In the 1970s during the punk versus disco wars, there was also a revolution going on. Even though it was somewhat of an underground one and garnered not much attention outside certain circles, it nonetheless moved a mountain. The mountain was bluegrass.
I know ND has a very fine bluegrass column and many photos of bluegrass musicians are featured in it. However, I had always wanted to write a small piece, from a personal perspective. The reason is both simple and direct — I was there when the changes in bluegrass began going down.
While my primary exposure growing up was country and traditional music (then Dylan, the Beatles, etc.), I was exposed to a lot of bluegrass as well. I was fortunate to have seen many of its icons as a child, including Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and Ralph Stanley primarily at fairs and festivals. Even though most of those memories are somewhat hazy, I was grounded enough to know what was going and my general preference for acoustic and roots music made me all the more susceptible. You could say I was in the right place at the right time, and open to what came my way.
By the early 1970s many musicians — for many reasons — began getting into and, for some, returning to roots music. It was the second coming of the great folk music revival that occurred the generation before. But this one was different. It was not merely trotting out the elders and sitting at their feet, it was an invasion by long haired hippies. It caused quite a consternation at the time as not only were we listening to it, attending its festivals, the opry houses and the like, but we had the audacity to play it. Not just play it, but to play it well and used our own experiences to expand its boundaries. It was viewed as heresy by some. So much so that Monroe refused to appear on the seminal Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. It even gave rise to a new slogan among the old guard, “My grass is blue.” However, that same year, 1972, the Starday label released New Grass Revival’s first album. It was the shape of things to come.
The album where it all came together for me, demonstrating its viability, came later in 1974 — Hillbilly Jazz with Vasser Clements, David Bromberg, D.J. Fontana (on drums!) and others on the Flying Fish label. It showed the link between bluegrass and jazz, the vital musical understanding and virtuosity inherent to both genres. I did not see this as a fusion or some shallow ripoff, but a gathering of kindred spirits seeing where the music would take them. It was not a one-way street, jazz bassist Dave Holland was, perhaps, the first from his side to see the connection as he began appearing on these albums.
That same year, 1974, also saw Flying Fish record an untitled album, or rather a self-titled album, identifying it with only the musicians’ names: Norman Blake/Tut Taylor/Sam Bush/Butch Robins/Vasser Clements/David Holland/Jethro Burns. What a line-up. Again, Holland’s name popped up, even though he had already played with Miles Davis, Carla Bley, Joe Henderson, Chick Corea and led his own jazz quartet. Not a total surprise as he played on John Hartford’s Morning Bugle album from 1972.
Then, what had been primarily a live music scene, the floodgates seemed to open. New Grass’ second album was released, appropriately enough on Flying Fish, which seemed to be at its forefront. (That band also featured, at one time or another, Bela Fleck, John Cowan and Pat Flynn.) Either that or I was influenced by the folks at that label who supplied me with their releases. (I still have them. So many, in fact, that they take up their own section in my record collection). I also began listening to jazz around that time, so it seems likely that I would be more open than the average listener.
The ubiquitous David Grisman seemed to be everywhere, from playing with Garcia to his own quintet featuring Tony Rice and Darol Anger to recording an entire album with the legendary Stephane Grappelli. Eventually, it seemed he had his own genre, dawg grass, including not only Anger, but also Mike Marshall and Rob Wasserman in a new quartet. In 1983 a major label (Warner) released the dual front-sided album, Dawg Jazz/Dawg Grass, with cover photos and graphics to match that duality. That album also featured The Tonight Show’s house band members Ed Shaugnessy and Tommy Newsome, Earl Scruggs and a young Jerry Douglas.
Bluegrass has also seen a number of artists who had made names for themselves in other fields, coming into the fold later on. The first and most significant was Ricky Skaggs later followed by Dolly Parton, and just this year Dwight Yoakum.
Another addition to bluegrass is, of course, the significant number of women not just playing it, but fronting bands such as Rhonda Vincent, Claire Lynch, Alison Krauss, Alison Brown, Sierra Hull, Sarah Jarosz, and Della Mae just to name a few. But a lot of people did not notice that women had played a role, albeit a lesser one, many years ago. Monroe himself had women in his band from time to time, inclduing Sally Ann Forrester, Bessie Lee Mauldin, Juanita Sheehan and Vivian Williams. He also persuaded Rose Maddox to record a bluegrass album, the first by a woman.
All this is to say that the current bluegrass scene did not happen overnight, it began some 45 years ago. It continues to expand by including the talents and visions of its younger adherents today. From Ricky Skaggs, Roland White and Del McCoury to Rhonda Vincent, Alison Krauss, Chris Thile, Laurie Lewis and Sierra Hull, they are not just keeping the traditions alive but keeping the genre prospering. They are the tradition. If not, then it becomes a museum piece, a mere artifact of the past. In other words, dead.
As with the rest of roots music, it’s a golden era for bluegrass. So, take a look, then take a listen to those artists in the wide, wide world of bluegrass whose photos are featured below.
