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Wednesdav. Julv 25.1973
University Daily Kansan
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Popularity Boom Hits 'Bluegrass Tunes'
Popular for All Ages, There Are Still Enough Old-line Fans to Keep it Alive'
By NANCY COOK
"It's toe-tappin' music," said a local bluegrass mandolin blaver.
Bluegrass music has also been called down-home music and old-time music. Although its name may sound antiquated, bluegrass is not.
It, along with other types of country music is in the midst of a nonlinear boom.
Dana plays bluegrass-style banjo and his wife, Joyce, plays mandolin and upright bass.
"There is a misconception as to what bluegrass is," said Duke Dana, Lawrence special student. "It's a very modern form of music. It goes back at most 35 to 40 years."
A RECENT Newsweek article reported that makers of banjos, one of the basic bluegrass instruments, were having a hard time meeting the demand for banjos. The same article said that more than 1.3 million banjo players in the country of the movie Deliverance, had been sold.
The bluegrass sound originated from old mountain songs, which in turn may have come from Scottish folk songs. But it's not proper to say that old mountain songs are
Part of what made the sounds of Monroe's band distinctive was his use of the mandolin and the banjo. Before he began using them, they had been very popular for playing leads.
The mandolin had been used in country bands as a rhythm instrument only. But Monte developed a sole style on the mandolin and a rhythm instrument an important part of the band.
35 TO 40 YEARS ago, country bands started going electric, using steel guitars with amplifiers. At least one band, however, was an electric guitar. Instead, they stuck with basic, nonamplified instruments and developed their own style, a style that came to be called '60s'.
HE HIRED BANJO players who helped to change the sound of country music. Probably the most well-known of his banjo players is Earl Scruggs. Scruggs developed
Bill Morrow, the originator and leader of the Bluegrass movement, came to be known as the "Woodwind King."
a playing style called the three-finger roll, instead of strumming chords like minstrels to play them.
"Scruggs has had a fantastic impact," said William Schmid, assistant professor of English.
Schmid teaches a seminar on American folk music.
Scruggs and Lester Flatt, who was also in Monroe's band, left to form their own The
Foggy Mountain Boys
DESPITE SCRUGG'S departure from the group, the Blackgrass Boys kept the distinctive sound. By the time Scruggs, left, had been well into their other bands were learning the new style.
Since 1940, when bluegrass's popularity was at a peak, country bands have made variations in the style. Some have tried amplified instruments.
The traditional bluegrass band includes:
guitar playing rhythm and using as many
open strings as possible, finger-picked five-
bass banjo, mandolin, fiddle and string bass.
Others have added extra instruments. But their traditional bluegrass sound is still others.
Vocal parts in bluegrass bands are often pitched high.
One reason bluegrass is sung high is that Bill Monroe has a high voice.
"I LIKE WHAT a friend said the other day, 'If you can sing higher than what you're singin' now, you aint 'singin' bluegrass.'" said Joyce.
Little Lass Relaxes as Joyce and Duke Dana Jam
"Faletsett are easier to come by when you don't have a good voice," and Joyce. Scriff described bluegrass singing as "an almost unfeel-good quality, with unique part singing."
ALTHOUGH BLUEGRASS music can be complex, both Duke and Joyce say you don't need to be an exceptional musician to play bluegrass.
"You can play in the simplest style," Jovce said.
It's a skill that just about any average person can take up if he has the interest," she said.
Bluegrass enthusiasts often get together and jam. Improvisation is an important skill.
"IT'S A FREE type music," said fidler Billy Spears, of 1905 Rhode Island. "Good fidlers just know the instrument and they just fiddle. They play their own thoughts in and around a simple melody. Generally you say that's what bluegrass music is about."
Spears has recently organized a seventemember band, the Billy Organ Band. They played a concert last weekend in Kansas City on the same bill as the Dooby Brothers.
The difference between bluegrass and other country music is sometimes difficult to define. Spears said bluegrass is a "higher energy music."
"The difference is like moving from gray to charcoal," said Schmid.
SCHMID SAID that bluegrass was "kind
like taking country music and elevating it
to a more serious form."
One visible difference between traditional bluegrass bands and country and western bluegrass bands is the lack of amplified instruments in bluegrass band form. This is on about the groups in between; the groups that play bluegrass style but that use amabilis instruments and other instruments usually are the ones.
"I do think it's not necessary to make some of the changes that have been made in order to sell the music to the audience," student Karys, Kansas City, Mo., graduate student.
band and now hosts a radio program of bluegrass music on KANU. The program, which is on Saturday nights, is picked up and broadcast by Radio Free Europe
CRARY SAID some of the changes included going electric, adding drums to bass, and replacing strings.
Cryay has played guitar in a bluegrass
Cryan said when the program started in 1970, bluegrass was not particularly popular.
But contrary to receiving any negative responses, we received a lot of affirmative responses.
Crary said interest in bluegrass in Kansas has "shot up" since 1971.
DUKE, JOYCE AND SPEARS have been playing a bluegrass since 1965 when they met at the University of St. Augustine Stumper's. They played at places like the Gaslight, now the Mount Oread Bar and Grill, and the Catacombs, a private club. The group were showing interest in bluegrass now.
"Those people we were playing for didn't know very much about it," he said.
Duke and Joyce often play now with Leo and Fern Hageman of Eudora, who have been playing bluegrass for more than 20 years.
"IVE SEEN IT grow ever since," he said.
Spears thinks young people's interest in bluegrass can be traced back to the Kickapoo.
Kansan Photos
Spears said audiences were growing and making it possible for more bends to make a
CRARY SAID that in the East, some bluegrass groups intended as warm-up groups were received much better by the same group than a non-band playing at the same concern.
"The thing that amazes me is that nobody books bluegrass bands here," he said. "I think if anybody books a bluegrass group, Lawrence will never be the same."
Cryan said that even though bluegrass was a kind of fad now, it could outlast the fire.
Even though bluegrass is getting more popular, Craik thinks Lawrence people are
"It has deeper roots than the so-called
it's music," he said. "There are still
emphasis."
Rayna Lancaster
by
Fitting in the Act
Finger-Pickin' Banjo Is a Part of Good Ol' Bluegrass
KU Dean Answers Kirk's Column on Pearson Program
Some weeks ago you saw fit to reprint an editorial by Russell Kirk from the National Review. Attached is a letter I have written to the National Review in response to Kirk's editorial, which I hope, in the interests of clarification, you will reprint.
To the editor:
Delbert Shankel
Acting Dean.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dear Sirs;
On behalf of the many excellent faculty and students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas I feel obligated to respond to the recent attention of Mr. Browder's intelligence of this group. "The 'Sin of Pearson College'" National Review, July 6, 1973) Kirk apparently committed the error of accepting without question the appraisal of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences by an anonymous "friend of Pearson."
First, allow me to describe the actual decision-making body in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences here. The College Assembly, which is the official policy making body for academic matters for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
contains the faculty of the various departments in the College, totaling approximately 550. In addition it contains about 110 elected undergraduate students and 55 elected graduate students who function as teaching assistants or assistant teachers. Each of these latter groups is elected by their class group is broadly representative and has a great deal of student participation in the decision-making process.
NEXT, LET ME clarify what the actions of this Assembly with regard to the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program actually mean, since these actions have been widely misunderstood and misinspired in the program or affiliated with the people in it taken by the College Assembly do not mean that students will be unable to enter the Pearson Program or continue to take four six-hour courses taught by the three professors involved in the program with the help of their graduate assistants. The program, in short, is still open to students, but it's unclear how many professors involved, the students may still take these courses if they choose to, and the hours earned by participating in these
readers respond
courses will still be applied to the 124 hours required for graduation from the College of Arts and Sciences.
The action taken by the College Assembly does mean, however, that the four six-hour courses in the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program will not continue to be required for all students who are required of all other freshmen and sophomores in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In the past the four six-hour Pearson courses had been allowed, as an experiment, to substitute for the three basic courses in the college's speech course, the Western Civilization sequence, and a humanities distribution course. These requirements were put in our curriculum by the College some time ago to prepare students for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the level of skill in English composition and in speech, and receive some breadth in the
areas of Western Civilization and the humanities. Although the reasons individuals vote as they do are usually complex, in the view of the College Assembly the Pearson courses were not adequately fulfilling the objectives of these requirements. Another major academic reason for the unfavorable vote was the lack of a focus on what is involved and the belief that freshmen and sophomores should receive a variety of pointviews during these years, rather than the views held in common by the three professors. The Assembly consequently voted not to allow this substitution to continue. The College Assembly has every right to make this judgment regarding our curricula. We would argue that the right to rule that (if I were to propose they should) the Microbiology and Biology courses which I teach would not fulfill specific graduation requirements in the
College.
Kirk also attacks the College as being a haven for "duliness and mediocrity." The fact of the matter is that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at KU has been playing a distinguished role in higher education long before the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program came on the scene. In addition, the University's educational venture have a corner on innovative curricular thinking in "the great tradition." As early as the middle 1950s the College pioneered in the establishment of honors programs which have won national recognition and whose graduates have gone on to earn prestigious fellowships and awards. In 2007 the University Wilson, Marshall and National Science Foundation pre-doctorals in numbers out of all proportion to the size of the institution. It is also unfair to describe KU, one of the smaller state universities in the mid-West, as "Behemoth M.U." We have had many successes in traditional education at its best and we are proud to be the only place in the context of a University which for over a century has admitted all high school graduates from Kansas who choose to come. Open admission was not invented recently on Manhattan Island.
AT KU we have many ways of serving our varied student body. The Pearson Integrated Program is one. It is clearly a program which is desirable and effective for a number of our students and it is not only because the students undergraduates at Lawrence, Kansas, are in a state of intellectual and moral torpor, or that the majority of the College faculty consists of anything less than dedicated scholars and teachers on the basis of the faculty. Mr. Kirk's informant has furnished him, is not really an attempt at serious discourse.
Finally, may I say that the College Assembly is continually reviewing and attempting to improve the educational opportunities provided for our students. The actions taken with regard to the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program will, of course, continue to be part of this on-going review. The College Assembly does, in fact, have to keep pressures and attempts to use avenues external to the University to pressure it into actions which it does not view to be in the best interests of its students.
Sincerely yours Delbert M. Shankel