Blog Post #10 discussed The Anthology of American Folk Music, consisting of 84 recordings of folk, old time, blues, Cajun, and gospel music originally released in the 1920s and early 1930s. These recordings were collected and annotated by disc collector … Read More
As I mentioned last week, in 1972, Mike Auldridge released his first solo dobro recording, “Dobro,” and his new band, the Seldom Scene, released its first recording, Act I. Those recordings, and the ones that quickly followed, announced that a … Read More
The subject of my next two posts is Mike Auldridge, best known as the long-time dobroist with the Seldom Scene. (The term “Dobro” is a trademark now owned by Gibson. The generic name is “resonator guitar.” During his career Mike … Read More
Andy Bing’s Bluegrass Blog – Week 10 Blog posts for weeks seven and nine mentioned in passing the Anthology of American Folk Music, which was issued on six LPs on Folkways in 1952. This week’s post is devoted to the … Read More
The week seven blog post discussed the 1965 documentary “Bluegrass Roots,” which focused on the old time and folk roots of bluegrass. A lot of us, this writer included, first heard bluegrass during the “folk revival” of the late 1950s … Read More
The Stanley Brothers And The Beginnings of a Genre The mid-1940s edition of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, featuring banjoist Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt, is generally thought of as the “original” bluegrass band. It was “original” … Read More
Andy Bing’s Bluegrass Blog, Week 7 This week’s subject is a 1965 documentary film by David Hoffman with Jonathan Gordon called “Bluegrass Roots.” (Thanks to Bill Walsh for calling this film to my attention.) The film is available on YouTube … Read More
Bing’s Bluegrass Blog – Week 6 When Earl Scruggs joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in late 1945, he popularized a relatively obscure style of five string banjo playing that had been known primarily in the southeastern United States through … Read More
Bill Monroe’s great mid-1940s band set the standard for bluegrass bands in more ways than one, but perhaps the most basic was the band’s instrumental lineup. The five bluegrass instruments were the fiddle, mandolin, guitar, banjo, and bass fiddle. Bill … Read More
This week, a little more about Bill Monroe and one part of the background of bluegrass. In shaping his music, Bill incorporated several strands of the music he heard as a boy and a young man. The strand I will … Read More