Rosin up your bow, and play that fiddle hard

Music comes in waves sometimes. I get a new CD and I'll play it out for about a month before retiring it to a normal listening rotation. Sometimes I'll discover, or rediscover, a genre that will dominate my listening for weeks.

Lately, that trend has been with bluegrass and American folk. Coming out of the normal post-ICON celtic mood, a swing into folk is not v. surprising. They are in a similar vein. In the past months my moods have wanted Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger (who turned 88 recently!) and JOhnny Cash. Then I listened to the band of someone I know - an old time bluegrass/folk group (The Powder Kegs. It'd been a long while since I'd listening to old bluegrass (as opposed to modern groups like Alison Kraus and Union Station) or Appalacian. These are genres I equate with my father, my family in Kentucky, and my childhood. And granted, too much drawl and banjo can get to me after a while. I have the same problem with rap and modern country music (forget some of the 70s country. Save for a few fav artists, or the kind that borders more folk/bluegrass than country, can't do it). But good bluegrass should make a body want to get up and dance. You shouldn't be able to sit still - the need to tap your toes or something should be overpowering. Ubeat grooves should make the endorphines flow. Ballads should make you feel like staring at the mood and crying. Is this alot to ask of a folk genre, one useually played by smaller groups and not main stream artists? Maybe. But music needs to be made with passion. Bluegrass without passion? I...don't even know what that could be, except terrible. At least pop music without passion still makes Billboard charts.

Music like this has a stigma, though, especially in today's political climate. It is associated with hicks, rednecks, neo-cons, conservtives, and crazy uber-patriotics who want to bomb things. I ahte steretypes, and this one really gets to me. Yes, traditional American folk music is listened to and performed mostly by older people with a sense of nostalgia nd 'the good old days.' Yes, this is predominately a Caucasian, middle America genre. But! There are no absolutes! The band I mentioned is a group of guys in their early twenties from the Northeast and New England. Not sure, but I think they might even be suburbanites (gasp!). And for the record, music preference does NOT equal political position. My father is a conservative Republican who listens to, and played the music of, Pete Seeger (he once told Pete to his face that he disliked his politics, probably calling his a dirty Commie). Left-wingers listen to country (hell, look at the Dixie Chicks!). Music brnigs people together, not the other way around. It touches the mind and soul in ways that transcend silly social, racial, political, and cultural lines. True, it is a powerful medium often used for political motives (see- Pete, The Dixie Chicks, most 1960s American folk, campaign songs, Civil War temperence movement - the list goes on), but sound knows no boundries.

Ok, so this started with bluegrass, and I had every intention of writing about the heartyness of the genre and why I love it. It got sidetracked. And into politics, no less! (I hate politics.) Such is life.