>I hate to be all hippie, but isn't music supposed to be unifying and all
>that? What the hell is with all this snide divisive shit? Let damn Darius
>Rucker play the mandolin fer chrissakes. It's an instrument, not the holy
>grail.
AMEN!
There is a constant battle that always goes on between the
traditionalist and the people who like to experiment in music such as
bluegrass (or oldtime, and I would assume other styles). It even goes
down to non-musical things such as album covers (I've heard a few people
get bent out of shape because Ricky Skaggs' new album "doesn't look like
a bluegrass album" i.e. no people on the cover.) Bluegrass music may
seem like a genre that is based on rules, but in reality it was
originally based upon innovation.
I have nothing against either the traditionalists or those pushing the
definition of bluegrass. I think we need both. What we don't need is
the ongoing battle between the two camps.
By the way, the same argument gets thrown around even more in oldtime
music. The funny part is that often the traditionalists seem to forget
that the origin of oldtime music wasn't in the 1920s. That's just the
origin of *recorded* oldtime music. I have a record from an old fiddler
who was recorded in the 40s and was born in 1864. His name was Emmett
Lundy. He was from Grayson County Virginia and said that his dad
wouldn't play any of those "new" fiddle tunes that Emmett played. Those
tunes he speaks of are some that many oldtime fiddlers would consider
some of the oldest in the southern appalachian repetoire.
--
======================================================
Steve Gardner * Sugar Hill Records Radio Promotion
[EMAIL PROTECTED] * www.sugarhillrecords.com
----------------------------------------------------
WXDU "Topsoil" * A Century of Country Music
[EMAIL PROTECTED] * www.topsoil.net
======================================================
