Re: BG: Re: Folk Music & Mtn.Bluegrass

[E Bryant Holman]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:   <<since much of the roots of bluegrass came straight from the british isles (ireland, scotland) it's no surprise that so many folks in the uk love it.  it's kind of a full circle thing.  >>     I was thinking about that today. My wife has a collection of Celtic revival music, and there is no question but that the people who were living in Northern England and Southern Scotland and who were crofters, and who then went to Ulster and then on to the New World, were singing the popular ballads of the day. These ballads were very much a mixture of elements whose roots were in part Celtic and in part Saxon, and there may have been some elements that might be traced back to other races who were on the British Isles before them, like the Picts for instance. In any event, once these people reached the New World, they went to live in relative isolation from those who were ensconced in the fertile lowlands, where they had their plantations and where a lot of the immigrants were actually indentured servants (white slaves, in other words), and it was the place of these "Scotch Irish" (who actually were not Irish at all, and not always Scots, either) to go and settle the frontier and hold it against the Indians without expecting any aid from any quarter, and to be self sufficient and to get used to being pretty much out of touch with the rest of society. In fact, that is how they had already lived back in the homeland, crofting on the Scottish Lowlands, and that is why they were chosen to go and do this, because it was found that not just anyone could even hope to survive on the frontier, as they had already lost plenty of people earlier to the French and Spanish and the Indians. So these people brought their music and their Bibles, and their swords and muskets, and not much else. I think that a lot of these people had also been Jacobites and followers of Bonnie Prince Charlie. In any event, they were being exploited because they could not control their own destinies, but the one resource that they had was their incredible knack for surviving against all odds under the harshest conditions, and this gave the British a distinct advantage in holding onto their possessions in the New World, and this eventually paid off in spades in the game they were playing against the French and Spanish.   I think that if you look at the songs that were being sung which collected by Alan Lomax and that were later sung by early folk singers who were attempting to preserve and revive this music, you will see them actually mention places in England and Scotland, and events and persons there. I don't know if any of these songs actually survived in the UK, and it may be that the Appalachians was like a place that was almost frozen in time, preserving the old songs and many of the mores of culture that were displaced by foreign influences, and that might even include the accent which was spoken at the period, as it is believed that the way English is pronounced now has been considerably altered since Shakespeare's time.   Of course, you cannot say that the "hillbillies" who preceded Bill Monroe sounded exactly like him, musically, but in certain respects they did. Just as Johnny Cash could not invent enough innovations to make himself sound anything different, except in the most superficial sense, than what he was - a child of his culture and his people, the same might be said about Bill Monroe, only much moreso. Bluegrass is the one musical innovation that best preserves the old music which was brought over from the British Isles, in my opinion.   Bryant   ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: bluegrass@drralphstanley.com Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 8:48 PM Subject: RE: BG: Re: Folk Music & Mtn.Bluegrass since much of the roots of bluegrass came straight from the british isles (ireland, scotland) it's no surprise that so many folks in the uk love it.  it's kind of a full circle thing.