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Thread: Cello in bluegrass?

  1. #26
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    mmm...Cellas...
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  2. #27
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    Yo! Yo! Ma?

    That ain't no part of nuthin.

    I love the way cello's sound by the way.


    aaah , yo yo ma is great for tango. and to me that seems like a good reason why the cello would be a little out of place at a hoedown

  3. #28
    Registered User Steve Roberts's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Okay, it ain't bluegrass but one of the really hot old time bands in the 1970s was Plank Road String Band out of Lexington, VA. Instead of bass they had Michael James Kott playing cello, and it was a great sound. He played the cello like a guitar (with strap) and took Riley Puckett bass runs to new new levels.

    Here is a link to a great recently reissued CD:

    http://www.fieldrecorder.com/docs/notes/plankroad.htm


    Michael James was a real piece of work, I vaguely recall one late night jam at Union Grove when a drunk staggered up and demanded that we play "that Orange Blossom Special." Michael said "great!" and launched into a 10 minute cello solo that was, by any measure, amazing. Finally the drunk realized what the rest of us knew and said "that ain't the Orange Blossom Special" and headed off to harrass some other jam session.

    When last I heard Michael was living in Santa Fe and playing new-age space music. It is a real loss to old time string bands, he was an amazing musician.

  4. #29
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Another "revival" string band from the '70's that used 'cello was the Putnam String County Band: Jay Ungar, Lynn Ungar (at that time), John Cohen of NLCR fame, Abby Newton on 'cello.
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    If you look at photos of old string bands, you see a lot of cellos, which were often used to play the bass part and to provide a continuo. There were loads of stringed instruments around, relics of the plantation orchestras, to be had cheaply. (Much as with brass instruments left over from Civil War-era military bands, later shunted from pawn shops and the like into jazzmen's hands.) And since bluegrass evolved from those very string bands....

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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    While not straight ahead bluegrass by any means, Crooked Still uses cello like nobody else.. it really provides the chop and the drive.

    See em here: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...deoid=49247912

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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Oops. Didn't notice page 1 of this thread...

  8. #33
    Registered Mandolin User mandopete's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Okay, all kidding aside, I really love the cello. What is truly fantastic about the notion of a cello in bluegrass is that it could operate as both a bass and fiddle.

    Now I went out to UToob to try to see if there were any "traditional" type bluegrass songs or fiddle tunes with a cello and I could not locate a single one.

    Nothing against bands like Crooked Still or Norman & Nancy, but there must be someone who is doing straight-up bluegrass with the cello (besides Yo-Yo Ma )
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  9. #34
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    I own a cello (inherited) and have never even thought about playing it in the band. Now I'm curious.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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  10. #35

    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    As an alternative to the 'cello, you could always try the viola da gamba. Lynn Trott holds down the bass section of the Runaway String Band on a 7-string gamba. As others have mentioned, it gives a range of possibilities from the plucked bass accompaniment to a more legato bowed lead and backup sound. It's versatile, portable, and always gets interesting comments from the audience.

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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?




    So, i guess there are a few bands with cello!: D i really liked the one above, but i kind of start humming "iŽm on my way back to the old home" in the chorous there ?

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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    HAHA! and thats not even a cello! Cheaters! : D

    uhm it came up when i searched for cello and they had a cello in one of the other ones

  13. #38
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    You need to check out the Rockin Acoustic Circus from Tulsa OK. They have a kick a** band and a cello player. This is headed up by Rick Morton on guitar and features Erik Dysart on the fiddle. Watch for Eric's name in the future....he is a rising star.

    check this out
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STpR6szGSZg
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  14. #39
    Mark Evans mandozilla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    But Monroe had an accordion player in the Blue Grass Boys . . . she even takes a break on a song with Blue Grass in the title. Seem like that ought to make a squeezebox into some part of sumpthin'. I'm just sayin'.
    You're absolutely right Tree. But to me, Bluegrass, as I know it, started with the Bill, Lester F, Earl S, Chubby W, Cedric R, Blue Grass Boys line up ca. 1946. Not taking away anything fro Sally Ann F...she played accordian that fit well with the BG Boys before it was Bluegrass music (to me).


    And Monroe recorded with an organ player, an electric guitarist, even a xylophone player. If Harold Bradley had dragged a cellist into one of those Decca sessions, Mullah M and the rest of the BG Taliban would be plugging a different orthodoxy.
    And Allen H. I'll bet Bill was none too happy about it. And since he didn't carry those instruments, this Ayatollah of Bluegrass plugs straight, traditional Bluegrass music...but that's just me.

    QUOTE]
    It takes a special kind of semi-closed mind to convert fifty years of musical experimentation into a fossilized perspective of unchanging sameness. IMHO, that's what's really "no part of nothin'."[/QUOTE]

    Allen, if you want to tinker, tweek, or tamper with Bluegrass music by all means go ahead...all I'm saying is if you want to add a Sousaphone or Kettle Drums to your bluegrass line-up go right ahead but then please don't call it Bluegrass music...That's all.



    Oh, and BTW, that would be 63 years, not 50 years.

  15. #40
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Well, I reckon it would be a boring world if we were all exactly the same. Bluegrass music (to me) is definitely different than bluegrass music (to you).

    But I can still call it bluegrass. And we can still get along.
    Clark Beavans

  16. #41
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Quote Originally Posted by mandozilla View Post
    Allen, if you want to tinker, tweek, or tamper with Bluegrass music by all means go ahead...all I'm saying is if you want to add a Sousaphone or Kettle Drums to your bluegrass line-up go right ahead but then please don't call it Bluegrass music...That's all...Oh, and BTW, that would be 63 years, not 50 years.
    Well, when Lester and Earl added Burkett "Uncle Josh" Graves on Dobro, was that "tinkering, tweaking or tampering?" Bill Monroe never had a Dobro player! You wanta kick Graves, Douglas, Auldridge etc. out of the Church of Orthodox Bluegrass? What about the electric bass? Jim & Jesse and the Osbornes used one, but Bill M never did. Is that "bluegrass," or not? I remember all the fuss 'n' feathers about Keith-style or melodic banjo; "Not traditional bluegrass!" all the Scruggs acolytes screamed, but Monroe had no trouble putting Keith in his band (though he did have trouble with his first name).

    And women! I heard my traditional-bluegrass-loving friends saying in the '60's that "it just don't sound like bluegrass with a woman singing it!" Care to advance that point of view now? I think you'd get some grief from the Krauss, Vincent, Hull, Boatwright, etc., etc. fans.

    What you're actually saying is, "As a bluegrass fan, I don't care for certain kinds of innovation that some bands have tried or are trying." Fine; that's your right. Others may disagree. Some would consign Chris Thile, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck and Tony Trischka to non-BG purgatory; others think that their music is an interesting and welcome extension of the traditional bluegrass idiom. Lots of room for differences of opinion.

    But no one has the power to decide what does or doesn't constitute a particular musical style; not the IBGMA, not Bluegrass Unlimited, not anybody. No one can say what constitutes jazz, swing, rock, soul, hip-hop, Tex-Mex, Cajun, or any style. Saying "I don't like it" is one thing. Saying "you can't call it bluegrass (jazz, swing, rock, etc.)" is something else.
    Allen Hopkins
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    Natl Triolian Dobro mando
    Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
    H-O mandolinetto
    Stradolin Vega banjolin
    Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
    Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
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  17. #42
    Mark Evans mandozilla's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    O.K. you win.

  18. #43
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    ....no fair...it is/it ain't bluegrass interruptus!

  19. #44
    Registered Mandolin User mandopete's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Still no "traditional" bluegrass material with cello?
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  20. #45

    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    there's always room for cello

  21. #46
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Well, when Lester and Earl added Burkett "Uncle Josh" Graves on Dobro, was that "tinkering, tweaking or tampering?" Bill Monroe never had a Dobro player! You wanta kick Graves, Douglas, Auldridge etc. out of the Church of Orthodox Bluegrass? What about the electric bass? Jim & Jesse and the Osbornes used one, but Bill M never did. Is that "bluegrass," or not? I remember all the fuss 'n' feathers about Keith-style or melodic banjo; "Not traditional bluegrass!" all the Scruggs acolytes screamed, but Monroe had no trouble putting Keith in his band (though he did have trouble with his first name).

    in the spring of 1969 monroe toured germany. in bu around that time there was a picture of the band with james monroe playing the electric. electric bass guitars in bluegrass have mostly been a matter of convenience rather than an artistic decision - it's such as silly way of using the electric,
    comparable to walking an electric in jazz.

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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Quote Originally Posted by AlanN View Post
    Which happened, I think, only at the behest of record company G-men looking for a modernized buck. Mullah M (love that) would likely have said 'No sir' to that line-up, 'twere it left up to him.
    the electric sessions of course in no way represented an extension,
    modernization or even commercialization of the bluegrass group sound. the bg format was replaced by a
    studio formula -the musicians, except monroe, were all session cats. most of the stuff was canned anyway. some of it is horrible, some of it ludicrous.
    ironically, the least commercially appealing ingredient of monroe's music at the time was probably his singing.

    the organ, always played by owen bradley, was used on one or two of the electric numbers and apart from these only on gospel numbers, again never in a bluegrass context (no fiddle, no banjo). cheesy but marginal.
    the lp "i saw the light" was issued under the name of bill monroe, no bg boys, not even bg quartet.

    finally, again referring to the post you quote there never was a xylophone on a monroe recording. christmas time had a vibraphone, and like the piano on might pretty waltz it was actually added to a bg sound, but of marginal importance.

  23. #48

    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Quote Originally Posted by LarryMando View Post
    there's always room for cello
    ++

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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Quote Originally Posted by tree View Post
    But Monroe had an accordion player in the Blue Grass Boys . . . she even takes a break on a song with Blue Grass in the title. Seem like that ought to make a squeezebox into some part of sumpthin'. I'm just sayin'.
    it is part of the pre-history of bg. monroe went professional in '34, became a recrding artist in '36, and a band leader in '39. but there was no bluegrass before late '45 when scruggs joined the group. that's the group that started a genre. no earlier group of monroe's had that kind of impact.

    i've said this before: the reason many of us resist the idea of an accordion in a bluegrass band is not purism or fanatism as some would have it. it's just that some people don't like accordions.

  25. #50
    Horton River NWT Rob Gerety's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cello in bluegrass?

    Oh, for crying out loud, music is music. Forget the labels. We're starting to sound like the father in "Fiddler on the Roof". If you don't keep adding to the art form and moving forward all of a sudden you'll find yourself playing all by yourself with no one in the audience.

    Go for the Cello - assuming the player is skilled and creative enough to make it work. I've seen Crooked Still numerous times up our way here and it is just plain terrific music - however you characterize it - and when Rashad was playing he set the groove for every tune. Very strong player. I understand he is playing punk now.

    Wasn't the lady playing accordion with Bill Monroe his wife?
    Rob G.
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