EDITOR'S NOTE: In the summer of 2017, I answered the 30-Day Music Challenge on this blog. I'll be reupping the best of those posts from time to time, starting with this one.
17. A song that features your favorite artist.
I'll tell you right now, this is a losing game. You don't spend 16 years traveling the road from absolute beginner to semi-professional musician and end up with just one favorite artist.
So, let's pick one.
Once upon a time, from the late 1930s to somewhere in the mid-1950s, bluegrass was country music. The two retained some links throughout the 60s and 70s, so you could hear bluegrass occasionally on the country music variety shows in those days.
Though we watched those shows religiously when I was growing up, I never quite grokked bluegrass. As I've said elsewhere on this blog, any enjoyment I expressed was actively discouraged. Not getting it, then, was a childhood coping strategy. Nevertheless, I kept trying.
Then, I found The Seldom Scene. Their stunning vocal and instrumental precision appealed to my classical training. Their song selection indicated they'd listened to some of the same folk, rock, and gospel records I had.
Their musicianship knocked me out. Just check out the phrase that banjoist, Ben Eldridge plays at about 2:26 on this track. It's simple enough, but he repeats it -- just a little bit louder, and with a soulful, bent string to accent the difference, the progress, the drive.
This was music on a level that the vast majority of artists I'd been listening to hadn't bothered to pursue.
This was bluegrass I understood, and it served as a gateway to the older, more rough-hewn music made by the pioneers of the genre. If The Seldom Scene hadn't appreciated Bill Monroe or The Stanley Brothers, I could never have done so myself.
This is the original and best lineup of The Seldom Scene, live with a number they learned from bluegrass pioneers, Flatt and Scruggs, "Doing My Time".
No comments:
Post a Comment