What Is Bluegrass, Anyway?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Re-upping this piece from November 3, 2017.

It's a question that has perplexed even veteran bluegrass artists, with the possible exception of Bill Monroe, who fathered the genre; a question revisited so often that, in bluegrass circles, it has its own acronym -- WIBA.

What is bluegrass, anyway?

You'll never hear the same answer twice.

Even I, in the relatively-short lifespan of this blog, have suggested different answers.

It might seem strange, but I was pushed to solidify my position on this issue after viewing a superb documentary called "How Britain Got the Blues", which I wrote about here.

The parallels between the way the Mississippi Delta blues gained popularity with British middle class kids in the 50s and the way American college kids embraced traditional bluegrass music just a few years later are striking: White kids, middle class, well-educated, on the liberal end of the socio-political spectrum, with a healthy respect for the original artists, a profound understanding that they had nothing in common with the life experiences of those artists, and the steadfast refusal to act as though they did.

Fast forward to 1996, and award-winning "bluegrass" wunderkind, Alison Krauss, interviewed by Jim Macnie for Rolling Stone in January of 1996.

"You and your band have changed some perceptions about what bluegrass can be and what country is," Macnie observes. 

Krauss: "I think whatever we have slipped by somebody is great. [Laughs.]"

It's hard not to think of Led Zeppelin, who have been sued more than once for ripping off traditional blues artists, and have demonstrated only the most flippant regard for the consequences of their actions. It's interesting to note that Krauss and Zeppelin's Robert Plant were romantically linked for years.

Could it be that what bluegrass is, has do to with morals and ethics?

For me, the answer is definitive: It's how you -- as a fan, promoter, journalist, DJ, publicist, record company exec, or artist -- treat the art and culture of people who have almost nothing but their art and culture to mark their place in the world.

It's whether you seek to redefine or replace that art and culture to entertain privileged, white audiences while reinforcing the idea that they and you are preserving an artistic and cultural expression that is both cutting-edge and authentic.

But, it's the 21st century! If you don't do bluegrass the way everyone else is doing it, how can you do it at all?

Theologian, Eugene Peterson, suggested a better way when he wrote, "The poor are not a problem to be solved, but a people to join."

Regardless of what their belief systems may have been, both Mike Seeger and his half-brother, Pete, exemplified this mindset in the way they collected, distributed, performed, and promoted American vernacular music, and the way they respected its original artists.

Sadly, though there are those who hold similar views today, they lack the prevailing influence on the culture that the the entire Seeger family had. Today's amateur musicologists look to American Idol and Madison Avenue for their promotional strategies, scorning preservation as drudgery, and an impossible task, besides.

If, as many bluegrass traditionalists claim, bluegrass music is dying, it's because the vast majority of "bluegrassers" don't believe they have a moral imperative not to kill it.