Bluegrass is Used, Gold Watches: The History and Present Life of Bluegrass
By: Becky Firesheets

Granny wiped her tears with one hand and reached towards me with the other.  I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed while Bill Monroe picked out the tune to Blue Moon of Kentucky on his mandolin.  The Bluegrass Boys plucked along on their banjo, guitar, fiddle and bass, all of them singing a harmony.

“He’s the king of Bluegrass,” Granny said, agreeing with everyone who knows anything about bluegrass. “Sometimes I just enjoy hearin’ him sing, and other times, it brings back a lot of memories, of the family and us all bein’ together.  We didn’t have much but we enjoyed life.  Some of the memories are good.  Others are painful, ‘cause they’re all gone now.  But you, you’re my girl.”  She patted my hand a few times then continued.  

“Your Uncle Dude, my older brother, he used to pick the guitar at home.  And Grandfather used to aggravate me to death.  I’d be workin’ in the kitchen and he’d saw on that fiddle every night.  All the time, you know.  But I’d give anything to hear it now.”

My Great Grandfather and Great Uncle played country music together every day, sawin' and pluckin' when everybody else wanted them to stop.  But when Bill Monroe hit the scene with bluegrass, every Kentuckian musician picked it up and nobody could get enough.  Heavily influenced by Nashville country, traditional Irish tunes, slave songs, early blues and African American gospel music, Mr. Monroe decided to bring his Bluegrass Boys together in 1936 (pictured above) and started playing the Kentucky circuit.

Because bluegrass so strongly resembled country music, people often mistakenly labeled it as such (and still do).  However, the differences are distinct and strong.  The hard-driving, powerful style on all the strings, the acoustic instrumentation and the distinctive vocal harmonies noticeably separate bluegrass from its country cousin.  And the Bluegrass Boys’ lineup is essential.  No bluegrass band is complete without its family of fiddles and mandolins, guitars and banjos.

Once Bill Monroe started playing, bluegrass spread through Kentucky like Baptism.  The Grand Ol’ Opry stepped in and elevated bluegrass musicians to a wider audience.  Broadcast on the radio weekly, twang-loving farmers throughout the South learned all of Monroe’s lyrics, how to pick a banjo like Scruggs and how to sing in Monroe’s unique, nasal-y sound (“It’s hard to find voices like his,” says Granny).  Local musicians, including Dude and my Great Grandfather, would make a night out of sitting around one another’s tables, riffing on popular tunes.  Square dances were all the rage, and the opportunity to shake the night away to a bluegrass band in a neighborhood barn was deeply relished by my hard-working, sharecropping ancestors.

But despite the essentials he laid down, Bill Monroe in no way controlled the development of bluegrass music, creating the democratic feel the genre still maintains today.  In 1945, twenty-one-year-old Earl Scruggs joined the Bluegrass Boys on banjo and invented the three-finger pickin’-style, what we now call “Scruggs style.”  Later, Scruggs split to form his own band, the Foggy Mountain Boys, and added the Dobro, or slide guitar, into the mix.  Other musicians agreed with this addition and adopted it, making it a more modern bluegrass essential.  

Bluegrass remained only for the country-folk and square dancers, though, until the 1950s when more artists like Ralph Stanley and Lester Flatt adopted the style.  In 1965, the first, weekend-long bluegrass festival took over Mr. Cantrell’s horse farm in Fincastle, Virginia, with artists like the Stanley Brothers, Benny Martin, and, of course, Bill Monroe.  They played alongside newcomers for all of 150 people on the first night.  The following two nights never saw more than 1,000, but those people fell so in love that hosting more bluegrass festivals seemed the only proper thing to do.  Nowadays, every weekend during the summer is booked with festivals from Virginia to California, all thanks to the first festival producer and organizer, promoter Carlton Haney.

In 1967, the soundtrack to “Bonnie and Clyde” featured a wide range of bluegrass artists, bringing the music to an audience who had never heard of it before.  As the popularity of festivals grew and the Grand Ol’ Opry featured Bill Monroe and others more often, bluegrass became a well-known genre.  Other movies, like “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Deliverance,” highlighted bluegrass-style banjo and other songs from the genre on their soundtracks, increasing the popularity.

When Bill Monroe passed away on September 9, 1996, more and more people began to understand his contributions to music in general.  His acceptances into the Rock, Country and Bluegrass Halls of Fame over the years are just three examples of many established institutions that have recognized his ingenuity and influence.  In 1991, the International Bluegrass Museum opened in Owensboro, Kentucky, and still works toward collecting old recordings, videos, and remnants from the early world of bluegrass.  Bill Monroe was the first person inducted into their Hall of Fame, honoring him with an entire exhibition.

However, bluegrass didn’t stop in ’96 with the death of its founding father.  “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” featured an entire soundtrack of bluegrass and country favorites that reached a much younger audience than ever before, some who viewed bluegrass as a connection to their past and their families and others who saw it as a completely new cultural experience.  

Like Reid Burgess, a north-easterner in his 20s who ventured to his mother’s home state, Virginia, after graduating college.  According to an interview with Cara Modisett from The Faces of Mountain Music, Burgess feels that bluegrass is “almost an alternative to the alternative…something completely unique and different.”  Later in the interview, he said he and his band mates “gravitated toward that [bluegrass music] in almost a rebellion kind of way.”  Now a successful, up-and-coming band, King Wilkie, named after one of Bill Monroe’s horses, tours the country with their straight-up bluegrass delivered by young, stylish men.

Other modern bands have adopted bluegrass, even fusing it with jazz and funk.  Bands like Nicklecreek
and Yonder Mountain String Band add their own style to the classic tradition.  And Crooked Still (pictured above), a group of twenty-somethings out of Boston, challenge yet embrace tradition by combining a banjo, cello and double bass to bust out folky bluegrass tunes.  In fact, bluegrass and Americana musicians are developing a strong movement even in Brooklyn and New York City.  Just check out banjoist Hilary Hawke's (pictured left) rootsy pop/folk tunes or The Woes' blend of bluegrass, country and blues at one of many venues supporting this scene (Banjo Jim's, Rockwood Music Hall, The Living Room, Jalopy...) 

While some veterans may disagree with these fusions, or claim that northern bluegrass isn't the same, none would protest.  Bluegrass was born out of fusion, and adapting the instrumentation, playing-style and lyrics has been its history since its creation.

And anyway, it’s not that hard to find the traditional bands.  Carnegie Hall hosts Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys from time to time, and just five minutes sitting with Granny brings any funk-bluegrass lover back to the basics.

“It was such a special occasion, why, I never forgot it,” Granny said about her 14th birthday present from Uncle Dude.  “He traded his first guitar for a used watch and some extra money to take me to see Bill Monroe in Cave City.  No doubt I was wearing one of my two dresses.  The men wore their overalls and white t-shirts, and some of ‘em did get up and square dance.”  A smile spread over her face and her eyes gazed passed me, lost in being awestruck and fourteen, wearing her new watch and dancin' to bluegrass during its first few years of existence.

And that’s when it hit me.  Bluegrass isn’t just another type of music, another passing genre. Bluegrass is annoyance with grandfathers and older brothers.  Bluegrass is used gold watches and that rare night out to the square dance.  Bluegrass is connection, rebellion, tradition, innovation.  Bluegrass is part of what makes Granny my Granny, and me her girl.

For more info on bluegrass in New York, check out NYC Bluegrass or our NY Venues Listing.