What gives??

[Willie Poole]

I didn`t catch the name of the band but yesterday on TV I saw a "Bluegrass" band with a girl lead singer that was holding a 5 string banjo, thats right all she did was hold it, for 45 minutes she never played a lick on it, just held it.....Another time I have seen one holding a mandolin and just keeping time while holding dead strings, no chords, just muting the strings...I don`t understand why, if that's what they want to do just let them stand there and sing, I guess you really do need to at least show a banjo to be called a bluegrass band...and a mandolin also...maybe...

I also saw some replays of some bands playing at the 2013 IBMA stage performances and what a terrible sound person they had for those shows, I could only hear the banjo and fiddle, they were much louder than the singer and other instruments....

It`s not my TV either because I have a state of the art surround sound system connected to the TV...

Willie

[MikeEdgerton]

Every woman I see holding a banjo is playing the damn thing. Consider yourself lucky.

[darrylicshon]

Was there a banjo in the sound mix? I work as a guitar tech sometimes and a lot of bands ( more than you would think) lip sync. I did a show it was Spanish music and the guitar player walked around the stage with the guitar cord pluged into the guitar but not the amp , half way thru the show the lead singer who had an acoustic pulled the cable out of his lead guitar player's guitar and plugged it into his acoustic , that's the worst i have seen,

i know when Billy Corgan of smashing pumpkins toured a few years ago not under that name. there tech told me he picked his band memders for looks only, none of them played an instrument but his vocal and guitar playing was live everything else recored on protools.

I also worked as a guitar tech for Justin Bieber we did Dick Clarks new years eve show. Ever band that played that day lip synced except for Justin best thing about that show was guess guitar player Carlos Santana and the fact i got paid for 4 days and Justin only did one song and it was a Beatles song Let it be

[montana]

Maybe it was Taylor Swift.

[allenhopkins]

Well, Daniel Patrick & Family were on Cumberland Highlanders last night, and the young woman playing mandolin stopped playing it whenever she had to sing. She did throw in a break on a slower song, so she does know how to play, but whenever she sang the picking' stopped.

By the way, young Mr. Patrick, broken finger and all, was one of the most hyper-speed banjo players I've ever heard. Made me tired just listening to him, though I was duly impressed when he played banjo, mandolin, and lead guitar, in turn, on an instrumental. At top speed.

[Willie Poole]

Darryl, No there wasn`t any banjo in the mix.....I have seen a lot of shows where the lip sync is very obvious and it drives me up the wall...I have seen where a bass player takes a break and anyone can tell that they aren`t really playing at that time...I forget where I saw and heard it but a country singer was doing the National Anthem at a sporting event and he forgot the words and was he shook up....The music kept going and he was just looking around to see if the words were there on a music stand or monitor....

THATS SHOW BUSINESS, I GUESS.....

Willie

[jaycat]

Well, Daniel Patrick & Family were on Cumberland Highlanders last night, and the young woman playing mandolin stopped playing it whenever she had to sing. She did throw in a break on a slower song, so she does know how to play, but whenever she sang the picking' stopped. . . .

B.B. King style. He's done OK I guess.

[Timbofood]

I have heard there are folks who can't walk and chew gum. This girl might have the banjo to hold her down, she might suffer from inner cranial vacuum syndrome.

[Tom Coletti]

The most effective strategy for dealing with non-representative fluke events in that untrustworthy glowing rectangle of death in your living room is to change the channel and not buy that song on iTunes. Problem solved.

--Tom

[Bob Clark]

...untrustworthy glowing rectangle of death...

Good term for it...I like it.

[Ivan Kelsall]

We're so accustomed to seeing bands with all the members playing an instrument,that when we see a band with a non-player,who maybe just sings,it looks odd. We accept it in bands playing other types of music,but we've come to expect it,but in Bluegrass it's still an oddity. One band that i like very much,now sadly disbanded,was ''Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain''. CH herself was just a singer,but with a voice like hers she needs nothing else,but it was still starnge to see a ''non-picker'' in a band,
Ivan

[AlanN]

Ronnie Bowman & The Committee was active a few years ago. Great band, it featured his wife on exclusively harmony vocals on the chorus, mostly tenor. She did not play an instrument and it certainly worked.

[journeybear]

This subject has come up before - singers without instruments in bluegrass bands. What willie is talking about is a singer with an instrument but not playing it. I have to say, that is weird. I've seen bands with a lead singer strumming a guitar that you can't hear, the need for which I usually assume is to help the singer somehow, probably to keep track of where he/she is in the song, either by feel or actually being able to hear the guitar. It doesn't matter to me, but sometimes when there are other rhythm guitarists in the band, often in the background, I get the impression the singer's guitar is mostly a prop.

But willie's case is different. The singer didn't even attempt to play her banjo, or even mime playing it. In a bluegrass band, if you see a banjo, you expect the person to play it. It has a distinctive sound and is a lead instrument. Maybe someone told her it would look good? Sounds to me like it looked stupid.

So what gives? I dunno!

Maybe it was Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift does actually play. Not banjo, but guitjo.

[BostonCeltics]

Maybe it was Taylor Swift.

Ouch! Deserved burn to lady swift

[journeybear]

Why so? She does actually play guitar and guitjo. Dissing her doesn't help the OP or this thread.