"Do you know my friend, Rebecca? She plays bluegrass, too."
"I go to bluegrass festivals like this as much as I can."
To the people in shorts and straw hats who say these things to me grinning, holding joints and beer bottles, I'll just say, grinning back, "Whoa! Right on!"
You weren't born knowing the difference, right? They weren't, either. They're good folks, being friendly.
To the people I think might be interested, though, I'll say, "Actually, it's not Bluegrass. It's called Old-Time music. It is to Bluegrass as Blues is to Rock-and-Roll: a predecessor, yet a distinct genre."
I'm no ethnomusicologist, but as nearly as I can tell, the ancestor of the stuff we play came over with us when we settled America, and then evolved like Darwin's finches, radiating into everything from Cape Breton fiddle music to Gu-Ache tunes. You'll hear its descendants at dances across our continent.
In the forties, Bill Monroe had an epiphany. He noticed that a technology leap had created a hithertofore non-existent, and as-yet unpopulated, musico-ecological niche. Radio was a place you could play to people who wanted to listen. He gave 'em something worth listening to.
Bluegrass musicians play concerts. They sing. They take breaks. They change tempos.
Once Monroe set out to settle that new land, his musical evolution was as effortless as rolling a ball downhill. His bands weren't constrained by the pace of the dance, so they could play tunes at whatever speeds would catch people's attention. They didn't have to stay out of the way of a caller, so they could sing and create elaborate harmonies. They didn't have to play acoustically, so they could work the mics and not worry that some instruments weren't as loud as others, acoustically. Monroe's mandolin could compete with a fiddle, and even take its place as a lead.
They had cars to haul around instruments, and only had to get down to the radio station, so they could routinely include an upright bass in the bands. And that meant guitars and banjos could become melody instruments.
Flash works well on the radio and in concerts, and Earl Scruggs obliged Monroe by inventing a flashy new banjo style for his band. Instead of frailing with rhythmic bump-tiddies, he put on finger picks and played three-finger rolls. He used resonators and plastic heads and flashy neck inlays and invented tuning pegs that let him do acoustic tricks with a flick of the finger. People will say, "I play Scruggs-style banjo." A nice legacy. No one is ever going to say "I play Haemer-style" anything.
All that time, old-time music continued to evolve, too. Wild Asparagus doesn't sound anything like the Highwoods String Band. Still is evolving, too. Thirty years ago, we'd play "Petronella" back-to-back in a jam with "Arkansas Traveller." Today, if I kick off "Woodchoppers Reel," I'll hear, "Oh. I don't play French Canadian. I'm strictly Cajun."
Me, I play dance music. I'd rather make 'em get up and dance than entertain rows of chairs in an auditorium. I'd rather go to a dance than a concert, too. I'm a doer.
Bluegrass, in contrast, really is about the bands and the musicians. If that's what you seek, go for it. There's room for us all.
You'll field different comments. I had a co-worker who used to tell me that he'd been to Nashville and gone to a Bluegrass museum, where he'd seen Earl Scruggs's mandolin.
Whoa! Right on!
