Month: April 2015

The following presentation links 12 of my favorite songs to my home of Clarke County VA. I hope you enjoy what you read here and there are video links to some great songs in the slides.

 

 

I have been a Bluegrass fan for many years. For some reason I never new some of the traditional Bluegrass players played there own versions of contemporary songs of the 1960’s. A chapter out of text book “The Bluegrass Reader” discussed this interesting time in Bluegrass.

From what I have read and heard from my father the 1950’s Rock n’ Roll scene really took over the air waves. The young folks in general thought it was the greatest music, much to the dismay of parents and older generations. By the mid 60’s the “British Invasion” was in full spring and the country and Bluegrass artists were struggling to keep record deals and their music popular.

From my experience of growing up in Appalachia I know that mountain folks are some of the most stubborn people; change occurs very very slowly. I am just astonished that bands like Flatt and Scruggs, The Country Gentlemen played versions of rock n’ roll songs. This playing of contemporary songs I believe played a big part of keeping Bluegrass alive during the rock n’ roll era. This stretch away from traditional sounds kept Bluegrassers relevant to their fans. My question is if Bluegrass did not experiment with Rock n’ Roll would the genre have survived through the 1960’s?