Sunday, February 25, 2007

Some Truth About Bluegrass, Urban Style






Bluegrass at Wintergrass is a lot of things and so much more then the nearly 80 concerts staged in and around the Tacoma WA Sheraton Hotel.

“White Man’s Soul” is what some called this genre in an earlier harder edged and less politically correct era.

The notes, chords and the rest of the nuts and bolts of this bowdlerized version of the music handed down through generations of immigrants from across the Atlantic Ocean were popularized in and around 1937 by the self-proclaimed “Father of Bluegrass,” Bill Monroe.

Whew! Now that we’re through with that mouthful, let’s take a short tour of the urbanized Bluegrass offered in late February 2007 smack dab in the middle of downtown Tacoma.

This music so deservedly popularized by Mr. Monroe, who in his own right was a craftsman on the mandolin and a master of the high pitched solo vocals, is truly for the family; it is a community of kindred souls who provide a much better show then that presented onstage by:” The Mammals;” “The Infamous Stringdusters;” “Crooked Still;” and a quartet of comely ladies, “Uncle Earl.”

The Sheraton’s conference rooms were full of musicians of all ages from bald to silver haired and those who need not “Just for Men,” or “Clairol.”

There they could learn the ins and outs of the Claw Hammer Banjo, or Guitar for the Impatient Beginner; Put The Blues Back in Bluegrass; Singing From The Soul and among others, How To Achieve Success in Ordering a Custom Guitar, all of the preceding with appropriate quotation marks.

Jamming is so integral to Bluegrass whether under the starry desert night skies of Southern California or on the green hills of Tennessee. And jamming is what you get with every nook and cranny filled with pickers of all sexes and ages filling the air with “Wildwood Flower, or making attempts at reprising Bach.

There are sidewalk singers and pickers, musicians crowd doorways and have been known to bend a saw blade on the Sheraton’s outdoor pavilion.

There was no fluting in Tacoma in 2007, but there isn’t a 7th floor balcony either.

No comments: