There Is No Electric Guitar In Bluegrass

                                           (posted 09-25-06)

By Adam Hammer, staff writer, Albert Lea Tribune, Albert Lea, MN

   The core of bluegrass is simple - a five-string banjo, a guitar, mandolin, upright bass – a fiddle and maybe a dobro.  No drums, and certainly no electric guitars.  Top off that recipe with a couple hundred people doing a lot of foot tapping, and you’ve got yourself a bluegrass festival.

   The Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America (SPBGMA, pronounced spig-ma) hosted their ninth Fall Bluegrass Music Weekend and Camporee at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds in Albert Lea and had all the fixings of a true bluegrass get-together.

   “One thing about bluegrass is it’s always like a big ol’ family reunion,” Don Haynes of SPBGMA said.

   SPBGMA is an organization dedicated to preserving the traditional spirit and art form of bluegrass music. Part of preserving that traditional spirit is requiring that instruments used in their sanctioned events must be traditional acoustic instruments -- no electrified instruments permitted.

   “Bluegrass is divided from other styles by its instrumentation,” Haynes said.  “It defines the music by its acoustic instrumentation.”

   Curtis King, a Dobro player for Lorene Clark and Laurention Divide, played country music for 40 years and has played bluegrass now for three years.

   Besides being all acoustic, he said a unique element to bluegrass is there are no drums.

   “You don’t need them,” King said.

   The percussive element to bluegrass is set by the bass, the “boom,” and the mandolin or Dobro on the “chick,” he explained.

   In the 1940s and 50s, country music was played in the same radio sets as bluegrass music because of their similarities of acoustic presence, King said.  The two styles have always been set apart, but the differences have become much more obvious over the past few decades.

   “Some country music is starting to get risque, bluegrass is clean,” King said.  Lyrically, in its simplest definition, “Wherever you go, it’s where you are,” he said.

   The lyrics, “I fell in the yard mad as I can be / Said to my dog make room for me,” from Bill Monroe’s song “Dog House Blues” leave little or no room for interpretation.  The phrase, along with the music’s upbeat tempo and whimpering dog backing vocals, also highlights the bluegrass theme that sad music doesn’t have to conjure up sad emotions.

   When Noel Holloway, bassist who plays alongside King, tells people he plays bluegrass, they sometimes double-check him to make sure he didn’t say he plays blues.

   “They ask, ‘Well what’s the difference?’ The difference is blues is sad music about sad times. Bluegrass is happy music about sad times,” Holloway said.

   At Friday’s show in the 4-H building at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds, the crowd tapped their feet to the music and laughed at the on-stage antics of many of the evenings performers,  including String Fever from Northfield.

   Offstage, the performers hung out and chatted it up with anyone who stopped by.

   After Blue Wolf finished the Friday night line-up, King said he planned on finding some of the campers to jam with.

   “The people are friendly; it’s like a family,” King said.  “These are down-to-earth people, they’re not in it for the money.”

   “We play many times until the sun comes up,” Holloway said.

   Barb Horak from Cedar Rapids, Iowa said she enjoys meeting people at bluegrass festivals and playing along in the jam sessions.  She plays upright bass, and said she is partial to vocals.

   “It’s simple enough that just about anybody can walk into almost any group and play along, even if they don’t know the songs,” she said.

   At bluegrass festivals, it’s not uncommon to see people who have been playing for 30 or 40 years sit down and jam with someone who started playing last week, Horak said.  “Mostly, I like the harmony,” she said, “but I also like the chord structure because everyone can play along with everyone else.”

   Most of the buildings at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds were unlocked this weekend to allow people to get together and jam, away from some of the cool elements of the outdoors that could easily freeze up nimble fingers on a fret board.

   With the sun shining through the clouds on Saturday morning, many campers sat outside for a morning jam session. There were campers playing everything from guitar to banjo to a bass guitar made from a bucket, a broomstick and a string.

   “You can make it as simple or as complex as you want to make it,” Holloway said. “Everyone gets a turn playing lead.”