The winners are:
Dick Stock
Todd Evans
Gayle Yeomans
OCTOBER 27, 2023 TRIVIA QUESTION
Let’s talk about current-day bluegrass instrument makers. Gibson no longer makes banjos at all. Kay doesn’t make bass fiddles, nor anything else. The brand name Dobro is owned by Gibson but they no longer make any Dobros. Martin is still going strong with guitars. Gibson makes Master Model mandolins in their Custom Shop.
The following are some popular current brands of a certain professional-level bluegrass instrument, at this time:
Gilchrist, Duff, Nugget, Red Diamond, Collings, Ellis, Buckeye, Randy Wood, The Loar, Kentucky, Kimble, Pava, Northfield, Dudenbostel, Smith Creek, Weber
What bluegrass instrument is represented by this group of current brands?
A. Guitar
B. Banjo
C. Bass fiddle
D. Dobro
E. Mandolin
F. Fiddle
By the way….there was an unstated trivia question and nobody noticed that this trivia had been asked once before.
Additional Bowden Comments
Yes, this question was within another trivia question, a year or more ago. All the brand names I listed this time were current, active, mandolin makers. As I’ve said before, we live in a new “golden age” of bluegrass instrument choices. Man, when I was a kid learning bluegrass, the choices were MIGHTY thin! The appetite for bluegrass pickers to acquire good quality instruments appears hard to satisfy! While pickers have the slight chance of making “tens of dollars” playing bluegrass, the dealers who sell picking SUPPLIES are doing very well indeed. Hmmm, is there a lesson in that?
Congratulations to the the winners! I try to balance “easier” ones with “bitching hard” trivia questions.
I’m just sad that harmonicas got involved…
Mandolins.
Is harmonica a bluegrass instrument? Your graphic shows one
Oops…the harmonica was so tiny…I missed that. Wonder what Dick has to say about it.
Mandolins. This is probably the first time I’ve been able to answer the trivia question. Gilchrist and Loar gave it away.
I’m emphatically NOT a fan of harmonicas in bluegrass, and not ashamed to say so. Famous harmonica puffer Charlie McCoy in Nashville single-handedly ruined most of Flatt & Scruggs mid-to-late 1960s recordings! So there! I’ll include an anecdote about jamming with a harmonica puffer in my next chapter of the “Seeing Bluegrass History”. Lynn you can edit that graphic by putting a big red X over the harmonica.
Nope…I’m not putting the red X over the harmonica. My son, Rob, plays bluegrass harmonica with us and so do several other great bluegrass players. Gotta please everyone. Personally, I love the sound.
fair enough but….
https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/peter-cooper/2014/05/22/charlie-mccoy-transformed-nashville-music-harmonica/9395949/
E
but too easy a question…
Todd, what does the Nashville Tennessean newspaper know about BLUEGRASS? But I will have to say, Charlie McCoy didn’t force himself into Flatt & Scruggs’ recording sessions. Columbia records paid him to wheeze into his “harp”. So I blame Columbia…
More than I do, lol ?
Yeah it was typically the label that whistled the tune on many issues back then — driven by trying to appeal to a wider audience.
“Puffers” and “wheezers”, lol