Dorothy

They're one of my favourite groups.

caretaker

Converts from O Brother. You don't turn away sheep coming to the fold.... It's only a matter of time until they discover Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys and Alan Lomax's legacy of Appalachian archival recordings (clog dancing vid above demonstrates, no matter who made it). With youtube you can shop before you book - these days I'd want to go to one where Bruce Molsky's band is playing, (I Get My Whiskey in Rockingham). I was buying Doc Watson records and going to Earl Scruggs Revue concerts in the 70's, worked at old-time fiddle contests in the 80's, but have not yet been to a Bluegrass Festival.

I posted that clog dancing video on a British carp fishing site and they didn't quite know what to make of it. Interestingly, there are groups in the UK doing Appalachian clogging; when I watched I thought they had to be from the states.

Meanwhile in America the Scots-Irish descendants that filtered into the remotest areas and were left drinking their own whiskey on the sides of mountains for centuries didn't so much change the music and dance as cure it, their dialects no longer the same but traces of burr and lilt present. Every accent comes from somewhere, and music all comes from somewhere. They all brought their fiddles with them, so settling in the new world was accompanied by tunes from the old country, and my theory is that with the addition of a few more instruments that evolved into bluegrass.

Gordon Barlow

I've never been to a bluegrass festival, either, but I would swim across the Gulf of Mexico to hear a day or two of this kind of music!

Dorothy

That was great, Gordon.

Pulaski

Very true.
That's not just "your" theory. .... And it happened just up the road from chez Pulaski.

zzrmark

My, banjo playing, wife will disagree vociferously with your description. Rednecks listen to country music, bluegrass is for hill-billies. The two are as closely related as Conservative 'Christians' are to liberal atheist LGBTQ's.

Beaverstate

Please do not compare what passes for country music the past 35 years or so..to be what many consider to be country music far truer to a rural type.
These people who are popular in their own time are no more country music than they are to Haggard to Carrie Underwood. Not a critique just a complete genre difference.. Haggard could play blue grass passingly, and with feeling.

Anian

Modern country music is really just rock music with a different accent.

Nutek

Pulaski

And twangy guitars. .... And if you need any proof, look at who produced Shania Twain's albums in the 1990's and 00's, and for that matter, look at Shania Twain's first (I think) album.

If Carrie Underwood had been born 30 years earlier she would have been going head to head with Pat Benatar.

petitefrancaise

Robert Plant did a cd with Alison Krauss a couple of years ago. I usually admire his willingness to try out new genres but I thought it was horrible. She lives in Austin and is a local star but not my cup of tea at all.

tom169

Male country singers i'm fine with... I just can't stand the stereotypical female country singer whining voice.

caretaker

I'm glad my whiskey fits in her purse.
In an effort to remain on-topic, Uncle Pen:

Hiro11

This is only true of the stuff that's played on commercial country radio. Country's a pretty broad spectrum.

WEBlue

When our family lived in TX in the 80s/90s, we went to the Kerrville Folk Festival a couple of times. I'd never heard much Bluegrass at all before this, not to mention the other kinds of indigenous country/rural American music.... To this day, one of my kids is a huge Bluegrass fan, & in fact has taken up playing the banjo (--not quite so easy in London).

We owned a VW camper van in those days so we camped out with our kids on the grounds for the duration of the festival, & it was an absolutely fantastic family holiday. I just checked the web & it's still going on--the website says it's been happening annually for 46 years!

One year we woke up towards the end of the festival to find overnight rains had flooded the campgrounds. We JUST managed to pack up & drive the van out to the main road before the water rose high enough to strand the vehicles behind us.

All of us were bitten all over our legs by the fire ants swimming in that flood.