This record was made in the waning years of the first wave of bluegrass -- 1952, to be exact. Four years later, Elvis Presley would come along, ushering in the period known as the Bluegrass Depression.
During the remaining years of the 50s, the bluegrass faithful deserted the Monroes, the Stanleys, and their second-tier imitators. Audiences that once travelled for miles to see first-generation bluegrass acts flocked to shows by Presley and other early rock figures. Simultaneously, country music moved uptown to Nashville. It got slicker, and less embarrassing to the middle class, in the process.
In the late 50s, college kids like Mike Seeger and Ralph Rinzler discovered bluegrass as a dying art form. They recognized its genius, but they processed it as just another form of folk music, never quite understanding its roots in the blues.
They took bluegrass to American colleges and universities, where it metamorphosed into a musical movement that bluegrass musicians refer to as the Folk Scare, only half in jest.
In the process, bluegrass was saved, but it was lost, too. Today, it sounds like the whitest, safest music you could imagine. I wish this iteration of Bill Monroe his Blue Grass Boys were still together to make bluegrass real and true and dangerous again.
This is Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, and all the rest of the Blue Grass Boys with "In the Pines".
No comments:
Post a Comment