A Bluegrass Essay - My Bluegrass by Gary Robertson

I promised a lot of people I would write a very long essay to be included in my last issue of Bluegrass Virginia.  As I have had more and more difficulty writing, this won’t happen.  But, I do want to try to define
what I think Bluegrass is to me.  First, I truly believe Bluegrass began even before Bill Monroe started his band The Blue Grass Boys.  Here in Virginia and in Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky string bands
existed long before the 1939 date on which Bill Monroe first got his band together.  Oh, the music was rudimentary when compared to the complex music we call Bluegrass today, but it was most certainly the music our music grew out of.  Bluegrass music is played on six instruments only; Mandolin, Banjo, Guitar, Fiddle, Bass and Dobro.  You’ll notice I stated these are the only instruments that comprise Bluegrass.  I
believe this with all my heart.  Other instruments may do guest shots in Bluegrass settings, but these six
instruments are the basis of Bluegrass music.  This fact is the reason that most string music prior to Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys can’t really be called Bluegrass.  The instruments that make up Bluegrass were introduced into the American culture slowly and one by one.  They were changed and adapted as our music made demands of them.  Orville Gibson recognized the need for a different design on the Mandolin and
made radical changes from the old European “taterbug” shape to the modern shape we all recognize today.  Mandolin music had to be louder to compete with that of Guitars and Banjos.  Gibson along with many early builders transformed the Banjo from the weak fretless sound of the early instruments to the bright modern style of Banjo we enjoy today.  Martin took the European Guitar and made it bigger and stronger to accept steel strings and in turn made it louder.  The Fiddle and String Bass remain basically unchanged from the styles created in the 16th and 17th century, having been perfected hundreds of years ago.  The
newest instrument in Bluegrass is the Dobro.  Created by the Dopera brothers this acoustically amplified instrument found it’s way into Bluegrass because of a disagreement between Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs and the Grand Ole Opry.  *Briefly, Bill Monroe was jealous of his music (He felt that Flatt & Scruggs were playing his music and had basically stolen it from him.) was blocking the induction of Flatt & Scruggs as Opry members.  After an intense meeting between Monroe, The Martha White Flour Company (Martha White threatened to withdraw all advertising.) and the Grand Ole Opry leadership it was decided that Flatt & Scruggs could be members of the Opry if they did not feature a Mandolin as a lead instrument.  They agreed and shortly thereafter hired Josh Graves who brought the Dobro into the music of Flatt & Scruggs and hence into Bluegrass music. [*This account was told by Josh Graves on stage at the Bass Mountain Bluegrass Festival]  Now that we have all of the instrument established something should be said about the singing.  Singing is, by far, the most important element of Bluegrass music.  We would become
very tired of Bluegrass if there weren’t vocal numbers.  Here, indeed, Bill Monroe did establish the style of singing that has come to be Bluegrass.  He moved the average string band music to higher keys to match his tenor vocal range and the rest, as they say, is history.  It is when I get to this point in my discussion of Bluegrass that I have some serious disagreements with many scholars of our music.  In Nashville, in front of the Ryman Auditorium is a historical marker that proclaims that Bluegrass started there in 1945 when Bill Monroe along with Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and Chubby Wise started Bluegrass music.  This proclamation has stuck in my craw ever since the historical marker was presented on stage as part of the first IBMA Awards in Nashville.  If we are to believe this, then we must deny the music of the first six years of Bill Monroe & The Blue Grass Boys.  Can we deny that "Muleskinner Blues" is Bluegrass?  What about "Doghouse Blues" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky?"  Please, if you have these early recordings of Bill Monroe,
take some time and sit back and listen to the seeds that began this great music we all love called Bluegrass.  Let me pose this question to you.  If the music played by Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys prior to 1945
was not Bluegrass, why were Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs hired?  Why did they want to be part of the band?  It’s quite simple, Bill Monroe was on fire back then.  I have an old cassette tape of an Opry show before Flatt & Scruggs were members of the Blue Grass Boys and the crowd was wildly enthusiastic.  Monroe’s music was so new and all enthralling that the crowds screamed and cheered much as they did in later years for Elvis and The Beatles.  Bluegrass music has grown and changed, but has retained that basic flavor that makes it the music we love.  I read an article about BBQ recently in which the writer stated that each person is introduced to a food and is told this is BBQ.  From that point forward they judge all other BBQs by the one they were first told was BBQ.  This holds true for Bluegrass as well.  I was told Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys and Flatt & Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys were Bluegrass.  I have
based all my judgements concerning Bluegrass on those bands.  Now, my idea of Bluegrass has grown.  Yes, Bluegrass is and “idea.”  Bill had an idea and created his music.  We all have an idea of what
Bluegrass is and it can be very different from one person to the next.  My brother, Jim, and I came into Bluegrass at the same time, but we have different ideas of what Bluegrass is.  I have devoted the largest
portion of my adult life to following Bluegrass.  Jim, on the other hand, has raised his family and had many
distractions taking his focus away from Bluegrass.  We both still love the music of our beginnings, but I have allowed for a stretching of the envelope into which Bluegrass fits.  Jim remains more strongly rooted in the earlier styles.  Bluegrass, for me, encompasses a wide range of bands and styles and I enjoy most all of them.  Tastes in Bluegrass are as personal as are tastes for various foods.  I find my tastes to be wide ranging (I still don’t like an Electric Bass!), but with a decided leaning toward the traditional music that forms the basis for all of our music.