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Thread: Bluegrass instruments

  1. #51

    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    So this whole thread was a ruse, then... it all winds back to the same recurring "you young people don't know real bluegrass, only I know real bluegrass, and that's JUST MY OPINION" rhetoric that hasn't changed in punctuation or syntax in eight years. Why pose the question of broadening the breadth of bluegrass if you're already adamantly against it, anyway?

    --Tom

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  3. #52
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Not quite Tom, we have determined that spoons are not bluegrass instruments but suitable for chili consumption!
    One of the best BG bands I ever heard had the distinct advantage of playing at pitch well before the advent of cheap peghead tuners. They had a harmonica player! If you have the opportunity to hear a recording of "You ain't going nowhere" by the Rimfire Ramblers on the Stringbean memorial BG festival album. You will hear the Late Tom Humphreys,harmonica, Peter Humphreys, guitar, Bill Halsey mandolin, Glen Blankenship, bass and Gary Kenyon, banjo.
    Tom was a great player, played fiddle tunes with the best of them, I miss him.
    I have always said that there is a certain branch of the new breed of pickers who have not listened to any of the old guard nor do they have any idea what THAT sound was. They came along after Doyle put his stamp on the smoother sound(among others). That's not to say that it isn't good, I like "lonesome river band" and "IIIrd Tyme out" and so on but, they know where they came from, they understand the roots of the music. Many young pups just go out and bang away with the idea that grateful dead were the beginning and end of bluegrass. I suppose this will offend some and others will understand my point.
    I hope that this may start the new year giving us all pause to think about those who have gone before and give an idea of who they were to the new breed. Read your history, play to the future with respect to the past.
    Timothy F. Lewis
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  4. #53
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    No right or wrong here. Its just fun arguing points for opinions. Mine is that using specific types or numbers of instruments to define a genre seems a bit narrow. To me the genre is the music and the instrument is a tool to get there. But obviously to some the specific instrument is needed to achieve that specific texture to define the genre. To each his own.

    Any category is for description, not prohibition. How narrow to interpret is just a matter of personal preference.

    There are no lives, legends, or careers at stake here.

    Use labels if its helpful. Leave them off if they're beating themselves up with it.
    No matter where I go, there I am...Unless I'm running a little late.

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  6. #54
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Tom, You know it`s funny that we all call a mandolin an F-5 even thought it wasn`t made by Lloyd Loar but it was his design so now people want to call any music bluegrass just because they have the traditional band instruments...

    I posted this thread because I wanted to see what others thought and it got a little away from the original subject so I just went along with what others were saying...You call it anything what you want and play any instrument that you want in doing it and I`ll play it my way, they way it has been for most of my 79 years.....I played bluegrass with some great pickers in my time, some were drunks and some did their dope and that is one thing that I tried hard to change along with the publics image of what bluegrass is, we all had a bad name in my younger days even though I never did drink while playing...So as I said you play and call it what you like and I hope it makes you happy but when you go to a jam and start playing some of your style of songs and someone says, "That ain`t bluegrass" just don`t get pissed at them...

    Have a good day and a Happy New Year....

    Willie

  7. #55
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    I'm pretty sure that the main reason why Bill Monroe was so PO's when Earl & Lester left his band,was that Earl had taken the 'sound' with him.BM had never in his life ever had audiences like he had when Earl joined him & he coulde see ''the main attraction'' disappearing down the pike !. As it turned out,many banjo players had been copying Earl's style & had become pretty good at it,so fortunately for him,BM was soon employing another 'Scruggs' style picker. The other reason BM became so PO'd with Flatt & Scruggs was that he thought that they were copying his music.Well,i suppose in a general sort of way they were,but,IMHO,it was Earl's banjo playing that was the main ingredient. Earl never groused about other banjo players copying 'him' & i suppose if he'd been that type of person,he could have,& with good reason. Earl was savvy enough to understand that he'd been the big deal in Bill's band,so why shouldn't he put his talents to use for himself ?.In truth,Bill Monroe & Earl Scruggs owed each other a whole lot. Bill owed Earl for giving 'his music' a kick start & for it becoming one of the most popular music genres of the time,& Earl owed Bill Monroe for giving him the chance to show his 'fancy banjo pickin' to the world. One without the other wouldn't have had the impact that the two together had. Truly a situation where the 'whole was immeasurably greater than the sum of it's parts',
    Ivan
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  9. #56
    Loarcutus of MandoBorg DataNick's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Ivan Kelsall View Post
    ...Earl never groused about other banjo players copying 'him'...
    Respectfully Ivan, why would he? Earl Scruggs basically "copied" a NC regional style of banjo playing that Snuffy Jenkins had already popularized on the radio, and that Don Reno had been playing as well. BTW, Monroe had already been exposed to that style via Don Reno, and was on the lookout for it, realizing it was the final piece to "his" music. Don Reno would have beaten Earl Scruggs to the punch of being a Bluegrass Boy, if not for WWII and his induction into the war after auditioning/playing for Monroe.
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  10. #57
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Hi Nick - Exactly - why would he ?. Re.Snuffy Jenkins - His style was very similar to that of Earl's & no doubt Earl picked (literally) a lot of his teqhnique up from Snuffy,but there were still big disimilarities between Earl's playing & that of Snuffy. The point that i was hoping to make,was that while Bill Monroe disliked any band 'copying' his style,Earl never did. I've often wondered about what the situation might have been had Don Reno joined up with Bill Monroe. I suppose it's not beyond credibility that Earl,as did Don Reno,would have formed his own band on the back of the (supposed) popularity of the new 'Reno style' banjo craze. IMHO,as good as Don Reno was,& he most certainly was,he never had the fluidity of sound that Earl had developed. One of the greatest attributes of Earl's playing was his ability to hold the melody line in anything he ever played. I read that it came about when Earl was still learning. He was practicing his playing & a family member asked what tune he was playing. He told them & apparently he was way off the melody of the tune. 'Whoever'. told Earl,that if he couldn't keep to the melody,he might as well give up.That sunk pretty deep & from then on, holding the 'melody line' became the main aim of Earl's playing.
    I've met a lot of the top Bluegrass banjo players,both here in the UK & also in the US on my visits,& almost without exception they'll tell anybody who asks about learning Bluegrass banjo to listen to Earl Scruggs as a foundation for their learning. That's not to say that other great banjo players such as Don Reno are overlooked or forgotten,i think it's because Earl's style was simply the very best in his ability to play smoothly, & to hold the melody. In 50 + years of playing,i've not heard anybody play 'better' Bluegrass banjo. I still listen to the early Flatt & Scruggs recordings & they sound as fresh to my ears as they did 50 years ago,
    Ivan
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  12. #58
    Loarcutus of MandoBorg DataNick's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Hey Ivan, no argument with any of your viewpoints. My only point was that Earl Scruggs undoubtedly wouldn't complain about "copyists" because his was a regional style descended from vaudeville banjoists of that part of the country that he popularized, and not a new genre of music, that's all.
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  13. #59
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Hi Nick - I wasn't disputing your disputing !. You're correct. That style had been bubbling under for a while,but it took an Earl Scruggs to perfect it. In my many conversations with Mike Seeger when he visited the UK on numerous occasions,Mike mentioned several players who had an ''almost Scruggs-like'' picking style,but they never got 'out of the 'woods' so to speak. Realistically,it's possible that if Bill Monroe's fiddle player at the time,Jimmy Shumate,hadn't remembered hearing Earl play & hadn't recommended him to Bill Monroe,that things would have been a whole lot different.At that time,Earl Scruggs was just another unknown 'picker',but it was obvious to Bill Monroe that he was 'something else',& i'm pretty sure that BM himself would have heard more than a few 'backwoods pickers',
    Ivan
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    "Boats On The River" TIGHT! How about a jaw harp? BOTR instantly made me think of the jaw harp. It woulda fit in perf. Not exactly an up fronter though.

    "Old Joe Clark" by two down home boys doing it for real
    http://youtu.be/1vTsqxH5_uE

    "Put a Ring On it" by The Pigs- kinda campy/gimicky
    http://youtu.be/lf4__-xWq8w

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Hey Willie,
    I've been going to jams in my neck of the woods for over twenty years. I've never once had anybody tell me or myself tell anyone that "That ain't Bluegrass" at any jam I've ever been to. People I know are just as happy to play Bill, Doc, Norman, Stanleys to Townes Van Sant, Dawg, Bush etc. etc. etc. with no odd judgements. I agree with Tom Colletti that this is the same old rhetoric from you and I don't see your point with these posts, we all know now how you feel so why don't you give it a rest. In the jams I go to about the only person who would be asked not to come back is you and your condescending opinion.

  17. #62
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    With due respect Mark - Willie's stand on what is or isn't Bluegrass 'proper' is held by maybe more people than you'd imagine. At festivals,nobody comes out & voices their opinions on what's right or wrong,folk just get along. That doesn't mean to say that folk don't hold those opinions,they just don't spout off about 'em. If they did,you might find yourself in the minority.
    My own opinion is that if a band doesn't have a banjo player in it,it can't be called a Bluegrass band in the true sense of the meaning. Bluegrass music as we know it was popularised by Bill Monroe when he had Earl Scruggs playing banjo with im. That specific sound was what became Bluegrass as we know it today. Romove the banjo from that sound,& the whole enssemble sound changes. Call it what you will,it's not the proper sound of Bluegrass.
    By the same token,songs & instrumentals played with a full Bluegrass instrumental line-up,but which fall outside the ''accepted Bluegrass genre'' can be taken as 'Newgrass'' or ''New Acoustic Music'' or some other description.
    We can argue forever on this subject,but in the end,we also have a right to voice our opinions - even on here. After all,it's how we discover other folk's opinions on things that we have our own opinion about. Lively discussion,if kept 'civil' is always a good thing (IMHO). Simply telling people to 'give it a rest' isn't - & i mean no disrespect to you as a person in saying that,just that it doesn't help in any healthy discussion. We all have our opinions, & i've read more than a few daffy ones on here,that's fine,i'm always ready for a good laugh - even at my own expense if i get something wrong. That's life !,
    Ivan
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  19. #63
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandoplumb View Post
    JeffD that's because a mandolin is the "bluegrass drum" and that other drum is stepping on our toes

    No, the mandolin in Bluegrass is not the "Bluegrass drum", it is the mandolin. The chop (which really bears very little resemblance to drumming) is just one of several roles the mando can assume in a Bluegrass group, besides solos, fills and riffs, counter
    melodies or long tremoloes behind the soloist, or twinning with the soloist. There are plenty of examples where a full rhythm section (drums, piano, bass) get along nicely with a stringed instrument used rhythmically.

    In Bluegrass the only problem would be to achieve balance between drum(s)
    and acoustic stringed instruments - the rest is listening. Of course most examples of drumming in BG are stiff and mechanic, but not out of necessity. And I'm pretty sure there was no mandolin on some, or even most, of the F&S numbers with snare.

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Ivan,
    I'm responding to Willie's post #54, the last few lines especially, in my opinion that is a very passive/aggressive statement that lends nothing to a healthy debate. I get how he feels about it but I find his attitude to be very condescending and have read it from him before in his over 3000 posts. What's the point? I don't know who you play music with but if someone said that to anybody in a "Jam"(as he states) I was in he wouldn't be asked back and on that point if I'm in the minority I'm happy to be there.

  21. #65
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Mark - Willie & myself have been e-mail buddies for a long while now, & i'm more than familiar with his stance on ''what is or isn't Bluegrass'' & i myself don't always agree 100% with him. I think that this post has drifted too far from the original shoreline. All Willie was aking in his original post was ''do we think that there might be instruments other than the regular line up that would fit into a Bluegrass band ?'' Or words to that effect. If we'd all stuck to that question & answered it - [/B]myself included[B],i think we'd have had a better discussion.
    Regarding what instruments are acceptable in Bluegrass - Bill Monroe himself wasn't overkeen on Dobros. He simply thought that the sound didn't fit in, & that's from the 'main man' who'd previously had all sorts of instrument in his pre-Bluegrass 'proper' line-up, including an accordion. When BM got the 'original' Bluegrass band together,that was the Blueprint that all other bands tried to copy,& BM himself didn't want to deviate from it - banjo / mandolin / guitar / fiddle & bass - that was BM's 'specification' for a Bluegrass band,& can we honestly say that adding other instruments 'really' improves anything,or does it simply just change the sound ?. Some folks hearing an 'augmented' Bluegrass band will like it,others won't. It's a matter of opinion.
    Who have i played (jammed) with ? - over a 50 year period,some of the finest Bluegrass musicians ever,both in this country & in my 5 visits to the US,including a one on one banjo/mandolin jam with Doyle Lawson at IBMA in 2002. (My band also opened for Bill Monroe when he came to the UK in 1966 & played in Manchester). In situations like that,the thought of questioning an additional instruments or an arrangement or 'whatever', wouldn't enter my head.
    If we step sideways from the OP, & look at bands such as ''Crooked Still'' & other 'string bands' that use a Cello in their line up,i think their sound is tremendous,but,they don't play Bluegrass & what they do play, is carefully arranged for their specific line up. Personally, i don't think a Cello would work well in a Bluegrass band - but i'll shoot myself right in the foot by adding this clip once more on here.

    There's more than a few 'non-Bluegrass' instruments in there,& if i lived in the US, i'd be willing to travel a long,long way to hear that line-up - AWESOME !!!.
    From Willie - ".....but when you go to a jam and start playing some of your style of songs and someone says, "that ain`t bluegrass" just don`t get pissed at them...".
    I have to say that Willie does have a point (IMHO). I have a very good friend who's a good singer & guitarist. He's buried himself in Bluegrass music for a long time,he knows the music inside out,& has in fact written on the subject for many years. However,as much as he thinks he's a competent singer of Bluegrass songs - he most certainly isn't. He can sing them,but stylistically,he's all over the place & wouldn't last 5 minutes in a Bluegrass 'proper' jam session.Would anybody actually tell him ?. Possibly not,they'd pack up & move elsewhere & i've seen that done many times.
    I sometimes think that we can be a bit 'precious' in the way we defend Bluegrass music - but -
    for the majority of us,i feel that if ''it's not done the way Bill did it'',then it ain't right. I suppose that you could apply the title of a ''Little River Band'' CD from a while ago - "Carrying The Tradition",& especially for those of us who've been in Bluegrass for many years,that's just how it seems - rightly or wrongly,
    Ivan
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Ok Ivan if you want to condone and defend your email buddies attitude that's your prerogative. I'm also an older person and have listened and been involved with this music for a long time. I'm not interested in name dropping or telling people how great of a picker I am but I'll say it again that if your attitude is the Majority (highly unlikely) I've never experienced it in years of Festivals, Jams and workshops.
    So to the original post. If you happened to come along Red Allen and Frank Wakefield playing on the street one day (or inject your favorite players) do you turn up your nose because there isn't a banjo or other traditional instruments or
    they're playing two Ukuleles for that matter. What would you call their music? Hawaiian? Folk? Rockabilly????

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    I have to say, I remain entirely unconvinced that bluegrass must be defined exclusively by the banjo; because, the argument in favor of this position is largely self-referential. The basic argument seems to be, bluegrass began when Earl Scruggs joined The Bluegrass Boys, and anything else is prima facie not bluegrass. My ears find this position less than compelling. Manzanita sounds like bluegrass to me. Della Mae sounds like bluegrass to me (even if the band labels itself otherwise). On the other hand, The Punch Brothers had a classic "bluegrass lineup" but I wouldn't call it bluegrass, except for select tunes. Thile has even called it "chamber music for a string ensemble." Crooked Still has a banjo, but to my ears they are not playing bluegrass. My ears tell me that not all banjo music is bluegrass and not all bluegrass has a banjo. The argument that all bluegrass must have a banjo would be analogous to someone saying all jazz must have a saxophone because Sidney Bechet played sax and anything before Bechet is not jazz.

    To me, it is more about filling sonic space. The classic bluegrass lineup of bass, guitar, mandolin, banjo and fiddle each fill a role. You can use something else to fill that space. My band lacks a fiddle player and a banjo, but we use a dobro to fill both roles. The dobro player plays rolls like a banjo and solos like a fiddle. Of course, I would never call what we do bluegrass.
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Christensen View Post
    ...So to the original post. If you happened to come along Red Allen and Frank Wakefield playing on the street one day (or inject your favorite players) do you turn up your nose because there isn't a banjo or other traditional instruments or they're playing two Ukuleles for that matter. What would you call their music? Hawaiian? Folk? Rockabilly????
    I've got Wakefied & Allen's "Kitchen Tapes". I listen to it frequently and I absolutely love it!. Frank Wakefied plays Monroe-style mandolin so well that Bill Monroe is reputed to have told him that he (Wakefield) plays Monroe better than anybody!
    Again I wanna say that I absolutely love that sound and that record. However I would not call it Bluegrass. I would classify it as "Old Time Mountain Music", and I certainly would not turn up my nose at it. In fact I'm trying to cop some of those songs and Wakefield's licks as we speak. But to me (and here's the crux of the matter: it's my perspective) Bluegrass has a certain drive, and certain musical parts filled by specific instruments, in a specific style as defined as a template by the Bluegrass Boys of '46-48'. So though Wakefield plays "Bluegrass Breakdown", "Paddy On The Turnpike", and other songs that are included in a typical Bluegrass repetoire, I wouldn't call the pairing of guitar & mandolin a "Bluegrass" band. I'd say they're a mando/guitar duet playing all sorts of different songs (bluegrass, fiddle tunes, gospel songs, etc) in an "Old Time Mountain Music" flavor.

    Furthermore, I don't believe this difference of opinion will ever be resolved quite frankly. And when I consider that, it strikes me as strange. Why? Because I believe we could all agree on what makes a Classical Orchestera, or what Cajun music is or that Yes, ELP, & Genesis is Progressive-Techno Rock and not Pop Rock, or that The Eagles have played as a band Country-Rock, Rock N Roll, and R&B or that Blood, Sweat, & Tears played JazzRock, or that Tower Of Power was a fusion of R&B and JazzRock, etc. etc. But the ability to properly categorize the Bluegrass genre with its instrumentation is either lost on a lot of us, or a lot of us feel it has very strict boundaries or no boundaries at all. And I think that those who are not musicians could probably care less; they just like good music!
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    This thread has become terrain fought over so many times, it's become (IMHO) both tiresome and un-resolvable.

    Willie's original question was interesting. And yes, I can think of several instruments -- played in a "bluegrass style" and sticking to bluegrass-type repertoire -- that have been, and could be, used in a bluegrass band without making it "not bluegrass."

    But most of us aren't talking about that any more. We're quibbling over the same old question: since Bill Monroe (sorta) invented bluegrass, and since his "Original Bluegrass Band" c. 1946 included those five instruments, do all subsequent bluegrass bands have to be set up similarly to be called "bluegrass"?

    I don't think so, many others do, but we won't resolve this -- and a stimulating line of inquiry, has been led into a familiar swamp and left to sink.

    At least that's how I see it.
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Mark, I have been on the road for a few days and also laid up with a bad cold so I haven`t been keeping up with all of your posts...If like you say you have been a long time listener to bluegrass music then you should know to what I am referring to when I say "traditional" bluegrass, to me that is the only kind and I know that will get a lot of arguments....

    I will also add that one weekend I drove over to Dover Delaware to see a show that was advertised as Bluegrass, when the band came out onto the stage to a sold out crowd they played four songs and someone in the crowd yelled out, "That isn`t anything like bluegrass" and a lot of the crowd got up and left...Now I will tell you who the band was...And I am sure it will get denied by some of their long time fans...It was Ricky Skaggs and Ky Thunder.....They were playing songs that he has recorded on his country label records (CD`s)...he also did much the same thing at Gettysburg the last time I was there...So I am sure that if he can be told that what he was doing isn`t bluegrass then it could happen to you and a lot of others at a jam session....As I have stated you play what you like and call it what you want but I know bluegrass when I hear it and will stick with my opinion, after all we all have one of those ...Now you or anyone else that wants to can brow beat me and I will not post any more on this thread, I an sure you and a lot of others are tired of me spouting off about what is bluegrass but there some on here that agree with me....I`m done and gone to another subject,,,Have at me...

    Willie

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    I agree with you Allen but DataNick keeps the can of worms open. Red and Frank are considered Bluegrass musicians and a lot of the record is considered standard bluegrass material. Ralph Stanley considers his music from the mountain tradition but everyone calls the Stanley Brothers Bluegrass. I don't have a problem with whatever you want to call it but I'd rather just call it good music myself and not have an attitude about it or look down on people because it doesn't fit there idea. From my above examples there's always a contradiction.

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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    From Post #70 I will also add that one weekend I drove over to Dover Delaware to see a show that was advertised as Bluegrass, when the band came out onto the stage to a sold out crowd they played four songs and someone in the crowd yelled out, "That isn`t anything like bluegrass" and a lot of the crowd got up and left...Now I will tell you who the band was...And I am sure it will get denied by some of their long time fans...It was Ricky Skaggs and Ky Thunder.....They were playing songs that he has recorded on his country label records (CD`s)...he


    I don't know if this quote even warrants a response but it's so ridiculous. Again Willie what's your point? Now Ricky Skaggs isn't a Bluegrass musician because he chose that night to play some different tunes that you don't consider Bluegrass? Laughable. I'm done.

  31. #73
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    So, anybody want to broach the "Greensky Bluegrass" kettle of fish?
    I like the guys, played shared shows with them shared stage time. And arguably I don't know if there might be two more diametrically opposed styles of players. We still get along. Why can't more just suck it up and as someone said in an old thread:
    "When things go in a direction I don't care for, I go find either the bathroom or a fresh cocktail" just paraphrasing there. That's what I have learned to do. Be nice!
    Timothy F. Lewis
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    I look at The Kitchen Tapes as a bg band minus the banjo, fiddle, bass. It is very great.

    My fave part of that is where Red opines "Aw shucks, guitar".

  33. #75
    Loarcutus of MandoBorg DataNick's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bluegrass instruments

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Christensen View Post
    I agree with you Allen but DataNick keeps the can of worms open. Red and Frank are considered Bluegrass musicians and a lot of the record is considered standard bluegrass material. Ralph Stanley considers his music from the mountain tradition but everyone calls the Stanley Brothers Bluegrass. I don't have a problem with whatever you want to call it but I'd rather just call it good music myself and not have an attitude about it or look down on people because it doesn't fit there idea. From my above examples there's always a contradiction.
    Mark,

    If you're going to reference me, then please reference what I said accurately. I want to say that I'm not angry, have nothing personal against anyone, and all I did was really make an observation and an opinion. To disagree with someone is not to insult them, it's just to disagree. I never said that "The Kitchen Tapes" wasn't bluegrass. In fact I said that that there was a mix of all types of material. In regards to that record, which I said that I love, I just said that in my opinion I wouldn't call a mando/guitar duet a "Bluegrass band" but a duet playing and singing different genes of songs in a "Old Time Mountain Style". Again this is not a dogmatic belief, but just an opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

    Please re-read my post where I conclude by saying this will never be resolved (before Allen opined the same thing one post later) and that to non-musicians they could probably care less. And to me the more interesting point of discussion is why is there such a variance in categorizing the genre of Bluegrass as opposed to the examples that I listed in my post. As I stated we would more than likely agree with the genre classifications that I used as examples, but why is there such nonagreement when it comes to Bluegrass? That is the subject matter that I find more fascinating about this whole subject. Why is it that we can agree that "Earth, Wind, & Fire" is R&B, or that "Chick Corea & Return To Forever" is "Fusion-Jazz" but we can't agree on Bluegrass genre classifications. I find that phenomena worthy of discussion from a social science perspective, and I have a hard time coming up with a comparable example in another musical genre-form.

    Again let me say for the record, I'm really not interested in discussing what I consider to be bluegrass or bluegrass instrumentation versus what you believe.

    I'm interested in discussing why consensus can be reached in genre classification with other musical styles but not bluegrass! That dichotomy is what I find interesting, and again I have no desire to debate my bluegrass list against yours.

    Respectfully submitted in the right spirit and just trying to be accurate.
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