Re: [Harp-L] Take this bluegrass elite

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:24 AM 1/10/2008, Ron wrote:
> Charlie (McCoy) recorded with Earl Scruggs later and i doubt if Earl 
> balked at  it.

In the 1940's Flatt & Scruggs were of course vitally important in the 
development of what came to be known as Bluegrass - their years with Bill 
Monroe created the modern sound in the first place, after all.  Until the 
late 50's acoustical string band music was simply one of the forms of 
Country Music, as far as the charts and radio were concerned.  Bill Monroe 
himself made some of his worst records with an organ player and electric 
guitars in the early 50's.hyg

And when the Bluegrass moniker took off as the name of the genre many years 
later, Flatt & Scruggs were adamant that it never be applied to them 
commercially.

The fact that they added in Uncle Josh on dobro - a first - and later 
recorded with Charley McCoy are just two indications that they felt that 
they didn't feel any great responsibility to ossify what was then a very 
new form.

Bluegrass was essentially dead commercially by the early 60's when even 
Bill Monroe had to drop his band.  Between the national emergence of Flatt 
& Scruggs on the Beverly Hillbillies, and Carlton Haney's invention of the 
bluegrass festival, the form re-emerged for a much, much larger 
audience.  This enabled a conservative wing to develop, one that said The 
Form was set and that was that - and a wing that rejected this 
thinking.  It's hard to imagine a more subjective arguement.

Earl Scruggs, second most important innovator of The Form was very much in 
the camp that said Music Must Grow and Change.  Still is.

The greatest result of these opposing ideas is that they both survive, even 
today.  The music HAS grown and changed, beautifully, but one group of 
players clings to the old form and makes incredible music, too.

When I hung out at the Station Inn in Nashville in the mid 70's, the place 
was run by conservatives who STILL invited me up to play a set with them 
every night on harp.  Even in the very conservative audience, people just 
enjoyed the procedings - I entertained them while I was learning what I 
could learn by sitting in.  Even Monroe was very nice to me when he sat in.

So if more than 30 years later an orthodoxy has really hardened on the 
subject of harmonica playing with bluegrass bands, I say let them play the 
same licks over and over, on the same tunes.  (There's always been the 
rumor of a thing called The Book that contains all the allowable songs and 
the licks that must be in them.  Marty Stuart's dad Joe was said to have a 
copy.)

I love the idea that this orthodoxy exists, and think it is highly 
proper.  It reminds me of Japanese ink painting, where the actual 
compositions were developed centuries earlier and painters spent their 
entire careers making the same painting over and over, some with 
genius.  It's just another way to make art.

I do not want to play with anyone who doesn't want to play with me.  That 
orthodoxy rolls along and is a whole lot more rigid than it used to 
be.  Those players could not care less if DeFord Bailey played with Bill 
Monroe.  He also carried an accordion player until Flatt and Scruggs came 
on board.  To them, the only history that means anything is the kind they 
tell themselves.  If anyone is dying to play with such people, too bad, 
they don't want to play with you.  I took my dolly and dishes and went 
home.  (Actually, I was never dying to break into that world, I was a guest 
and I learned alot from those players.)

I also realize that this discussion is not about wanting to play with those 
cats.  It's a discussion that mainly concerns what is and is not bluegrass 
- again, what could be more subjective.  But I would argue that the genre 
really was named for a very tightly defined form of music back in the late 
50's or even later.

It is with great satisfaction, however, that I notice that the term 
loosened up in spite of all that, that most of what is called Bluegrass 
today is just modern acoustic music that has been highly influenced by 
string band music that was fresh 50 years ago.

Heck, on one of my own tunes, Baby I'm All Like Wow, I've adapted Scruggs 
picking to the guitar --- and then played a harmonica solo over it.  Take 
THAT, Bluegrass Elite!

Ken