"When it comes to Bluegrass music, the first thing that comes to mind for many is "pickin' and grinnin'," said Mike White, whose recently completed documentary "Heart of the Hills: The Story of Mountain Music" is slated to air on KET in July. And while the reputation and image associated with Bluegrass music historically includes rickety porches, rural landscapes and simple, country folk, the history and tradition of the art form is much richer than that. Within the last decade or so, Bluegrass music has been increasing in mainstream popularity, and the connotations that come with it are evolving. But the question remains: have we here in the "heart of the Bluegrass" grasped this tradition as wholeheartedly as we should?
As outlined in "Heart of the Hills," the roots of Bluegrass music can be traced back hundreds of years to the Irish and Scots who brought traditional Bluegrass instruments with them when they first came to the Appalachian Mountains. But everyone knows that Kentucky, where Bill Monroe originated the distinct Bluegrass style in the 1940s, remains the indisputable home of Bluegrass music. Seemingly, it would follow that Lexington, as one of the more highly developed arts communities in the state and being geographically situated where it is, would be an internationally renowned Bluegrass hothouse, of sorts. And yet, you could argue that Bluegrass is more accessible in parts of Nashville, Tenn., Colorado, California and Canada than it is here in the very heart of the Bluegrass.
The music continues to bustle and thrive in other parts of the state, as it always has. Owensboro houses the International Bluegrass Music Museum, and MeadowGreen Music Hall in Clay City (near Red River Gorge) features live Bluegrass every Saturday night. Bluegrass Music Profiles, one of the nation's leading Bluegrass magazines, is published in Nicholasville. The northern Kentucky Bluegrass Music Association, based in Florence, hosts regular jam sessions, and Renfro Valley is home to weekly Bluegrass shows. The Kentucky School for Bluegrass Music, a branch of Hazard Community and Technical College, now offers a two-year technical degree in Bluegrass music, and throughout the year, various communities throughout Kentucky host Bluegrass music festivals that draw crowds of anywhere from a hundred to thousands of people.
Kentucky's interest and talent in Bluegrass music is certainly not lacking. And yet, the International Bluegrass Music Association relocated from Louisville to Nashville in 2003, allegedly to be "closer to the industry."
An unidentifiable, invisible barrier inhibits Lexington from completely embracing the tradition and art of Bluegrass music as the viable resource, both artistically and economically, it has the potential to be.
Sure, Bluegrass music happens in Lexington. If you google "Firehouse Pickers," you'll find that a group of Bluegrass pickers get together on Bellafonte Drive every Tuesday and Saturday night to jam. And during the summer, every Tuesday on Southland Drive, hundreds of people convene in the parking lot of Collins Bowling Lane for a weekly Bluegrass concert/jam session. From September through May, Red Barn Radio broadcasts live Bluegrass radio shows from ArtsPlace, located in heart of downtown.
But does the discerning Bluegrass fan, tourist or resident of Lexington necessarily know these things? Ed Commons, Producer of Red Barn Radio, recalls talking to a travel journalist visiting Lexington who had asked his server at a restaurant that resides within earshot of the Red Barn Radio broadcast where he could find some Bluegrass music. The server didn't know. Bluegrass music is increasing in popularity for young people, but does the average young person in Lexington know where to find it?
Dean Osbourne, Bluegrass player of almost 30 years and associate director of the Kentucky School for Bluegrass Music, agrees to a certain extent that the Bluegrass scene in Lexington isn't all it could be, but he favorably contrasts where it is now to where it was in the early '90s. As he recalls, he was the only working Bluegrass musician in the town back then.
"I don't think [Lexington's Bluegrass scene] is back to where it was in the heyday, but there's some really dedicated people working to make Bluegrass," he says. "Lexington plays a huge role in the history of this kind of music."
Recalling that "heyday," Osbourne points to two significant periods for Bluegrass music in Lexington. The first was in the late 1940s and early '50s, when such prominent Bluegrass bands as The Stanley Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs were broadcasting live shows from Versailles' WVLK on a daily basis, and playing shows in hardware stores, schoolhouses, courthouses, live auctions — wherever they could draw a crowd.
The second significant period for Bluegrass in Lexington, perhaps more tangible to our current readership, came in the early '80s when J.D. Crowe and the KY Mountain Boys played five to six nights a week at the Red Slipper Lounge at the Holiday Inn North on Newtown Pike. Some of the players that passed through that band — Keith Whitley, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs and Jerry Douglas, to name a handful — went on to become some of the biggest names in Bluegrass history.
"That place was really the cradle for Bluegrass music and the development [of those artists]," says Osbourne, who contends that many of their careers would have likely taken a different route if not for that venue. "Bluegrass music [in Lexington] really suffered after that."
That venue lives on in the memories of hundreds of Bluegrass fans and musicians, as venue is undeniably key to turning an art form into a viable resource. The other pieces of the puzzle include talent, funding, sponsorship and support.
And those pieces are all here, floating in this town, waiting to latch together. With the upcoming FEI World Equestrian Games, with the mainstream popularity of Bluegrass music increasing, while many original players and teachers are still around and still "pickin' and grinnin'," the time is right.
Lexington has the potential to be to Bluegrass what Nashville is to country music, what Chicago is to blues, what New Orleans is to jazz — and there's no real good reason why it's not.
With the onslaught of development in Lexington's physical and cultural landscape, with historic preservation still in the forefront of many people's minds, let's not neglect the history and tradition that puts us on the map for so many.
A significant step in this direction takes place on the stage of the Kentucky Theater on the evening of Monday, June 25. Gov. Ernie Fletcher is scheduled to appear on The WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour for a ceremonial signing of House Bill 71- legislation passed in the '07 General Assembly designating Bluegrass the official music genre of Kentucky.
"