The Origins of Bluegrass
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2020
- Bluegrass was developed in the appalachian region of the United States. The music drew its characteristics from old-time and traditional European folk music.
The settlers of the appalachian region were primarily English and Scottish, and they brought the musical traditions from their homelands to their new home. This is why jigs and reels, especially with the fiddle, were what defined the developing style. Black musicians from the Old World also brought the banjo to the Appalachia; which greatly influenced the formation and style of the genre.
The developing stages of Bluegrass were influenced and often based on the “Child Ballads” that originated from England, Ireland and Scotland. Most of these ballads consisted of a particular narrative accompanied by dance and the fiddle, and were occasionally paired with other string instruments
Both the fiddle and the guitar are believed to have been incorpoarted in the earliest traces of bluegrass. The first european settlers of the appalachian are known to have brought both fiddles and guitars to the region. The fiddle was especially important, since most of the ballads included it. The Guitar was often included, but historians mostly agree that the instrument was often deemed less important than the fiddle.
The fiddle and guitar’s role in bluegrass has evolved over time, with the instruments taking on a vast diversity of roles in the modern era of bluegrass.
Since Bill Monroe helped to officially categorize the genre of bluegrass, most consider there to be three of four generations with distinct characteristics.
I grew up in the Appalachian Mtns of VA and all my cousins on my dad's side played bluegrass. I love it from old time to New Grass to Billy Strings.
Nashville Hillbilly here, Don't fergit The Carter Family.
You got to have FUN
czcams.com/video/BaE0D852n3Q/video.html
Dr Hook 🇬🇧
Not blue grass but Fun. 👍
Check out David Hoffman Film maker on youtube . He has made lots of classic Film on Blue Grass music. 👍🇬🇧
@@g4joe
Thank you.
Check out Splitlip Rayfield and Kirk Runstrom`s other work. Check out his song, "Hard Seven" and I think "Kiss Of Death (to cars)" is by Splitlip. They/he have some very spooky stuff that I can`t remember the names of. Oh, "Abilene" is a cool one and "Used To Call Me Baby." Those are easiest for me to play and sing live without damaging anything.
Bluegrass has a special place in my heart. Thank you for this video, this music is an important part of people’s history and heritage
Went to my first bluegrass jam in 1979. I immediately bought a Sigma guitar and started learning tunes. 40 plus years later, all my electrics have been sold, i still have the Sigma and i even have a Martin. Bluegrass is all i ever play now, the world's most beautiful music.❤❤❤
You have a heart and a soul.
I was never into bluegrass music before, until I heard these young artists do it: The Petersen's, and the Cotton Pickin' Kids.
You need to listen to Rocky Skaggs and Ralph Stanley if you like cotton picking kids
Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Moumtain Boys? Leaving them out of the history of Bluegrass is unfathomable!
For REAL 😮
Bill monroe
They haven’t been left out.
Greatly appreciate your time bringing this to us ❤
Great vid, really appreciate the hard work you did here on this compilation. 😊
To the creator of this video, I just want to give you my endearing thanks from the bottom of my heart. You know, sometimes when you're sitting by yourself with your dog, in the back of your van at a rest stop, you need a voice like this to your mind you of the importance and the muse of following up on a legacy you might never have known
Check out David Hoffman film maker on CZcams.
He has made classic Film of Blue Grass music.👍🇬🇧
Awesome job man I am so glad that you emphasize the Irish and Scottish music that does not get enough credit in other genres of music as well that was created in America good job sir
mathewwilliams3643. certainly scottish fiddle reel music.
Yer kiddin' rite? All bluegrass history documents start with Northern British Isles roots mixed with African influences... poverty breeds plenty talents. Ritey rite?
@@billsadler3So just what is African about bluegrass? And yes, I know that the banjo has its roots in Africa. The musically there is influences from african American music but not african by itself.
@billsadler3 Also Scottish music is the root of bluegrass
Fair enough, though women got a bit of a brush-off. Molly Tuttle, sure. Sierra Hull, Alison Krauss, Sarah Jarosz... monster talents and innovators -- and the nicest folks you could want to meet. And it would be good to point out that bluegrass is an international music now. You can find it in Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark... Japan, Korea... Peru... and (guessing here lol) Zimbabwe.
What about Hazel, Alice, Lynn, and at least dozen others from the 50s, 60s and 70s? I guess we won’t talk about the Old Times Tradition, which dates back to Stephen Foster, if not further…
One of the best bluegrass radio stations ever was out of Uzbekistan back in the eighties. That was coal mining country over there so they had a great appreciation for bluegrass.
So no mention of Mother Maybelle Carter and her development of guitar scratch and picking techniques which she taught directly to Earl Scruggs?
5/21/23: Yep! The Carter Scratch! Maybelle Carter did things her way. Thank goodness for Mommy Maybelle!
I could sit and listen by the hour, while Maybelle played The Wildwood Flower.
That’s not Bluegrass
@@sambac2053 Never said it was. But the guitar technique developed by Maybelle Carter was adopted by many Blue Grass players and was important to the genre.
It should be noted that Bill Monroe played with his brother Charlie at first and Bill incorporate Blues he learned from a black man at his family farm. So we are not only thankful for the banjo but the blues from Americans with family roots from Africa.
Billy Strings is continuing the Bluegrass legacy...
And what a shame that he has included the foulest foul language! So unnecessary in such a talent!
@@bluegrasshack3810 Is this why he was left out, over language? Fucking A! He smokes fatties on stage too!
And he’s mediocre at best… this genre is dead 🫠😭
@@rip5956 he's like the most popular bluegrass player in decades. His concerts are always sold out and incredibly fun. I'm not even a big blue grass fan but Billy, Trampled by Turtles and Greensky Blue grass all put on killer shows and are keeping that genre alive IMHO
Judging from the comments, this could justify a full length video. I got hooked on bluegrass when I first saw The Gibson Brothers play in the Cumberland Caves.
Check out David Hoffman Film maker on CZcams he has made some of the most classic film of Blue Grass music. I think some of them are in the Library of Congress. 👍🇬🇧
Excellent video much thanks. New to bluegrass I coined it this way "upbeat folk music" amazing singing by both folk and bluegrass they like to hold their notes. Respect 🙏 and ❤ love to all
Really useful video. Thank you for uploading!
Very well done. Objective and dispassionate. I deeply appreciate this!
Enjoyed your video, thanks for sharing, keep looking up!
Thank you very much for this very informative video. Enjoyed it very much! 👍
One of my favorite types of music, along with traditional country music. Thanks.
One of my sweetest memories is seeing Flatt and Scruggs in concert.
Thanks so much for this video. This is a really informative version of bluegrass history
Hello Jamie 👋 how are you doing today??
Such an informative video about bluegrass and its development over the years.
SO NICELY DONE !!!!! THANKS FOR THAT !!!!!
Super awesome video. Norman Blake is my favourite.
I think of bluegrass music as a race between a banjo, a mandolin and a fiddle.
Great information, thanks.
Thank you for this docu and all the work getting the photos etc. together, well done matey and a big cheers from BC Canada! This is history that should be known and spread far and wide to all of the newer generations of musicians imho.
Great video… thank you do much!!!
It's interesting to see a video about the roots of bluegrass that doesn't even mention vocal harmony...
5/21/23: RIGHT! Vocal harmony was/is everything!
this picture on my wall shows an old man my great grandfather with his family setting around him on the steps of a house my grandmother is a child on his knee hes holding a old fiddle in his other arm the true origins of bluegrass my dad used to play with the stanley brothers when they started . he traded his guitars for a car and married my mother love struck again
and there is a title for a song to love struck again
Very nicely done!
Very best bluegrass band I have ever heard was Crooked Still.
Fantastic!
TYVM for doing this for us.
The history of the 5 string banjo is a fascinating story. It's also, really the heart of any string band. The banjo is a unique instrument in that it's a chromatic instrument, you can play all the notes on it, but you still tune it to one key or another. Usually it's tuned to G. Then the fiddle is tuned to the banjo and everyone else plays in that key. To me the banjo is the great American instrument. There have been a few other instruments invented in America but nothing quite so influential. It's so influential that it's gone back over the ocean and is now often used in celtic music.
I hate the fact that our Americans of African descent had to get here in such a terrible way but I'm happy they are here. America would be a boring place without them. Bluegrass and other traditional American styles would have no banjo and thus would be very different. We don't know what it would sound like but you might get some idea by comparing the different folk traditions of Europe. Not to belittle a huge range of diverse and wonderful music but there's nothing to me that really stands out as anything special in the same way that American music is. Then there's jazz and blues. Could you imagine America without jazz? That's like our genre of sophisticated music. Music schools, if they're not teaching classical, they're probably teaching jazz. And then of course rock and roll. One could make a case that no other genre has ever been quite so influential. These are the things that make America special. Hip hop music. If you go to India and listen to Indian popular music, it'll likely be some variation of Indian music with a hip hop beat. Often pop elements are added too. Same thing all over Africa and other places. African music with a hip hop beat. The African American influence on American music and indeed all music, cannot be overstated. So, to all my black friends, thanks for creating my reason for being.
🙏
I love everything about the comment you wrote. As far as the banjo thing goes, it really upsets me that people hate on them so much and make jokes. It’s the quintessential American instrument and there’s nothing quite like it 🪕
This is very well done. But mentioning women in bluegrass without mentioning Alison Krauss? That's quite an oversight.
It's a colossal mistake she wasn't mentioned, regardless of gender.
Agreed. And Rhonda Vincent
Amen to that.
Rhonda Vincent and the Rage...the only person/band I've seen 10 times ...in person...The Queen of Bluegrass...
Ms Krauss is certainly great, as is Ms Vincent. However neither of them have anything to do with the ORIGIN of bluegrass
Great stuff! thank you!
Now we know where we've been. As to where we're going, ask Billy Strings.
Billy mf strings is possibly the goat. Now not too say that all the other legends didn't have there fun in the sun but objectively Billy is just better in every sense of the word
Yawn
great knowledge, thank you
I’ve mostly been a headbanger my entire life but got hooked on bluegrass by the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Stanley, Scruggs, Alison, The Dead South - I’m hooked on this stuff.
So, you too need to join Bluegrass Annonymissss?
This was awesome.
Thanks that was cool and a great listen
Thank you for the information, very interesting.
Greetings, a banjoplayer from Germany!
Really enjoyed this video, although many wonderful musicians were omitted ! Doc Merle miss you guys but we've got Billy strings & Molly Tuttle and Rhiannon Giddens playing wonderful music so things are looking good . Folk music is alive and well !
.....and Sierra Hull and A.J.Lee and Michael Cleveland and Dead South and Greensky and........
@@randyelliott9152 you got it my friend !
He was my uncle
Thanks for mentioning Rhiannon Giddens. Your the first person who I’ve seen mention her. I really liked her take on the Osborn brothers tune and hardly ever hear her mentioned in conversations about bluegrass.
@@deweyplanck9850 Dewey, its' usually the case that real talent gets overlooked, but for people like us ,we know better and are blessed with that knowledge, keep on listening, and peace to you my friend!
The mentions in the comments of all of the excellent musicians who were “not mentioned” highlights just how many people love to play/sing this unique American genre and can do it pretty well. That’s the magic of it and similar forms of folk music - can’t listen without wanting to join in, and all players including the famous want all to join! At my first festival back in 1974, after the first evening’s performances, we encountered all sorts of late night campfire “pickin’ sessions” and joined one only to discover Bill Monroe ‘hissself’ was just one of the ‘pickers’ ‘tradin’ licks’ with each other. Would never find that at a big time LiveNation etc concert where the rock or pop musicians have all sorts of security and are bundled in/out via limo and private jet. Give me these best forms of true music of our American community that anyone is welcome and encouraged to join right in - anytime, anywhere!
The thing I've always loved about Bluegrass is it's accessibility to the common folks. If you can't grab a couple stringed instruments and scrub off a tune then is it really Bluegrass?
No
Yes, the art, the feel, and your fingers, your heat, your FREEDOM OH YEAH......
WE CAN ALL MAKE MUSIC, BUT TRULY WITHOUT FREEDOM, YOU'LL HOLD YOURSELF BACK.....
GET PLUCKING FREEDOM 🌍🥺🌎👁️☠️👁️🗣️👍😍
No
Really nice presentation.
I love the traditional, old-time mountain music. It's real and you can feel the heart and soul and centuries behind it. Can't really get into what's been "hipped up" with modern singing styles and a little jazz. It's becoming like the "meh" pop music I hear in stores and offices.
billy strings is doing it best rn!
If anyone had told me that it was possible to produce a boring documentary about something as exciting and dynamic as bluegrass I towould never have believed it. But you guys proved it could be done. It’s not just the flat exposition. In addition
to leaving out Jimmy Martin you also made no mention of female Loosestring Band or the Petersens, not to mention any of the people associated with SPBGMA. Really good, objective job!
I totally agree! Super flat, boring and some facts wrong.
I haven't seen a mention, but I expect there are other fans of the David Grisman Quintet and their successful blend of alt/progressive/jazz/bluegrass sounds. As a genre bluegrass can accommodate so many other styles .... something to please everyone. One of my all time favorite tunes is 'Sally Goodin' and I never tire of hearing it (esp. Flatt/Scruggs). Keep pickin' and singin' ... ☺
Love bluegrass...from Chicago, Illinois. ❤
Thank You Very Much....
Great breakdown of the history of bluegrass. My grandpa picked when I was young and watched heehaw religiously. I thought man something wrong with him black folk dont play that type of music but as I got older listen to it myself and tomorrow we will be heading to the Earl Scruggs Fest.
Thank you from Germany for this video!
Thank you so much!!!
The 4th gen can hang it up - give me the old hillbilly version.
I definitely agree. I strongly prefer the old hillbilly version.
The new artists actually turn people on to the old artists for me that's a good thing do you not think !
Well done, merci.
In 1990 while visiting newly freed Czechoslovakia, I was surprised to learn the Czechs loved Blue Grass Music. They even knew Jimmy Martin and Doyle Lawson from Hancock Co., TN.
I'm Czech and I also like Bluegrass.😀
Thank you so much I really really enjoyed listening to you about Blue Grass and it’s origin’s, and I agree with the comment below that Alison Krause should have been mentioned too, along with many other’s too.
Thank you for this interesting overview! It is impossible to mention all famous artists. But even in Germany we heard and hear these musicians:
David Grisman
Mike Marshall
David Grisman
Bela Fleck
David Grisman
Darol Anger
David Grisman
Country Cooking
and of course:
The Henhouse Prowlers.
There's also
David Grisman
The Steeldrivers
David Grisman
Billy Strings
David Grisman
The Dead South!!
LOL!
Don't forget the Gibson F5 mandolin !!!
Don't forget David Grisman.
Very interesting, thank you 👍🇬🇧
I can't believe you left out The King of Bluegrass, Jimmy Martin. How can you do a history of this music w/o Jimmy Martin is baffling.
And Tonny Rice
Thanks ❣️
GREAT! Alas, far too short. Do another one FULL of details, and examples!
Very interesting.. Vol. 2 - Mark O’Connor, Newgrass, … - keep on truckin’!
Italians and Eastern Europeans helped to bring the mandolin to Appalachia in the late 1800's - 20th century in the Coal Camps. I'm willing to bet there is some musical overlap from one culture to the next. They also brought it to parts of the deep south. Gibson made mandolins in U.S. in part because more European immigrants were coming who played it.
Hello how are you doing…?
Bluegrass is true American music. Love it!!
No it isn't.. I was playing fiddle tunes at grange hall dances for farmers for twenty years before I ever heard the word Bluegrass. It's good stuff yes- but most of it is just good old country tunes that have been around a while..
@@ericsprado4631 Never said itvwasn't "country music" and yah, it's bern around a long time...just like America
@@ericsprado4631 Bluegrass is older then anyone alive in this comment section including you.
Bluegrass originated with Bill Monroe in the 1940's.
@@6h471 He invented the name that's about it
In late 2018 mu dad started cleaning out his woodworking shop and id go sit out there with him and help and one time he played "My Oh My" by the punch brothers i had always thought of bluegrass as old people music my grandma liked Christian bluegrass but it never grabbed my attention like the punch brothers i forgot about them for awhile but in September we went to North Carolina and it made me remember them
As a wv native there’s just something to this music that’s makes the soul joyful and cry at the same time
Hello how are you doing..?
Don't forget Patti Loveless. & Ricky Skaggs.😊
@@gailragsdale885 Nice meeting you here where are you originally from..?
As they day--- Country Rocks, but Bluegrass Rules!!!!!
Tony Rice's contribution was electrifying the bass???.....this guy hasn't a clue!....in addition, Rice emerged in the 70's, not 80's......also, no Doc??...no Clarence?...no Dawg who started the whole jazz influence??.....someone needs to revisit the history!
It's tough to sum up the history of bluegrass, or the banjo in 13 mins--- but what about Bela Fleck or Tony Trishka?? Add them to your list!!!!!!!!
Doc was included at the start singing pretty Saro and the cuckoo, I no what you mean about Tony though !
It was already jazzy in the way it highlighted the individual musicians with solo breaks that encouraged innovation and creativity.
Most of what I’ve seen tony rice in it was an upright standard bass fiddle that was being played. I mostly remember Clarence white from his rock career. It wasn’t until recently that I’ve heard his guitar and he was phenomenal. I always was amazed at Tony’s style of mixing flat picking with finger style on the guitar. Plus as good as he was he never seemed to play center star of a band. The all star jams with mark oconner, Sam bush, Bella fleck, and jerry Douglas was bluegrass at its best.
Love bluegrass.
Completely forgot Jerry Garcia, Vassar, Dawg, Pete Rowan and Khan…..Old and in the Way was the best selling Bluegrass recording of all time
Jerry Garcia was never good enough to be a bluegrass player.
Yeeyeeesir
Jer bear was the shit in his day
No metion of any fiddlers (Baker, Clements, Hicks,and the latest Michael Cleveland) not to menton Jimmy Martin, The King of Bluegrass. How does anyone leave out Jimmy Martin???
Not to mention Bill Keith, Bela Fleck, Allison Krauss.
You mentioned Molly Tuttle, and you didn't mention Billy Strings. Who has an entire concert of Doc Watson songs. Probably today, the most famous bluegrass singer, songwriter and of course an amazing musician.
I love billy strings, but I gotta tell you a secret: there are other musicians
@@gxtmfa Check out Splitlip Rayfield and Kirk Runstrom`s other work. Check out his song, "Hard Seven" and I think "Kiss Of Death (to cars)" is by Splitlip. They/he have some very spooky stuff that I can`t remember the names of.
He also didn't mention a ton of other awesome people, so Billy's in good company. This is just a short video.
@@gxtmfa ...aye ... & where are the Hamilton County Bluegrass Band?
& more obscurely, given they played
our teenage bibleclass countryhall dances,
lured by farm-baked suppers,
the Red River Orchestra? ;
Yeah, I totally get the saturation of Billy Strings when it comes to bluegrass and folks wanting to promote other folks. I do like that he broadened the audience, but also understand why folks want to bring attention to other artists. In the end though, if I were doing a survey of all of bluegrass, a history like the one here, it seems a tad strange to exclude him just because he's currently a pop star
BRILLIANT..🇬🇧..Thanks
This was JUST before Billy Strings went nationwide.
It appears that there is a BIG HOLE in the second generation. Some banjo player showed up in Louisville in the early 80s. He hooked up with Sam Bush to play in Newgrass Revival and played with Jerry Douglas, Tony Rice, and many, many others. In the late 80s he formed a new sound/ group... Bela Fleck and The Flecktones.
I met Bela in the Galt House in Lo'Ville during the ol' 4 day KFC Bluegrass fest first in 1979/80-- Believe it or not, He was still picking beans in N. Carolina at the time before New Grass R made it big!!! We were very fortunate to see all the 1st generation players from Bill Monroe, Don Reno, Stanley Bros, Doc and Merle, Dillards, Osbournes, John Hartford, Kenny Baker, Curly Seckler, and countless others at the early Kentucky, and NC festivals!!!!!!
that clip did not do molly justice! that girl fucking DESTROYS the fret board, molly and billy strings are the future of flatpicking
....🥀
Your not joking, that is if molly sticks with bluegrass. She’s done some pretty good contemporary songs.
Billy has that psychedelia feel also. Not a bad thing I would say!
@@stephencopping9953 Yeah his Grammy live appearance was an amazing montage of bluegrass and sixties rock. And he pulled it off really well. They both play what they like and aren’t really concerned with fitting into a certain genre. My likes are the same so it suits me fine.
Thanks for the lesson. Who would’ve known about the banjo. I thought Steve Martin introduced it from Canada🇨🇦🤣
Hold it, Steve Martin is from Canada?
Most banjo playing when I was kid was tenor or plectrum... nobody heard of Eddy Peabody? Great solo tenor player..While celebrating 50th year in show biz at the Copa Cabana he hung his head down at the end of a song and was gone. Never dropped his banjo...
Smart Alec. Haha
I really enjoyed this, if you’re interested in hearing more about bluegrass music in the modern era, may I suggest you check out Billy Strings?
Good information nice 👍
So how would classify Be’la Fleck? I am in my 70’s and consider myself a street musician, but play for 10 years in Branson. I cut my teeth on mountain music in Mountain View, Arkansas as far back as 1963.
Probably need to do a part two where you talk about the more modern players/groups that are keeping the genre alive. Billy Strings is probably the biggest thing to happen to Bluegrass in decades. Bands like Greensky Blue Grass, String dusters, Trampled By Turtles, bela fleck and the flecktones, while maybe not embraced by the purests, are keeping the genre alive and bringing in new listeners. I'll admit if it wasn't for Trampled and Billy I wouldn't have ever really listened to bluegrass
that is a great idea!
Yes ,where was Alison Crouse in this production. I have enjoyed watching this video and learning about the. History of one of my favourite types of music. LK from Canada ❤❤😊
No Snuffy Jenkins no Earl, No Don Reno no anybody.
Great little film but Snuffy deserves a mention. Everyone else got rich off his gift, not that I don’t love ‘em ; they didn’t do it for Mammon, just the Banjo style that was Bluegrass’ bootstrap in 45 was Snuffy Jenkins invention and he was such a delightful man.
Shout out to Billy Strings, AJ Lee, Willow Osborne, and there are many others in this latest generation. But maybe you should have also talked about Rhianna Gibbons and "The Chocolate Drops" for their deep dive into the African origins of this music. They went around recording older black folk mostly playing the banjo. They learned from it and incorporated it into their songs. That is our musical history and our heritage too.
Cornbread & Butter Beans is such a great song. Rhiannon is awesome.
No....blacks have nothing to do with Bluegrass
@@dungeonmaster6292 The BANJO was created in Africa, it came to America, and was introduced through slaves in the deep South. That is a fact. Live with it. Black folk used to do music shows for white slave owner parties. It was great music. Everyone loved it. White folk started learning how to play it. The five string banjo evolved in the USA in BOTH black and white communities. America IS NOT America without our black heritage -- both the good and the bad. They have contributed so much. Bluegrass also has Irish, Scottish, and English roots. We were and are a "melting pot" especially when it comes to food and music. Hot dogs, pizza, soul food, and chop suez were invented in the USA.
@@colinkelley6493 whatever you say lady
@@dungeonmaster6292 I know you are, but what am I, Rat Fart.
The Primitive quartet is my favorite singing group
Hey how are you doing..?
See all the genetic blends of people and families in this outstanding old photo. Is this not what the music of "the folks" is? Okay, there are no women here, most likely because they didn't enjoy a rest day during which they could learn music.
I wonder if fiddle was the most common early instrument due to its small size enabling portability.
I love everyone's comments. Among you all, such big hearts and deep understanding. 💖 Thank you to those who put this video together and published it for us. 😊
Very informative albeit without mentioning The New Lost City Ramblers during the second wave.
Tony Rice and electric bass? The most influential bluegrass guitarist ever and you talk about the electric Bass?
i Once met some of them. at show in BHSC Spearfish,SD 1970's as seen in yearbook. i told how dad did mandalin with mountain army budies in library practice before a presidential dinner that each branch represented. dads idol , Burl Ives not as famous as Jubilee singers headlined. Dad took mandalin on Utah beach for a week till R&R ,hands injured bad b-day/flag day. Brother has instument. i learnted sum of the old tunes since 60's and guitar 68. practice the old tunes to pass on...dad J,Ferd.
So don't forget to check out Billy strings a modern day bluegrass youngster
What about David Dawg Grisman??????
If you asked Grisman I bet he would say the Bluegrass is one of the things he plays...Can't stick his playing just to that genre.
The correct statement would be that the songs are of the type that can be found in the Child Ballads rather than they came from the Child Ballads. Francis James Child collected songs during the second half of the 19th century while the old songs brought over to Appalachia arrived with the people in the 17th and 18th centuries, far before F.J. Child began to collect the songs we associated with him today.
Great story.
When Italians began flooding to America beginning in the 1880s, they brought the mandolin with them. The movie 'Matewan' suggests that Italians were recruited by southern mine owners to replace members of the union. In my home state of Alabama, there are dozens of Italian names in graves from the early 20th Century in the mining town of West Blocton.
A mandolin craze began in the 1880s and continued to the 1920s according to Wikipedia which says Mandolin sales exceeded guitar sales by 1900. I come from a musical family whose elderly members worked the mines and played bluegrass music. Most played the guitar, one played the fiddle, and at least two played mandolin.
The narrator talks about genres spawned by bluegrass and speaks of its roots. A simple search of the history of country music will show how many of Country Music's earliest artists, including Hank Williams and others, were influenced by black musicians. More recently, black musicians such as Chuck Berry and Ray Charles have said how listening to Country Music influenced them.
When rural electrification swept the south in the late 1930s, many young white boys like Elvis Presley enjoyed listening to black gospel stations. It was the marriage of these two genres, Country (early Bluegrass) and blues, that spawned rock'n'roll. As a southern white boy growing up in the south, I watched it happen and was part of it.
We enjoyed rock'n'roll like the rest of the world but in the 1950s, our favorite music was Delta blues. It wasn't until the British invasion in the mid-1960s, when British groups began showing other Americans their own blues roots that black people's blues was cool. I talked to John Lee Hooker at a club in Birmingham in 1965 and asked him about the boys from England. He immediately said, "Oh, yeah, Eric Burdon is my boy." I thought it was laughable that some of our greatest singer-songwriters had to travel to Europe before they were recognized.
Thank you so much for your wonderful post. You have really painted the big picture beautifully. It's truly appreciated. 🌻
Yes, excellent review there!!!
This is an amazing comment and such an over looked time in music history. Most the Italian mazurkas and mandolin tunes in general are written in America during that time!
@@DannyBoyPhelan I know nothing about the history of the mandolin in Italy. Thank you for sharing some of that history. Ya gotta love the Italians for their rich, long history of music and art.
You're full of crap, stop twisting facts. So they fit your needs of PC.
Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, and Jerry Douglas are the top players respectfully, in my opinion.
Yonder Mountain String Band (Jeff Austin version of the band) are the best of this generation.
RIP Jeff and Tony
this documentary has a little bit to do about bluegrass in the middle part, but the intro and outro is typical of the way people today change the meaning of words. there's a difference between bluegrass and a lot the stuff this guy was throwing out there.
Bill Monroe created bluegrass music.
NO ! He just named it, more or less. My daddy was playing clawhammer banjo back in the 30's & it is the same as "traditional" bluegrass today, before the 3 finger style of Earl Scruggs came along (He learned it from Snuffy Smith, he didn't invent it), or the 2 finger style of Ralph Stanley, who learned some of it from his mother. This video was very incomplete. Calling Bill Monroe "The Father of Bluegrass" is a misnomer & blasphemous.
@@frankfisher4380 Opinion noted. Real bluegrass pickers know the difference between 'old time' music and bluegrass. They also know that Bill Monroe created it.
Giving credit to anyone other than Bill Monroe is blasphemous.
To associate old time or folk music to bluegrass should earn you some painful stripes.
@@plainolamerican franks right. Bill Monroe was the man who popularized bluegrass. There were other bands doing what we call bluegrass before bill did it. But bill did have some great musicians to earn the title he has.
@@deweyplanck9850 Name one artist or band that played bluegrass before Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys.
That's right. Bill is the one who created the format and the general performance style that is now called bluegrass. HE didn't call it bluegrass, but he is the bandleader who took it from old time mountain music to the stage show that it is.
Seldom Scene is my favorite bluegrass band.