The Change That I See in Bluegrass Over The Past 20 Years.

[JiminRussia]

Too long a story to go into here, but I took a sabbatical from music in about 1992 or so and never touched a string for well over 20 years. Like I said, too long a story. What I want to say is how I see the change in bluegrass after a 20+ year hiatus.

Back in the day, it was common for there to be one or two, maybe even three “hot pickers” and about 4 or 5 of us “yeah, I’ve got a guitar” and one woman that knew the first verse and the chorus of every country music song ever written, but didn’t know the second verse of even one of them. As a general rule, that’s what we had for a jam session in rural Alaska in the early 80’s. Today, I am impressed with the “hot pickers” of today. I am also impressed with a few of the “yeah, I’ve got a guitar” people. However, it seems that the several strata of players have a different mix. There appear to be a lower ratio of “hot pickers” to “I have a guitar” guys. But, the hot pickers are way, way hotter than what I experienced in the 80’s. The “I’ve got a guitar” guys are still the “I’ve got a guitar” guys. Another thing that I was very glad to see is that there are far more women in bluegrass today. That gal that knows all those first verses is still there though and she still doesn’t play an instrument of any kind.

The instruments that are available today are head and shoulders above what we had back in the day. Nobody in their right mind would have owned a Yamaha in 1982. Today I have two of them. If you wanted to play bluegrass you played a Gibson F-5 mandolin, a Gibson Mastertone banjo, a Martin D-18 or D-28 guitar and a Kay upright bass. It was “de rigour”. It was heresy to play anything else. And speaking of basses, NOBODY played an electric bass in a bluegrass band, at least not without several snide remarks. A few other things that were considered “not acceptable” were accordions even though Bill Monroe had a woman accordionist in his original band and drums, but I still don’ see a drum used in todays bluegrass, and I still don’t see a place for one in bluegrass. I’m glad to see several electric upright basses being used in todays music. And, why not? Even the mighty upright bass is usually miced up so that it can be heard! The modern electric uprights fit into a bag that you can easily carry on your back or shoulder, not like the Moby-Bass upright. Hint: If you must play an electric bass guitar, mitigate the hate speech by playing an acoustic/electric.

[tmsweeney]

I'll be honest I think the internet changed most of that, when I was first getting into BG in the mid 80's, there was almost no radio play in the North East, you might catch a 2 hour bluegrass show at a college station, but not even public radio was acknowledging BG as legit.
Finding recordings was just as difficult, you might find a "best of Bill Monroe" or a Bluegrass sampler, even the libraries didn't carry things like Baker plays Monroe or even Nitty Gritty Dirt Band -Will the Circle be unbroken album.
You kind of had to know somebody who all ready had the records (rare enough as that is in the NE).
Now days there is all kinds of youtube and other online resources for bluegrass music, tunes in notation or tab, lessons, festivals, Blue Grass while still a minority ( compared to Rock or Pop or Country) I think its more popular than its ever been.
When I was trying to learn BG tunes in the 80s, you had to know someone who could already play it (rare enough as that is in the NE), now thanks to sites like the Cafe and others there is more BG instructional media out there than you can shake a banjo at.

I think in the beginning Bluegrass enjoyed its rather "under the wire" kind of presence, and now ( my self included) what many call Bluegrass doesn't really fit into what I experienced in the 80s as Bluegrass. Well it won't survive if it doesn't evolve so we have to take what we can get I guess.
and Yes - there would maybe be one or two pickers ( on any instrument) who could play something like "Wheel Hoss" at Monroe's tempo, now they are maybe not a dime a dozen but at any give jam there is bound to be more than just a few "hot" pickers.

What's next for Bluegrass, I think folks like Sierra Hull and Molly Tuttle will probably the ones to show us.

[JiminRussia]

Yes, I agree. Another thing that I neglected to put in my OP is that back then you learned from a person or you figured 8t out by yourself, not from a You-Tube channel. It was personal and you were usually a friend of the person teaching you, and oh yeah, it he didn’t charge you anything! Things are very different and from what I see better. Just look at how many more bluegrass events and videos and programs and, well, just look!

[tmsweeney]

Better to complain about new fangled evolutionary trends than to reminisce reading a history book.

What some people call Bluegrass I wouldn't, not that its bad music, its just not really Bluegrass.

I did have those few very kind friends who showed me what they could and let me stumble along, those that learned right along side me, exchanging notes and ideas, the whole process was very enriching, it gave me something to smile about enough times anyway.

[lowtone2]

You say 20 years but then you’re talking about the 80s. You know that’s 40 years, right?

In the 80s, I was listening to and excited by the trend to “hot pickers” that really started in the 70s. New Acoustic music, etc, and one of the most popular bands on the scene was Newgrass Revival with singer John Cowan covering bass on his Jazz. Doyle Lawson also used an electric bass in his band and it was getting to a trend. Tim O’Brian and his band used electric bass.

And then, mid-80s, Neo traditionalists made a run, with the Johnson Mountain Boys leading the charge. Snce then it’s been a total mish-mash and you can see basically anything on a bluegrass stage these days, including drums. I don’t know they think they need drums though, we agree on that. They add nothing.

So, were we even on the same planet?

[JiminRussia]

You say 20 years but then you’re talking about the 80s. You know that’s 40 years, right?

In the 80s, I was listening to and excited by the trend to “hot pickers” that really started in the 70s. New Acoustic music, etc, and one of the most popular bands on the scene was Newgrass Revival with singer John Cowan covering bass on his Jazz. Doyle Lawson also used an electric bass in his band and it was getting to a trend. Tim O’Brian and his band used electric bass.

And then, mid-80s, Neo traditionalists made a run, with the Johnson Mountain Boys leading the charge. Snce then it’s been a total mish-mash and you can see basically anything on a bluegrass stage these days, including drums. I don’t know they think they need drums though, we agree on that. They add nothing.

So, were we even on the same planet?

Yes we are on the same planet, and yes, I can count! Twenty years ago was when I QUIT PLAYING, not when I started playing. If you are interested in the time line, it goes something like this:
Early 80’s, start playing
Mid nineties, quit playing
Pandemic of 2020 start playing again.
The arithmetic that <inappropriate, not here> taught me oh so long ago indicates that 20 years is about right.

[Marcus CA]

The hot pickers are way, way hotter than what I experienced in the 80’s.

Agreed! As Tim mentioned, most of today's hot pickers learned by studying the hot pickers of the '80's and earlier on the internet, slowing down YouTube videos, using iTunes, Homespun's videos, etc. The young ones (e.g. Hull) have learned from the ones (e.g., Thile) who learned from the pre-1990 masters and took their music further.

The instruments that are available today are head and shoulders above what we had back in the day.

And, before the pandemic, they were far more widely available, as well.

I still don’ see a drum used in todays bluegrass, and I still don’t see a place for one in bluegrass.

Sam Bush and Sierra Hull would disagree with you about that.

What some people call Bluegrass I wouldn't, not that its bad music, its just not really Bluegrass.

Yeah, that's where it gets tricky.

According to the current Grammy nominations, FWIW, the five artists nominated for Best Bluegrass Album are Infamous Stringbusters, Del McCoury Band, Peter Rowan, Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway, and Yonder Mountain String Band. Meanwhile, The Punch Brothers' Hell on Church Street is nominated for Best Folk Album. So, they consider the Stringbusters and Yonder Mountain to be bluegrass, like Peter and Del, but not the Punch Brothers paying tribute to Tony Rice.

So, is this bluegrass?

[lowtone2]

Yes we are on the same planet, and yes, I can count! Twenty years ago was when I QUIT PLAYING, not when I started playing. If you are interested in the time line, it goes something like this:
Early 80’s, start playing
Mid nineties, quit playing
Pandemic of 2020 start playing again.
The arithmetic that <inappropriate, not here> taught me oh so long ago indicates that 20 years is about right.

The pandemic was a boon for the instrument business, and every cloud? Not every….

Good instruments, especially mandolins, were hard to find back then. Most people couldn’t even identify a mandolin. That might still be true or almost. I wasn’t at all aware of mandolins until about 1980, when I spied a Dawg record in the Jazz rack.

[ralph johansson]

Too long a story to go into here, but I took a sabbatical from music in about 1992 or so and never touched a string for well over 20 years. Like I said, too long a story. What I want to say is how I see the change in bluegrass after a 20+ year hiatus.



The instruments that are available today are head and shoulders above what we had back in the day. Nobody in their right mind would have owned a Yamaha in 1982. Today I have two of them. If you wanted to play bluegrass you played a Gibson F-5 mandolin, a Gibson Mastertone banjo, a Martin D-18 or D-28 guitar and a Kay upright bass. It was “de rigour”. It was heresy to play anything else. And speaking of basses, NOBODY played an electric bass in a bluegrass band, at least not without several snide remarks. A few other things that were considered “not acceptable” were accordions even though Bill Monroe had a woman accordionist in his original band and drums, but I still don’ see a drum used in todays bluegrass, and I still don’t see a place for one in bluegrass. I’m glad to see several electric upright basses being used in todays music. And, why not? Even the mighty upright bass is usually miced up so that it can be heard! The modern electric uprights fit into a bag that you can easily carry on your back or shoulder, not like the Moby-Bass upright. Hint: If you must play an electric bass guitar, mitigate the hate speech by playing an acoustic/electric.

There was no accordion in the original BG Boys, formed, IIRC, in 1939. Billy Forrester joined the band in 1943, and left in 1945. Most of us would say that BG really began with the arrival of Earl Scruggs in 1945, simply because that was the band that so many groups modeled themselves on. Before that Monroe tried out various instruments, including harmonica and tenor banjo. Owing to the recording ban that period is poorly documented.

The roles of the instruments also changed over time. E.g., Monroe instructed some of the guitarists in the early bands to play runs similar to those of this brother Charlie. You don't hear much of that in later bands. Also a few of his early bass players, e.g., Howard Watts and Joel Price walked their basses a lot. Later, you don't hear much of that either, with the exception of George Shuffler and Tom Gray (I once jammed with Gray at a picking party i Spring Fields, Maryland, a truly thrilling experience). There are many reasons you don't hear accordions in today's BG, some of them practical, e.g., they are hard to keep in tune. There never was controversy over the use of accordion in a BG band, as virtually no one ever experimented with that instrument in that context. Using one would most likely lead to a drastic change in the roles of the other instruments.

[ralph johansson]

Spring Fields -> Silver Spring!

[Tom Haywood]

The big change that I see is that basically anything now can be called bluegrass if the players include a banjo and a mandolin. The traditional bluegrass style of rhythm is no longer required.

[Snakum]

When I was a little kid in Wilkes Co NC bluegrass was old men in suits playing the standards. I hated 'hillbilly music' and already knew I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix. Just four months ago, after 40 years in classic rock and country bands, I (re)discovered it and am happily surprised to hear so many different influences. And I never imagined young BG players with dyed hair, guage earrings, etc tearing up the old standards.

Who knew?

BTW... I know it's not PC nowadays to mention this ... but I was surprised at how many young and very attractive female players are into it. Sharon Gilchrist, Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, et al. I figured there must be a factory somewhere that stamped out young, beautiful females with amazing technical ability. Five months ago I didn't know who these people were. Now it's all my wife and I listen to.

[farmerjones]

There is a Bluegrass factory. It's ETSU. Alas, this has been running for nearly 20 years. I was a college freshman in 1980. If I knew I could go to college for Bluegrass, back then, I would have walked there from Iowa.
20 years ago, festivals started on mothers day, and there was one to attend every week until 2 or 3 weeks passed labor day. All that died off.

[Marcus CA]

Some of those young'uns came out of the new acoustic music "factories" at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory.

[JiminRussia]

There is a Bluegrass factory. It's ETSU. Alas, this has been running for nearly 20 years. I was a college freshman in 1980. If I knew I could go to college for Bluegrass, back then, I would have walked there from Iowa.
20 years ago, festivals started on mothers day, and there was one to attend every week until 2 or 3 weeks passed labor day. All that died off.

Do you think that maybe the pandemic that has so far KILLED 1,142,981 Americans had something to do with that?

[milli857]

There is a Bluegrass factory. It's ETSU. Alas, this has been running for nearly 20 years. I was a college freshman in 1980. If I knew I could go to college for Bluegrass, back then, I would have walked there from Iowa.
20 years ago, festivals started on mothers day, and there was one to attend every week until 2 or 3 weeks passed labor day. All that died off.

Here in Pacific Northwest, there's festivals every week from June to September. I went to 5 last summer and a friend of mine went to 12.

[farmerjones]

Many of these festivals quit pre-covid. I guess I could go if I were willing to drive several hours one way. I live in a sparsely populated area. It has its advantages and disadvantages. We had a monthly jam that brought in people from a hundred mile radius. Now we're having difficulty finding a new central venue. Because nodody knows anything about the centrally located towns, and vice-versa. It helps to have "sponsorship" in a town or venue. Many of us don't have room to support a 6 person jam. (No, that's not a big circle) So I fear, this precious jam will perish too.

[milli857]

We had a monthly jam that brought in people from a hundred mile radius. Now we're having difficulty finding a new central venue. Because nodody knows anything about the centrally located towns, and vice-versa. It helps to have "sponsorship" in a town or venue. Many of us don't have room to support a 6 person jam. (No, that's not a big circle) So I fear, this precious jam will perish too.

Have you tried having it at a church? The weekly Monday bluegrass jam in my town is at a church and the location works well.

[ralph johansson]

Too long a story to go into here, but I took a sabbatical from music in about 1992 or so and never touched a string for well over 20 years. Like I said, too long a story. What I want to say is how I see the change in bluegrass after a 20+ year hiatus.

Back in the day, it was common for there to be one or two, maybe even three “hot pickers” and about 4 or 5 of us “yeah, I’ve got a guitar” and one woman that knew the first verse and the chorus of every country music song ever written, but didn’t know the second verse of even one of them. As a general rule, that’s what we had for a jam session in rural Alaska in the early 80’s. Today, I am impressed with the “hot pickers” of today. I am also impressed with a few of the “yeah, I’ve got a guitar” people. However, it seems that the several strata of players have a different mix. There appear to be a lower ratio of “hot pickers” to “I have a guitar” guys. But, the hot pickers are way, way hotter than what I experienced in the 80’s. The “I’ve got a guitar” guys are still the “I’ve got a guitar” guys. Another thing that I was very glad to see is that there are far more women in bluegrass today. That gal that knows all those first verses is still there though and she still doesn’t play an instrument of any kind.

In my view the state of a musical art form is determined by public professional performances and commercial recordings, not social gatherings or jamsessions.

[tmsweeney]

In my view the state of a musical art form is determined by public professional performances and commercial recordings, not social gatherings or jamsessions.

Wow I couldn't disagree more.
I suppose if you only get your music from public performances and public media, but most musicians do play for fun on the side and that is where new tunes are picked up and musical ideas are spread.
Someone still can't play an old tune out of a tune book or one someone knows by heart, and then it catches on and spreads until it winds up in professional pubic performances and eventually mainstream media.?
The whole point of choosing acoustic mostly public domain music is to NOT to have to wait for the radio or a public performance to "define" music for me.
I've said it before and I will say it again, some of the best music I have ever experienced has been in peoples living rooms and back yards.

[DavidKOS]

some of the best music I have ever experienced has been in peoples living rooms and back yards.

Yes...and kitchens!

[Mark Gunter]

“… the state of a musical art form …”

Ralph does have a point, in that an informal gathering could play musical pieces from all over the map regardless of the current state of music as an art form. I’m saying, he does have a point, but it is a rather narrow view. As a social movement, informal gatherings in the collective may certainly help to shape the current state of a musical art form, so in the wider view, tmsweeney is also correct. That’s cool, right?

[tmsweeney]

Well its not that media and public performances don't influence local music, it does and very much so. But there is a scene in many places all over the world where people play just because they are curious about the music, whatever the source may be.
You don't get much Bluegrass or new acoustic music on the radio up my way, now streaming media services have changed that dynamic, still I would like to be surprised by a John Hartford or Doc Watson performance while driving on the radio once in a while.
Festivals shows and especially workshops are where it seems a lot of tunes become popular in the vernacular or local music scene.
It was probably Billy Strings but I was hearing "Don't think twice its all right" at several different jams and gatherings maybe two years ago, but the tune was alive and well.
White Freight Liner was one I heard at different jams before I heard Molly Tuttle do it, so who knows.
New Chance Blues, we did it in my band (I did it because of Norman and the fiddle player did it because of Punch Brothers who did it because of Norman) then I heard Chris Luquette do it and then Sierra Hull did it with Justin Moses, I just found it strange that a somewhat obscure tune like that would suddenly be popular at different places near the same time.

[ralph johansson]

Wow I couldn't disagree more.
I suppose if you only get your music from public performances and public media, but most musicians do play for fun on the side and that is where new tunes are picked up and musical ideas are spread.
Someone still can't play an old tune out of a tune book or one someone knows by heart, and then it catches on and spreads until it winds up in professional pubic performances and eventually mainstream media.?
The whole point of choosing acoustic mostly public domain music is to NOT to have to wait for the radio or a public performance to "define" music for me.
I've said it before and I will say it again, some of the best music I have ever experienced has been in peoples living rooms and back yards.

I didn't say anything about "definition", nor did I say anything about good or bad, best or worst. I basically said that what determines the current state (good or bad)
of a commercial/professional genre is public performance, not jams. I should have made it clear that I was referring to public jams, the kind that was mentioned in the TS, and once made me say "I like to jam, but not at jams". I have happy memories of, e.g,. a picking party in Detroit with Andy Stein among the guests (on bass, not violin or tenor saxophone) where most of the playing was in small groups, such as me (on guitar) and Stein duetting on a blues in C . Or a party at Dianne Sims' place in Maryland (she was then the editor of Bluegrass Unlimited). There were two mandolin players, but the other player -- at that time my favorite -- stayed in the kitchen talking with Dianne and her husband. The bass player was Tom Gray, who at the time didn't play in a group at all, but IMO had no equal among professionally active bass players in BG.


On the occassion of this, my first and last, trip to the US, in 1969, Bluegrass was in a very unhealthy state. E.g., Bill Monroe led one sorry band, John Duffey had left the Gentlemen (but I caught him subbing for Gaudreau on two nights in Maryland), I caught Lester Flatt in tired performances in Culpeper, Virgina and on the Opry, etc.
But, as I understand in retrospect, there was a really healthy informal jam scene that within a few years produced the Seldom Scene. Mike Auldridge was then with Emerson&Waldron and Ben Eldridge guested with E&W on the night I heard them in DC.

[tmsweeney]

no worries Ralph I meant no offense, and took none. I'll be honest besides Sierra Hull and Molly Tuttle, I'm not really sure what is main stream contemporary Blue Grass these days I'm living mostly in the 80s and 90s musically anyway.

Thanks to You tube there have been some noticeable trends when non professionals all seem to be covering the same fiddle tune or song (of whatever sort) within the same general time period (well within a year).
Maybe it all starts with catching a tune at a pro show or on a recording, and some of it does for me, but other material i seek out from old tune books or foreign cultures, not that I influence any musical trends.
My point is while I love virtuoso and masterful performances, they are not required to keep music going, I think as long as people sing to themselves or play a simple melody at home or by themselves, music will do just fine.