Class this week consisted of watching the film “Bluegrass Country Soul”, reading “Portable Community” by Owen Gardner, and some in class discussion on both of these topics.
“Bluegrass Country Soul” is a documentary-style film that covers Carlton Haney’s 1971 Labor Day Weekend Bluegrass Music Festival in Camp Springs, North Carolina. The film features some interview-like scenes, mostly with Haney himself, but mainly focuses on the festival performances.
Here are some of the performers/groups that were featured in the film:
Ralph Stanley
Jimmy Martin & The Sunny Mountain Boys
The Bull Mountain Boys
The Country Gentleman
The New Deal String Band
The Osbourne Brothers
The Bluegrass 45
Mac Wiseman & Blackwell & Collins & The Dixie Blue Grass Boys
Roy Acuff
The Bluegrass Alliance
Chubby Wise
Earl Scruggs
Overall I enjoyed watching this film and seeing an example of what Bluegrass festivals were like during this time period. I also found interest in looking at the instrument arrangements of each group. I saw that some groups were using instruments that may not be considered to be a part of Bluegrass (percussion, using amplification/electric instruments, harmonicas/”chromatic harp”). I like that the filmmaker(s) made the decision to include shots of the audience. This allows the viewer to see what types of people were interested in this type of music festivals, as well as their reactions to the performers on stage.
“Portable Community” by Owen Gardner takes a look into the community that is associated with these types of festivals. His study examines how an “increasingly mobile subset of individuals grapples with courting community in a society that frequently moves, travels, relocates, or pursues leisure or lifestyle away from home” (Gardner). Gemeinschaft and sittlichkeit are two terms associated with types of communities, and are featured in this piece. Gemeinschaft relates to the “communal grouping of individuals defined in opposition to self-serving individualism” (Gardner). This is “sought in multiple forms, places, and spaces and emphasizes the communal over the individual” (Gardner). Sittlichkeit is a communal term associated with the “places where we live and work and where social problems may be addressed. Contingent on a stable sense of geographically rooted place” (Gardner). Gardner also states that there are three rhetorics of motive when it comes to these types of communities – intimacy, inclusion, and simplicity. This piece is perhaps a bit more theoretical compared to other readings that have been assigned for this class. I feel like this reading could be a great addition to Dr. Fine’s Appalachian Communities class here at Virginia Tech, especially considering that community within a festival/music scene is not really addressed in that class.