Thanks to Joe Kendrick for having me on WNCW to talk about Bluegrass, the Stringdusters, etc. The program, What It Is Radio, just went up on-line. Check out the stream here. Joe has other noteworthy endeavors that you should check out, including Lingua Musica Live, a cool series of video conversations with musicians including the amazing Danny Barnes, our boys Toubab Krewe, Billy Cardine and many more. Erin Scholze conducts a bunch of the interviews. Really good stuff.
Great insightful articulation of how many of us feel who play a more progressive acoustic style of string band music. I like what Chris says about artists who “must play” what comes from inside them and their need to share it. No one I know denigrates the earlier founders of old time and bluegrass; much the opposite. I myself play somewhat differently on the outskirts of traditional forms and get some interesting comments about it from the strictly bluegrass crowd. Playing the banjo, I am expected to “color within the lines” Well….I love the banjo’s place in bluegrass history as well as it’s place in music pre-dating bluegrass by almost 100 years. I look at my banjo as a great instrument to compose on, not limited to any style but rather as my instrument of choice by which to write the music that’s in my heart. What Chris ays about artists of today revering Bella and Del is spot on. A benefit to older, more traditional artists is that THEY THEMSELVES get new fans as followers of The Avett Brothers and Chatam County Line,etc, etc,etc., check out their music after hearing a reference to them coming off the stage or in liner notes or by interviews. Everybody wins.
Totally agreed, spot on. Out west the same thing happened to me.
When I read the Bluegrass Manifesto the same exact thing came to mind: seeing Travis Book and Anders Beck in the early Durango Daze, in addition to Bela (15+ shows), Yonder (48 shows), Avett Bros (once), Leftover Salmon, ENB, & DEB (25+ shows), SCI (20+ shows culminating around ’03), I never would have been interested enough to research the origins of the music style. Not that Bela is a traditionalist, he’s been nominated in something like 7 categories of music by the Grammys, more than any other musician!
Had it not been for TBook, Anders, Yonder and others bringing new flavor to the table, I never would have learned the history of bluegrass in reverse, muchless the timeless songs of the Grateful Dead.