Dawidoff-Part 3

So it took me quite a while to force myself to actually read this book, and I was kept busy enough with my other classes that I didn't get around to my regular posts from the readings until now..

Full of Beans-Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley

Bluegrass music is called such at least in part due to Monroe's roots in Kentucky, the bluegrass state. Monroe is known as the "Father of Bluegrass music." He could play the banjo, fiddle, guitar, bass fiddle and dobro. (Anybody know what the dobro is??)He mostly played old songs that had been passed down through his family and changed them by adding in his own style and interpretations. Monroe's band included himself, Earl Scruggs, and Lester Flatt

Ralph Stanley grew up in Virginia and began singing at church when he was five years old. He played with his brother, Carter, throughout the 1950s with a couple of short breaks in between those years. He was very religous and often seemed preacher-y to his comrades. Late in his life he played Old Time mountain music with Monroe.


Three Fast Fingers-Earl Scruggs

Scruggs is one of the first evolutionary banjo players. He became well-known for his ability to pick through songs with great speed using pciks on his thumb, middle finger, and index finger, and in doing so, he proved that banjos can keep up to a speedy mandolin player such as Bill Monroe. He was a member of Monroe's group (1945-1948) "The Blue Grass Boys" until Lester Flatt and him departed and formed there own duo from 1948-1969. Scruggs played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959. He is joined as a former performer at that Folk Festival with the likes of Bob Dylan and Muddy Waters who perfomed at the Newport Jazz Festival. (I'm considering changing my presentation project to the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals if I can find enough stuff).