Rolling Stone magazine referred to the recent IBMA World of Bluegrass and the awards handed out as a “sea change”. In particular they noted the Entertainer of the Year award going to Billy Strings. He does stand out in the list of Entertainer of the Year award winners over the past decade as being known as a progressive bluegrass artist but recognizing someone who sells out major venues is hardly radical. Maybe what has changed is a wider recognition of what has been going on in bluegrass for a long time, the progression and maturing of the genre which naturally means diversifying.
Bluegrass is still a young musical genre comparatively, not even one hundred years yet and the history has been full of changes. The birth of the genre itself was a radical shift in string band music. You could note the first bands to copy Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, the first bands to play this music outside of the southeastern USA, the first use of drums or electric instruments, the first inclusion of songs that weren’t either traditional folk tunes or written by one of the first generation of artists, the list is endless. Any of these moments could be seen as a dramatic shift or sea change but I think a more realistic view is that they are stepping stones or building blocks. As with building blocks, you need more than a few in place before you have anything recognizable.
What we’re seeing now in bluegrass is perhaps a more clear picture of what has developed over the past decade or so. Artists are taking inspiration from Monroe, The Stanley Brothers and other early artists, often going back further to the pre-bluegrass days of folk music and adding their own sensibilities and experiences from the 21st century. They’re adding other instruments just like Monroe used accordion or Flatt and Scruggs brought in the dobro. The choice to use those instruments was not delivered on stone tablets from on high, the musicians decided to try something new and people liked it, the same way a band might use a piano or flute now. People still react either favorably or not to the music being created just as they did when Monroe first unleashed the classic line up on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry.
Major changes, like overnight success never really happens all at once or overnight, it’s years in the making. I would suggest what we’re seeing in bluegrass now was planted long ago and is finally flourishing and blooming where everyone can see it.
Maybe those seeds were planted by The New Grass Revival or perhaps it was the “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” album or back to The Charles River Boys and their album “Beatle Country”. Whatever the seeds and whoever planted them, the current bluegrass landscape is thriving as evidenced by the diversity of the sounds.
-Kevin Slick