Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:18:10.980Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What is bluegrass anyway? Category formation, debate and the framing of musical genre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2012

Joti Rockwell*
Affiliation:
Pomona College Department of Music, 340 N. College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711-6341, USA E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

This article examines the contested issue of defining the genre of bluegrass music. Interpreting this debate as a subjective negotiation and renegotiation of a category, it focuses on the discursive and musical means through which ontologies of bluegrass are framed. In doing so, the article adds to a growing body of literature that considers genre in popular music as a flexible construct involving both musical performance and cultural formations. The article begins by exploring the idea of bluegrass as constructed by Bill Monroe and a number of early bluegrass scholars, after which it invokes recent work on human cognition and categorisation to analyse the genre debate among bluegrass enthusiasts. The article ultimately proposes that such discourse, notwithstanding its apparent futility, can be regarded as a vital means for a genre's self-perpetuation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Adler, T.A. 1979. ‘The acquisition of a traditional competence: folk-musical and folk-cultural learning among bluegrass banjo players’, PhD thesis (Indiana University)Google Scholar
Ahlkvist, J. 2011. ‘What makes rock music “prog”? Fan evaluation and the struggle to define progressive rock’, Popular Music and Society, 34/5, pp. 639–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsalou, L. 1992. ‘Frames, concepts, and conceptual fields’, in Frames, Fields, and Contrasts: New Essays in Semantic and Lexical Organization, ed. Kittay, E. and Lehrer, A. (Hillsdale, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), pp. 2174Google Scholar
Bohlman, P.V. 1988. The Study of Folk Music in the Modern World (Bloomington, Indiana University Press)Google Scholar
Brackett, D. 2002. ‘(In search of) musical meaning: genres categories and crossover’, in Popular Music Studies, ed. Hesmondhalgh, D. and Negus, K. (London, Arnold), pp. 6583Google Scholar
Cavicchi, D. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans (New York, Oxford University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewing, T. (ed.) 2000. The Bill Monroe Reader (Urbana, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Farrugia, R., and Swiss, T. 2005. ‘Tracking the DJs: vinyl records, work, and the debate over new technologies’, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 17/1, pp. 3044CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenster, M. 1993. ‘Alison Krauss and the contemporary–traditional conflict in modern bluegrass’, in All That Glitters: Country Music in America, ed. Lewis, G.H. (Bowling Green, Bowling Green State University Popular Press), pp. 317–28Google Scholar
Filene, B. 2000. Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press)Google Scholar
Fox, A.A. 2004. Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture (Durham, Duke University Press)Google Scholar
Frith, S. 1996. Performing Rites (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabbard, K. 2002. ‘The word jazz’, in The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, ed. Cooke, M. and Horn, D. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 16Google Scholar
Gendron, B. 1995. ‘“Moldy figs” and modernists: jazz at war (1942–1946)’, in Jazz Among the Discourses, ed. Gabbard, K. (Durham, Duke University Press), pp. 3156Google Scholar
Goertzen, C. 1996. ‘Balancing local and national approaches at American fiddle contests’, American Music, 14/3, pp. 352–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldsmith, T. (ed.) 2004. The Bluegrass Reader (Urbana, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Green, A. 1993. ‘Vernacular music: a naming compass’, The Musical Quarterly, 77/1, pp. 3546CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchcock, H.W. 1987. Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction, 3rd edn (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall)Google Scholar
Holt, F. 2007. Genre in Popular Music (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keightley, K. 2001. ‘Reconsidering rock’, in The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, ed. Frith, S., Straw, W. and Street, J. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 109–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keil, C. 1978. ‘Who needs “the folk”?’, Journal of the Folklore Institute, 15/3, pp. 263–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (Chicago, University of Chicago Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lomax, A. 1959. ‘Bluegrass background: folk music with overdrive’, Esquire, October, p. 108Google Scholar
Malone, B. 1985. Country Music, U.S.A., rev. edn (Austin, University of Texas Press)Google Scholar
Middleton, R. 1981. ‘Editor's introduction to Volume 1’, Popular Music, 1, pp. 37Google Scholar
Moore, A. 2002. ‘Authenticity as authentication’, Popular Music, 21/2, pp. 209–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Negus, K. 1999. Music Genres and Corporate Cultures (London, Routledge)Google Scholar
Perlman, M. 2004. Unplayed Melodies: Javanese Gamelan and the Genesis of Music Theory (Berkeley, University of California Press)Google Scholar
Pillsbury, G. 2006. Damage Incorporated: Metallica and the Production of Musical Identity (New York, Routledge)Google Scholar
Rinzler, R. 1963. ‘Bill Monroe – the daddy of blue grass music’, Sing Out!, 13, pp. 58Google Scholar
Rosenberg, N.V. 1967. ‘From sound to style: the emergence of bluegrass’, Journal of American Folklore, 80/316, pp. 143150CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, N.V. 1985. Bluegrass: A History (Urbana, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Rosenberg, N.V. (ed.) 1993. Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined (Urbana, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Rosenberg, N.V., and Wolfe, C.K. 2007. The Music of Bill Monroe (Urbana, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Seeger, M. 1959. Liner notes to the album Mountain Music Bluegrass Style (Folkways)Google Scholar
Shank, B. 1994. Dissonant Identities: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Scene in Austin, Texas (Hanover, Wesleyan University Press)Google Scholar
Smith, L.M. 1965. ‘An introduction to bluegrass’, Journal of American Folklore, 78/309, pp. 245–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, R.D. 2000. Can't You Hear Me Callin' (Boston, Little, Brown)Google Scholar
Stanley, P. 2003. Letter to the magazine, Bluegrass Unlimited, 38/1, July, p. 13Google Scholar
Watson, J., and Burns, L. 2010. ‘Resisting exile and asserting musical voice: the Dixie Chicks are “Not Ready to Make Nice”’, Popular Music, 29/3, pp. 325–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberger, J. 2011 (orig. 2005). ‘Bluegrass – it's not the music’, AcoustiCana Journal, posted by Henri Deschamps on 24 September 2011. http://acousticana.us/bg-jon-weisbergerGoogle Scholar
Zbikowski, L. 2002. Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis (New York, Oxford University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Discography

Bluegrass Country Soul, dir. Albert Ihde. Time Life Records, M19264. 2006Google Scholar
Alison Krauss and Union Station, ‘Every Time You Say Goodbye’, Every Time You Say Goodbye. Rounder, 0825. 1992Google Scholar
Bill Monroe, ‘I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky’, 16 Gems. Columbia/Legacy, 53908. 1996Google Scholar