High Art Out of Low Places

A younger friend of mine who shares some of my own personal tastes in Latin music asked me last night, "I don't get this Ed, how can you jump from Chopin to discussing bluegrass in so few sentences??" He had just read some of my past writings on my old blog-site, which for all intents and purposes is dead in the water. I had to chuckle at the question. He personally hates bluegrass music. But I don't fault his dislikes. That's part and parcel of being young. You either love or hate bluegrass music. I have a lot of friends my own age who still hate bluegrass. Deep down, I'm hoping they're lying to me and are instead, secretly listening to it. What my friends are not appreciating about this particular music form is that it takes as much musical, instrumental, and organizational talent to produce genuine bluegrass music as it does to organize (and play classical music through, ) a string quartet. I can also very much appreciate that 'high form.' Some of us are gifted with the necessary talents to pull the whole thing off. The majority of us (that includes me,) are not.

So it is with bluegrass or what I'd rather call Appalachian Mountain music. It rarely wavers from a few distinct forms in instrumentation and style. It rarely wavers also in the style of songs and singing. The pattern is set, and for the purist hard-core player or audience member, you will not wobble - although there is somewhat of a dotted-line that you're permitted to crisscross once in a while. I was shocked recently when I was invited by my friend Gary Cole to come out and listen to a new bluegrass band (Dirty River), only to discover they had slipped in a couple old rock and roll songs on their new CD and in their public performances. For the Dirty River Band it worked, the audiences love it, and maybe in the final analysis it will prompt younger audience members to learn to appreciate bluegrass. It certainly has worked in their favor, as Dirty River gains in performing exposure and popularity here in our local area.

I still listen to a lot of other kinds of music. My friends are surprised to know that I have a huge collection of Vietnamese music - both high and low, old and new. I met Roger Green a few years ago (guitar and vocals for the Annapolis Bluegrass Coalition) and he's become my resident expert on the Art of Bluegrass. We've shared some interesting e-mails and conversations about 'The Form.' Beside being one of the best flat-pickers around the Chesapeake Bay area, he's a walking wikipedia of bluegrass knowledge and expresses the same on his weekly radio show out of WRYR.FM. Roger told me once (when we were comparing some bands) "I love bands that are good, but still have that 'Edge' to them." I knew exactly what he meant when he said it. You don't have to be the greatest vocalist or the best picker, but if the group effort melds into something so absolutely audience appealing that people won't let you leave the stage, then you know you've reached the goal of the bluegrass business. What I never told Roger (but he'll read this now,) is that my meeting him and talking to him brought me back to a form of music I had long forgotten after years of classical music and opera. I had stuffed away old long-plays, tapes, and guitar chord books after my college days and never learned to appreciate what I had been listening to - or the rampant Hillbilly music wafting out of the West Virginia radio waves that my dad listened to. The musical form has grown a lot since then and we should also expect ourselves to grow in our musical tastes and to learn to be more appreciative of something that was there long before we were born. No bluegrass, No life. No music, No life. Pray for the musically-challenged who walk among us. And thanks, Roger Green for teaching me a lot.