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The following article was written in 2010 by Elaine Binney as part of her music degree at Salford University. She contacted the Britannia Band and interviewed us a couple of times and sat in with us on some of our club nights.  Bluegrass: Preserving a Cultural Identity
For the most part, music and academia seem somewhat disconnected; after all, how can one place the feelings and emotions produced when playing or listening to music in a scholarly category? The truth is, however, that each of these feelings and emotions are rooted firmly within the social sphere of the genre of music being listened to or played, and this allows the musician to become accepted into the musical sphere and to feel part of something. This is a very academic view and I have spent the past few months placing this in the context of the Bluegrass genre.
I chose to study Bluegrass music because I felt very drawn to it and I was intrigued by the fact that it seemed to transport me to the roots of the genre each time I listened to it; indeed I felt as though I could be sitting in a bar in Kentucky happily singing along and dancing to the music. Indeed this is the most crucial discovery within my research: the roots of the genre seem to be clutched by each Bluegrass band and spread through their audience almost as a stand for the preservation of their music. And this has bled through the ages to today’s Bluegrass bands: I spent a lot of time studying the Britannia Bluegrass Band – how they played, how they performed and how they interacted with each other and indeed the audience. The focus seemed to be on involving everyone in their music and their performance and an instant musical community seemed to be created and most of all, it was fun. Immediately, the status between musician and audience was equal unlike many other genres. For example, if we look at Ozzy Osbourne, we would never expect him to have conversations with his audience or ask for any requests. The Britannia Bluegrass Band’s approach to performing appeared to be a lot more relaxed and very beautiful because of this. In addition, many genres see hierarchies within bands and between performers; indeed a rock band’s front man has the highest status and often the rest of the band will not talk to the audience during performances. This is the same for many genres, however not Bluegrass! The status between each musician in the Britannia Bluegrass Band appeared to be equal and this was such a refreshing change, for me this made the performance much more enjoyable and allowed each member’s personality to come through within the performance. Bruno Nettl discusses the ‘reconstruction of culture’ in his book ‘Theory and Methodology in Ethnomusicology’. Placing this in context, I previously mentioned how well the Bluegrass culture of the Deep South has been preserved and brought over to England and other parts of the world and this is illustrated by are many little traits that seem to have survived since the days of Bill Monroe. In the days when only one microphone was used for a performance of a whole band, the solos required the instruments to be thrust up towards the microphone in order to be heard. Very interestingly, this still happens today when most instruments seem to have amplification of their own – I have seen many a mandolin player hold their mandolin up to the microphone in a stance that Bill Monroe would be proud of! Furthermore, the instrumentation seems to have remained a very rigid aspect of Bluegrass culture and has not changed since the very beginnings of the genre – even the ‘high-lonesome’ singing style has remained a beautiful feature of the music. If we delve into other parts of the world, we can see that a very strong comparison can be drawn between Bluegrass musicians and Griot performers. Griot performers are West African performers whose job is to perpetuate the oral tradition of society, often by performing music. The music is very similar to Bluegrass music in the way that it was born through cultural means and is firmly rooted in society; even the instrumentation is very similar – guitars are used and as is a predecessor of the banjo named an ‘ngoni’. If you’re interested in listening to the links between Bluegrass and Griot music, then I would recommend the performer ‘Cheick’, you might be very surprised! However, there was one thing which worried me about becoming involved in this music: there seemed to be very few women performers compared to male performers. Indeed this is a generalisation and there are many outstanding female musicians within this sphere, however one cannot deny that it is very male dominated. The reason for this is perhaps that the venues the music was performed in when it was beginning to become a genre of its own were bars and other establishments associated with alcohol and violence. Of course this is not the case today, but at the time these were not places where women would be seen performing. This is another trait which has perhaps bled through the ages; however the attitude towards women performing seems never to have been a negative one. In fact, women were welcomed into the genre and many became extremely successful. The Britannia Bluegrass Band welcomed me into their performances better than I’ve ever been welcomed into a musical sphere before and I have a lot to thank them for as they opened my eyes to how truly beautiful, friendly and exciting Bluegrass music is – and this is a cultural tradition which I am sure will never cease to continue through the ages. |
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