black musicians make to its inception that are often overlooked. For instance, the banjo itself, and the lyrical content of many of the songs. "The music incorporated songs and rhythms from string band, gospel (black and white), black laborer work song, country, and blues music repertoires." is a quote I found on Bluegrassheritage.org that aptly describes how diverse this style really is. Jazz is typically thought of as American born, but bluegrass is another really important category that has deep ties in multiculturalism and the complicated issue of race relations, exploited contributors, and repressed history. What's really interesting is how jazz was often associated with delinquency because it was widely acknowledged as a "black music", bluegrass was seen as "good old fashioned" and "traditional mountain men" music because of its associations with whites.
What is generally accepted though, is that three main elements make up the emergence of bluegrass into popular culture. One is Bill Monroe’s formation of his band The Blue Grass Boys with Lester Flatt on guitar, Chubby Wise on fiddle, Howard Watts on bass, and finally, Monroe on mandolin; the addition of Earl Scruggs on banjo in 1945 as a turning point for the stylistic maturity of bluegrass; and lastly, the Dobro, (a style of resonator guitar typically played horizontally with a single outward-facing resonator cone.) and its inclusion by the 1950s along with Scruggs unique finger-picking style. These combinations of content, instrumentation, and technique are what set bluegrass apart from its contemporaries. It has elements of jazz in its improvisational construction, as each instrument is typically expected to take a turn improvising over the main melody. It also has associations with country because of its regional roots and the content of its lyrics. Bluegrass also parallels with blues and rock in the general elements of its chordal composition. Songs commonly follow the tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant scale degrees, usually referred to as the 1, 4, 5 style of song construction that are also present in many rock n’ roll and blues works.
The art of flatpicking is extensive, and a main part of the uniqueness of the bluegrass genre. There are tons of names associated with its history and can easily be broken into four eras since its beginnings in the early 1900s. The important aspects of the technique involve its use of a pick in concert with the use of the other fingers to play bass notes and maintain the main melody line or support soloing over the improvisational sections. Bryan Sutton from my.artistworks.com gives a great example and instruction of the basics of the style. As noted in “The Pioneers of Flatpicking” section of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, “Most flat-pickers, in the early stages of development, will be exposed to the chord-melody style of Mother Maybelle Carter, the cross-picking style of George Shuffler, and the rhythm styles of bluegrass players like Lester Flatt and Jimmy Martin, however, there are other early players who also deserve recognition and emulation.” This exposes the wide variety of personalization that flat-picking affords, while still being identifiable as an important and characteristic style of the bluegrass genre.
Here is a video of Scott Gates, a modern day musician and excellent example of the current state of flatpicking style: https://www.facebook.com/lysurgical/videos/vb.100001657103599/3710657215666145/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab
Sully Tuttle is another one of my favorites. Here he is playing Sweet Sue at the Kate Wolf Music Festival in 2019:
Bluegrass truly is an intricate style of music. The instrumentation has a rich texture of sounds, timbre, tone, and range, but the technique used to play each contributor is a key element of why bluegrass sounds the way it does. The flatpicking style of the guitar is just one example. The banjo is a unique instrument all in itself, but it is more about they way in which its played that adds the important layer to the definition of its contribution to the genre. The upright bass is played with a ‘slap’, the string is almost always plucked, and usually from the middle of the string to give the deep ‘thump’ reminiscent of the wash-tub basses that were originally adapted from the Appalachian region. The fiddle plays a ‘chucking’, or off-beat double and sometimes triple-stop (when the bow strikes multiple strings to produce a chord) to provide accompaniment when not playing the main melody or improvising. The Dobro is a whole other animal all onto itself. Slide guitar and Dobro plucking technique was developed in close distinction with bluegrass music and is largely known because of its partnerships with the style.
Bluegrass is not just an important style of music because of its contribution to the American story, but because of the wide range of versatility in accepted technique that it expanded to its instrumentation. Expression for themes of the American experience as woven deeply into its people, their stories, and their partnerships with the tools of their trade. This genre continues to evolve in the 21st century, and its pioneers are ready at the helm to expand its lexicon, and forge new chapters into its legend. The Salty Suites, AJ Lee and the Blue Summit, and The Rose Valley Thorns are three examples of modern day artists from the west, looking to build onto this rich history, for as we sometimes forget, history is not in the past; it’s what we are currently making.
Here is the bluegrass group that I have had the honor to participate in, The Rose Valley Thorns and our cover of Kentucky Girl, by Larry Sparks, along with a few others in our performance for the California Bluegrass Association. Turn Your Radio Online is the California Bluegrass Association's big broadcast production in lieu of their wonderful Father's Day Festival. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq4uasM89HQ