No offense dude, but if you plan on sending a butload of mail to the lists
could you do it at once? I stopped reading them after number five.
At 05:11 PM 2/28/99 -0500, you wrote:
> * Making Hay in the Field of Bluegrass
> * Country stars Ricky Skaggs and Steve Earle go back to their roots with
> releases that are indicative of the folk genre's rising status.
> MICHAEL McCALL * 02/28/99
> Los Angeles Times
>
> Copyright 1999 / The Times Mirror Company
>
> NASHVILLE -- In the fall of 1997, Ricky Skaggs placed himself at a
> crossroads that changed the direction of his career and his music. As
>* Atlantic Records prepared to issue Skaggs' next country music album, the
> Kentucky-born singer and mandolinist asked the record company if he could
>* simultaneously release an all-bluegrass album on an independent label.
>* Skaggs thought the bluegrass album might help raise his profile. His
> record sales had slipped significantly in the 1990s, and the onetime
> million-seller no longer received any significant airplay on the singles
> he released to country radio.
>TD
> He hoped the concurrent release of two albums might stir interest in
> him. Atlantic Records agreed and allowed the move to be made. The result
>* surprised everyone, from country music insiders to longtime bluegrass
> enthusiasts.
> "Life Is a Journey," Skaggs' country album, was released by Atlantic
>* in September 1997 and barely sold 20,000 copies. Meanwhile, "Bluegrass
> Rules!" was released a month later in a joint partnership between Skaggs
> and the independent label Rounder Records. It sold more than 150,000
>* copies and received the Grammy for best bluegrass album on Wednesday.
> "I am unbelievably overjoyed at what's happened," Skaggs says,
> beaming. Because of those sales figures, Skaggs has left Atlantic and has
>* devoted himself to playing bluegrass music full time again.
>* For the bluegrass community, Skaggs' success is just one high-profile
> example of a growing interest in the traditional American musical genre,
> which was founded in the 1940s when the late Bill Monroe formed his famed
>* Bluegrass Boys band, which included Earl Scruggs on banjo and Lester
> Flatt on guitar and vocals.
>* With Skaggs now fully back in the bluegrass fold, he has joined
> singer-fiddler Alison Krauss as one of the leading young proponents of
>
> the genre. But if Skaggs and Krauss are the modern-day king and queen of
>* bluegrass, the dominion they rule is bigger and healthier than it has
>* been since the early 1960s, when bluegrass' popularity spread beyond the
>* Southeast as part of the folk-music boom.
>* Dan Hayes, executive director of the International Bluegrass Music
> Assn., characterizes the late 1990s as "a particularly golden time in
>* bluegrass music history," adding that there is more good talent playing
> to larger audiences and selling more albums than at any time in recent
> history.
>* Besides Skaggs' recently released album "Ancient Tones," the bluegrass
> community will be watching closely the reaction to two other
> just-released collections: the Del McCoury Band's "The Family" (on
>* Skaggs' Ceili Music label) and Steve Earle's collaboration with the
> McCoury Band, "The Mountain" (on Earle's own E-Squared label).
> Earle's album is certainly the most surprising and talked-about
>* bluegrass entry since Skaggs' return to the fold a year and a half ago.
>* "The Mountain" pairs Earle with the most awarded bluegrass group of
> the '90s. The acoustic album features a drum-less band, built
>* bluegrass-style around mandolin, fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar and
> stand-up bass. All the songs were written by Earle, who penned most of
> them with the McCoury Band in mind.
> In their way, the three high-profile albums by Skaggs, Earle and the
> McCoury Band are decidedly distinct from one another. Skaggs and Kentucky
>
> Thunder's "Ancient Tones" collection looks backward by largely drawing on
>* mountain music classics originally performed by such bluegrass patriarchs
> as the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs and Bill Monroe. Rather than
> calling on nostalgia, though, Kentucky Thunder plays the songs with a
> dynamic intensity that highlights the timelessness of the music.
> On the other hand, Earle's "The Mountain" features original songs
> written by the singer-songwriter, who further displays his mastery by
>* both perfectly mimicking archetypal bluegrass tunes ("Carrie Brown") as
> well as expanding the genre to take on new topics and influences ("Paddy
> on the Beat"). By coincidence, both Skaggs and Earle wrote a new
> instrumental with a reference in the title to Connemara, a scenic rural
> area in western Ireland.
> The Del McCoury Band straddles Skaggs' classicism and Earle's forward
>* progress. By combining a stunning vocal workout on the classic bluegrass
> gospel song "Get Down on Your Knees and Pray" with a bristling version of
> the pop oldie "Nashville Cats" and stellar new songs, McCoury pays
> respect to the past while casting an eye to the future.
>* "Bluegrass has been a component of my music for as long as I've been
>* making records," Earle says, pointing out that one of his country-rock
> hits, 1988's "Copperhead Road," was what he calls "a heavy-metal
>* bluegrass song."
>* Still, bluegrass players tend to be conservative and fundamentally
> religious. That makes Earle, 44, who spent time in jail in 1995 on drug
> charges, an unusual figure to be leading a commercial revival in
>* bluegrass.
> Earle recognizes that he may be seen as an outsider. "This won't be my
>* last bluegrass record," he says, "unless I'm tar-and-feathered at some
>* bluegrass festival this year."
> *
>* If Earle is viewed as a convert to bluegrass, Skaggs, also 44, was
>
> raised in it.
>* A former bluegrass prodigy who joined Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain
>* Boys band when he was 15, Skaggs parted with the bluegrass world in 1981
> when he signed with Columbia Records and began making mainstream country
> albums.
> Initially, he succeeded enormously. He became a leader of country's
>* back-to-basics movement in the early '80s, winning a Grammy and country
>* music's most prestigious honor, the Country Music Assn.'s Entertainer of
> the Year.
> But with the advent of Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and the "power
>* country" movement of the '90s, Skaggs and traditional country music fell
> from favor. That bothered him, of course, until he found his way back
>* home to bluegrass and once again found himself at the head of a
> back-to-roots musical movement.
> "If I'd have kept having No. 1 hits and successful records, I probably
>* wouldn't have thought to leave and go back [to bluegrass]," Skaggs says.
> "But as far as I'm concerned, it couldn't have worked out better. I'm so
> happy with what I'm doing. I'm fulfilled in every way."
>* While sales are sometimes hard to track because so much bluegrass is
> sold at the proliferating festivals and through mail-order catalogs,
> Hayes contends that the music is enjoying greater album sales than at any
>* other time in bluegrass history.
> And what about newcomers such as Earle?
>* Hayes acknowledges that some members of the bluegrass community might
> be wary of the erstwhile country-rocker and his motives.
>* "There are those who are protective of the image of bluegrass as a
> family-style music, and they may wonder what's going on and why this
>* person is doing this," he says. "But bluegrass people are more
> open-minded than they're given credit for.
> "In Steve's case, I know his love and respect for the music is
> genuine. Once the fans see that, he will be welcomed and embraced. If it
> was perceived that he was doing it for anything other than heartfelt
> reasons, he indeed might be tarred and feathered. But when they see him
> play with the McCoury Band, they'll understand quickly that he is coming
> at it from the heart."
>* Earle, for his part, believes the influence of bluegrass music reaches
> far beyond those choosing to play the music full time.
>
> "The thing I think is important to understand is that all these kids
>* in bands like Son Volt and Marah, they all listen to bluegrass a lot,"
> Earle says. "They all know who Del McCoury is. And they all identify with
>* it directly because they realize instinctively that bluegrass is the
>* original alternative to commercial country music. It is the original
>* alt-country music."
>* As for a pending bluegrass boom, Earle is cautious not to overstate
> the case.
> "It's important not to overestimate an anomaly," he says of the
>* concurrent bluegrass releases of Skaggs, the McCoury Band and himself.
>* "But I do believe one thing: Bluegrass music will last, one way or
>* another. That's the way bluegrass is--people will always be drawn to it,
> because it's the real thing. The record I just made might not be my
> biggest seller. But it will always sell, and I'll always be able to pay
>* alimony with it, because there will always be a market for bluegrass
> music."
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