Bluegrass: The new Americana!

[Timbofood]

I get the variable line up and the perception that may draw wider crowds but, it's still kind of strange when the core fan base is abandoned by a promoter. Change of hands sees this in almost every business venture. "This was successful but, let's change it and see how much bigger we can get!?" Forget where we started and do something different.
Sorry, I guess I got miles from home. I'd better go make dinner!

[9lbShellhamer]

It's interesting to note that the Americana label really is growing. With bands like the Avett Brothers, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, etc, the genre is growing and taking a big leap into the mainstream.

I think most educated 20-something hipsters would be more likely to call Mumford and these acts Americana than call them bluegrass anymore.

Alas, the fact is that a lot of folks will still use that word, BLUEGRASS for a generic catch all phrase, but hopefully as the Americana label continues to take hold, Bluegrass will once again be reserved for Bluegrass.

I think your idea of saying you play Bill Monroe's music is a great idea, even though a lot of people might not understand that, it gets the ball rolling.

I was in College when the first Nickel Creek album came out...I don't know where that would fall, but the Americana category would have yielded the most airplay and publicity.

If I was a progressive act like Punch or Greensky, I'd be all over the Americana label, and if I was a traditional act, I'd be grateful and thankful for satellite radio, and Bluegrass monthly periodicals, and the firm steadfast community surrounding and supporting "traditional" acts, even though acts that we in the know might call newgrass still sound very traditional to John Q Public.

[almeriastrings]

Incidentally, I know a number of people here who have told me at various times they love bluegrass music but, with one exception, when I played some classic Stanley and Monroe tracks to them, they hated it! The vocals especially...

They seemed to think 'Hayseed Dixie" were the real thing

[Bertram Henze]

...when I played some classic Stanley and Monroe tracks to them, they hated it! The vocals especially...

They seemed to think 'Hayseed Dixie" were the real thing

There's more awkward things you can put under a Stetson hat than that...

[Shelagh Moore]

There's more awkward things you can put under a Stetson hat than that...

Bertram, you should not have done that. It has distracted me from my work.

[AlanN]

They seemed to think 'Hayseed Dixie" were the real thing

Well, some of them boys 'used to be'

[Denny Gies]

For me the traditional stuff plus newer bands like IIIrd Tyme Out, Sam Bush and more is still where I like to play and sing. Nothing negative about whatever folks want to call any music but I'm still more of a traditionalist......Good discussion you started DataNick, thanks.

[Franc Homier Lieu]

I think most educated 20-something hipsters would be more likely to call Mumford and these acts Americana than call them bluegrass anymore.

Yes. In fact, true hipsters would recoil from the Americana genre altogether. Real hipsters crave authenticity above all. They want to get it from the source, and the derivative is, to the hipster, exactly what is wrong with the world today.

How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?
Oooh, its a really obscure number, you've probably never heard of it.

[Timbofood]

Yes. In fact, true hipsters would recoil from the Americana genre altogether. Real hipsters crave authenticity above all. They want to get it from the source, and the derivative is, to the hipster, exactly what is wrong with the world today.

How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?
Oooh, its a really obscure number, you've probably never heard of it.

When will I learn to finish my coffee before reading this forum!?

[RodCH]

I'm American, grew up in Kentucky, have been a fan of Bluegrass, definitely a fan of Bill Monroe. The other day I saw a YouTube for a bluegrass band doing "RocketMan" and I thought, hmm, that might be interesting.

It was not interesting. In fact, it sounded exactly like every other bluegrass song I ever heard. Bluegrass is boring because it all sounds the same.

Knew a banjo player in a Bluegrass band thirty years ago. In a festival, they used to fight over which band would go first, because, since there are only a few Bluegrass songs and they all sound the same, by the time the second or third band reached the stage the crowd (of Kentucky bluegrass fans) would have become bored.

I'll take Bach over Bluegrass any day.

[AlanN]

I'm American, grew up in Kentucky, have been a fan of Bluegrass, definitely a fan of Bill Monroe. The other day I saw a YouTube for a bluegrass band doing "RocketMan" and I thought, hmm, that might be interesting.

It was not interesting. In fact, it sounded exactly like every other bluegrass song I ever heard. Bluegrass is boring because it all sounds the same.

Knew a banjo player in a Bluegrass band thirty years ago. In a festival, they used to fight over which band would go first, because, since there are only a few Bluegrass songs and they all sound the same, by the time the second or third band reached the stage the crowd (of Kentucky bluegrass fans) would have become bored.

I'll take Bach over Bluegrass any day.

BB (that'd be Butch Baldassari) did it one better: He did 'Bach, Bluegrass and The Beatles"

[Willie Poole]

About being bored at a festival, they must not have been true "Bluegrass Fans"....At one festival that my band was on I was talking to Ralph Stanley and told him that we were going on just before him and I asked what songs was he going to play because I didn`t want to do any of his songs if his band was going to do them, he told to just play what ever I had on the set list and jokingly he said, "Just make us look bad"...

BTW my band got two curtain calls and Ralph`s band got ZERO...That made my day for sure...

Willie

[JeffD]

It would be nice, if you could deliver exampels, where exactly which country folk or acoustic indie bands are called "Bluegrass".....

So who exactly calls which Americana musicians "Bluegrass"?

I can't give publically available examples right now, but most of my non musician friends call anything with a banjo in it bluegrass. Anything. It seems to be the sole criteria for many if not most of my non-musician friends.

So the expansion to include Americana, even that without a banjo, is entirely plausible.

In fact many of my non-musical friends refer to O Brother as "that bluegrass movie."

[morgon]

call anything with a banjo in it bluegrass

Here is an anecdote from Germany (a small country in Europe that you're probably not interested in):

Every year there is a "Bluegrass Jamboree" touring Germany, consisting of (usually) first two bands playing some sort of Americana and a final bluegrass act.

The impressario's spiel when announcing the final act usually goes along like this:

"So you've come to a bluegrass festival. Do you enjoy yourself? Oh Great. Well, sorry to break this to you but you have not heard any bluegrass yet."

So I'd say for Germany it is true that for the general public everything with a banjo is bluegrass and that is used to bill acts (but I give credit to that guy that tries to educate his audience).

But when recently Alison Brown (with Matt Flinner) played here she was billed as a bluegrass-artist (not without reason I suppose) but in the concert she did not only play bluegrass - so how are people to know when the artists don't stick to their labels and play whatever they want?

[fentonjames]

just look at the telluride bluegrass festival lineup from this year...

pokey lafarge is americana for sure and no way is bluegrass
punch bros aren't bluegrass
emmylou harris isn't bluegrass, tho she has done it
ryan adams?
leftover salmon
bela fleck and the flecktones are jazz, but of course bela is a telluride regular...

just shows that one of the country's premier bg fests is only half bg.

not sayin it's bad or good, just sayin.'

[morgon]

Interesting.

To my mind the term "Bluegrass" has really two meanings:

For people interested in the genre it has a specific meaning.

For the general public it means "hillbilly music with a banjo".

So in every discourse one needs to clarify which notion of bluegrass one is using.

[morgon]

Zupfgeigenhansel

Thanks *a lot* for this.

Wildecker Herzbuben

Well done. There is not enough garbage on the intenet yet.

[Mandobart]

The "Americana" genre was created in 1995 to attempt to categorize artists like John Prine (who I am a huge fan of) that are basically too country for rock and too rock for country. Other terms were considered, like "alternative country" or just "roots rock." The Americana label stuck but didn't gain much attention until the early 2000's.

Americana contains a very wide range from Robbie Fulks to Tony Furtado and is more descriptive of an overall philosophy (not played on commercial radio, not aligned with a major label, American roots influenced, use of mostly AE stringed instruments, etc.) than of a particular sound or style. Because of this, billing a band or festival as Americana doesn't describe what you'll hear the way terms like heavy metal, blues, classical, swing, classic rock, etc. do.

You won't see the standard Americana singer-songwriter (John Prine, Joe Pug, Slaid Cleaves, Robbie Fulks) billed as "bluegrass." Concert and festival promoters have decided to bill the current crop of excellent string bands out of Portland or Colorado as bluegrass. These include bands like Fruition, Milk Drive, Giraffe Dodgers, Elephant Revival and more. I love this type of music, but its not bluegrass. However, it conveys a meaning to the growing number of young people attending these shows and festivals in my area. Some come to Wintergrass to hear The Dead Winter Carpenters and find themselves sitting in on a Del McCoury show and loving it.

[Mark Gunter]

Last weekend I attended a local event I'd seen on Facebook, "An Evening of Bluegrass" - the image of the band that went with this promotion featured a mando player I know and play with occasionally. I thought it was way cool to have a BG event to go to, and I showed up early wearing a Pearl, TX Bluegrass Jam t-shirt and ready to see the show. The first act was a solo act, a young fellow playing an acoustic guitar who played current "alternative" adult music along with some pretty good blues, notably SRV tunes, bare-fingered fingerstyle guitar. Guitar and vocals were impressive - but An Evening of Bluegrass? Second act were the local musicians, Salt Kreek, and they did play mostly BG tunes, with guitar, mando, banjo, dobro and a resonator bass. I really missed hearing a fiddle and bass fiddle, but they played some BG - along with pop and country tunes with minimal BG-type arrangements, and those were awful IMO, and a long way from BG. Then, the final act (and definitely the best of the night) was a three-piece group called The Urban Pioneers. Those folk blew my socks off, I loved the show, bass fiddle, banjo and Texas-style fiddling, but it was nowhere even in the ballpark of BG. This group played mostly old-time tunes and originals in the general style and tenor of OT but with a strong, fast and energetic rhythm more reminiscent of punk rock than either OT or BG. This was definitely what I would call Americana, and very well done I might add. The leader of that group made a nod to the fact that the promoters had misrepresented the event, when he introduced Nine Pound Hammer as the only tune in their set that was a BG song - but the way they played it could not be considered BG IMO.

So, not only staunch BG fans, but BG dabblers like me who have a tough enough time categorizing music, can readily see that much of what is promoted as BG has little or nothing to do with BG. I posted a topic about that third group last week, and didn't really know where to put it. I put it in Old Time, Roots . . . but in reality I don't know what category to put those folk in, I know they're good, and are "Americana."

DataNick's OP is spot on about the climate.

[Franc Homier Lieu]

You know, these guys might be able to offer some advice on dealing with the problem. They have a lot more experience with this sort of abuse of correct terminology:

http://www.academie-francaise.fr/la-...ais-aujourdhui

Of course, they would call it musique pâturin.

[Justus True Waldron]

Thanks for the example, Nick. I searched Youtube for Della Mae and found "Mabeline" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ptAW1LAfCU
The one BG element lacking is a 5-string banjo, but others such as fiddle, upright bass, mando chop, the one microphone thing or a capoed dreadnought played out of the G-position are certainly present.
So I guess, somebody with only cursory knowledge might classify them as BG as well as classifying the Gypsy Kings "Flamenco".

While it's true the music Della Mae plays is largely not bluegrass and so they are not marketed as such, I can tell you that the musicians themselves are all quite familiar with and able to play "real" bluegrass. Jenny Lynn (mando) grew up in a real bluegrass household, with her dad playing banjo and taking the music very seriously. I've seen pictures of her at a very young age playing with the man himself (monroe). In fact, I'd say she's one of the best bluegrass mandolin players I've heard... Courtney played in a bluegrass family band growing up, and I believe Kimber comes from a bluegrass playing family as well. Does that make the music they play as a band bluegrass? Not really, but it does explain the bluegrass sensibilities they have... In the original form of the band I believe they had a 5 string banjo and played "real" bluegrass as well.

As a Bluegrass radio DJ "what is bluegrass" is a question I hear all too often, and having gotten tired of trying to answer it I've just made this one personal rule for my show: only play music from bands that at least know how to play real bluegrass. So far I'm happy with the playlists that gives me. Almost every BG band these days has SOME material that I wouldn't really call bluegrass, and I'm all cool with it, because their next track could be a rousing rendition of Handsome Molly or the like. A lot of what Bela Fleck does, including stuff with his wife Abigail, isn't bluegrass. But I know for a fact he knows what it is and can play it when needed! Then you have some of these folk/americana type acts. Some of them I'll play on my show because I can hear how they started from a bluegrass mindset and worked out in other directions. Others sound like they developed their sound from a totally different mindset and then covered a couple bluegrass songs.... those ones I'll usually avoid playing on my show. But again, that's my personally curated show. Some of that music is nice, I just don't think it fits what I'm going for.

And to answer the OP, I have definitely seen "bluegrass" being used as a catch all term to draw people in. The western mass festival FreshGrass comes to mind. Some great bands, cheap prices, an hour away from me and I go every year.... seems to be quite popular too, lots of young people (myself included). That said, I think maybe only 1/3rd of the music there is actually what I'd consider bluegrass. That said, if they called it "FreshAmericana" or just the "Mass Moca America Fest" would it draw such big crowds? I don't think so... even to me that sounds like a lot of older folks listening to Kingston Trio cover bands!

[Fretbear]

The "Americana" genre was created in 1995 to attempt to categorize artists like John Prine (who I am a huge fan of) that are basically too country for rock and too rock for country.

That's well said.

This is an interesting topic. Bluegrass music is to me, something deeply spiritual in nature, and yet I no longer attempt to play it or even listen to it very much anymore. Why this is has a lot to do with what has happened to the world around the music as it grew up. First of all, in the world today, Bluegrass music is an anachronism. That is a fact. Watch every one of the "Flatt and Scruggs Martha White Grand Ol' Opry shows on Youtube and this will become clear. Uncle Josh giving a shout-out to the "Shut-Ins" and "Folks that wrote in". T Tommy selling flour and meal and cooking tips to the housewives. The people that played (and invented) this music and the people that listened to (and loved it) were country people, rural people. Just turn on any country music radio station for a reality check into what that is all about today. It's not just about Bluegrass either. Every child (and country music fan and mental midget) says: "Rock On!"; yet when Scotty Moore leaves the earth, it is no longer even newsworthy.

[Willie Poole]

There are a few bluegrass pickers that seem to get burned out on playing the same songs over and over and they try to use some chords that are relative to what chord should be played and it kills the bluegrass sound in my opinion, Skaggs and Cliff Waldron did this back in the 70`s and were playing some songs from the "B" sides of the original recordings of The Stanley`s and Flatt and Scruggs, Ricky even did it with some Monroe songs....My guitar of the past 12 years just this year said he had to quick and wanted to go onto some different kind of music because he has gotten tired of the traditional bluegrass songs...It seems now days that when I hear a new band doing a new song that it has to have a few minor chords thrown in, not that minor chords are bad but most of the time they are not needed, they are just replacing a C major chord with an A minor etc to change the sound, I will admit that sometimes it does catch some people`s attention but to me a lot of the new stuff is overkill with the minor chords....I do play some songs that we put minor chords in but that is the way I heard them from the get go and I didn`t change a thing just to gain attention or because I was burnt out on the song...

A few of the "traditional" bluegrass bands also have changed their style because it is what seems to appeal to the younger crowds and those pickers have to make a living so playing what will draw the fans is the way to do, I do not find fault with them for doing that, what irks me is that they are booked on a "Bluegrass festival" and they don`t play bluegrass songs on there, as someone stated above it draws the bluegrass fans but believe me those festivals are slowly going away because the true bluegrass fans are finding out what is going on....Right here in the DC, Md. and northern Va. area bluegrass used to be played every where but now it is hard to get a gig any more....Most of the festivals are not drawing crowds like they did in past years....

I don`t have any answers because things change and progress and sometimes they loose popularity so I`ll just keep doing what I do and support what I know to be bluegrass and let others do what they want to do...I have been offered a free ticket to an up and coming festival and I turned it down because last year I went and didn`t see but one band that played bluegrass and the place was almost deserted with campers and no parking lot picking at all at night...If thats what the promoters want the so be it....

Sorry to be so long winded....

Willie

[Timbofood]

Well said Fretbear,
I must admit I don't listen to BG as much as I once did. Yes, it has surely become anachronistic that's just what time does. Everything changes, one of my favorite songwriters made an excellent point about that. He said "I was away and, when I came back, I thought everyone I left had changed. Then, I realized it wasn't just them who had changed, it was me too. That's just the way reality is, we influence each other."
Then he sang:
"Old Father Time"
I miss Jim Ringer!

[Mandoplumb]

I don't see why the way music was presented on a TV show 50 years ago should make me want to quit listening to it. Anything on any TV from 50 years back is going to be slightly dated. That's some more of the thinking that old means obsolete and useless. I'm sorry I just don't agree. Maybe because I'm getting old.