Read no. 16

Greetings!

We have a lot to talk about, so we might as well get right down to it. No sense in beating around the bush with a lot of rose-colored chitchat when important matters are at hand. First, a spot of good news. Rhonda Vincent will co-host the IBMA Awards Show this year. You may have seen Rhonda recently, holding down the estrogen slot when Ralph Stanley appeared on TNN. If it hadn’t been for Rhonda, this would have been another all-male bluegrass event, this time on national TV. In the final jam on stage, Rhonda took a tasty mandolin break on I’ll Fly Away. On the other hand...

IBMA Awards—Almost No Women Nominated

The final nominations for the IBMA awards are out, and let me tell you the picture is bleak, bleak, bleak. Other than the five female vocalists—Alison Krauss, Laurie Lewis, Claire Lynch, Lynn Morris, Rhonda Vincent—there were only two women nominated by name: Missy Raines, who continues to hold down a regular spot for Bass Player of the Year as she has done for a number of years, and Dale Ann Bradley, who was nominated with her band Coon Creek for Emerging Artist. Not mentioned by name, but included in two of the bands nominated were Vicki Simmons, bass player with Coon Creek, and Cary Fridley, guitar player with the Freight Hoppers, who were also nominated for Emerging Artist. But that’s it. There were no other women nominated for anything, and there were no women in any of the other bands who were nominated. My heart sank when I saw the list of final nominations. Last year we had thirteen women nominated, not counting the female vocalists. This year we have four.

This is a very tough situation to talk about because all the bands who were nominated are clearly deserving. But these nominations and the Awards Show itself generate a lot of publicity for bluegrass and the IBMA. It is not going to help bluegrass nor the IBMA if the general public perceives us (still) as a mostly all-male industry. If we want to attract a larger audience, if we want young people to be a part of this audience, and if we want our music to continue to grow artistically, the bluegrass industry as a whole must be inclusive of women.

But why am I telling you this? After all, you are the choir. Well, I had to tell somebody! That’s one reason I started this newsletter—so I could talk about important issues facing women in bluegrass. If we are going to make changes in bluegrass—and frankly, that’s

what we want to do—we want bluegrass music to be more inclusive of women—we are going to have to identify and talk about the problems that women are facing. I’m sure there are many people who received their IBMA ballots who did not notice the lack of women nominees. Just as I’m sure that there are festival promoters who simply don’t notice that their lineups are all male and DJs who don’t realize that they are not playing any records that feature women. That’s just not something they think about. We need to make them think about it. We need to bring these problems out into the open and talk about them. Talking in itself may not bring about change, but change will never come if we don’t start talking. Having almost no women nominated for IBMA awards is a problem. It is a problem not only for women, but also for IBMA and for bluegrass. If bluegrass wants to grow and prosper, we must include women. If we don’t, we will stagnate. It’s that simple.

Why we have this problem and how to solve it are bigger issues. Frankly, I think that each individual woman in bluegrass contributes to the solution just by participating in the music. Just by hanging in. By learning to play an instrument, by joining a band, by making an album, by promoting a show, by becoming a DJ, by editing a newsletter. I wish I could offer answers, but right now I’ll have to be satisfied with simply being the messenger. Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to take this message to other bluegrass-ers who may not realize that a problem exists. We have to start by raising people’s awareness. A song from The Music Man sums things up perfectly: “Pick a little, talk a little.” Go, thou, and do likewise.

Inside

Inside, Claire Levine’s article, “Where Are the Sidewomen?” offers ideas about some of the problems professional wibbers face and how they deal with them. Katie Laur talks about her many-faceted career and the fact that “simply enduring” counts. We proudly print the text of the speech that Dr. Hazel Dickens made when she accepted her honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Shepherd College. Nancy Pate talks about her recent playing experience with her sisters, and Casey Henry tells us about her bluegrass adventures, while MaryE Yeomans relates her jamming experiences. Thanks to all these women for their contributions.

Keynote Address

Well, I must mention that this year at IBMA I will be giving the keynote address at the Thursday luncheon. I am speaking on women in bluegrass, and, yes, I am nervous as all get out, and I expect it will get worse. I am the first woman to give the keynote address at our annual gathering, although Lynn Morris gave the keynote speech at the IBMA Southeast Regional Conference in 1997. I need your support. Send good thoughts my way!

—Murphy Henry

Where Are The Sidewomen?

By Claire Levine

When Ralph Stanley performs his clawhammer tunes, he always tells us that his mother taught him to play the banjo. Mother Maybelle’s guitar was an integral part of the Carter Family sound. According to Robert Cantwell, Bill Monroe’s first musical influence was his mother who played harmonica, accordion, and fiddle. Documentaries and memoirs recount sisters and wives playing and singing while families danced, celebrated, and prayed.

Given the long history of women instrumentalists in the earliest country music, where are they today? Is it necessary, as Laurie and Lynn did, to start your own band if you want to make full use of your musical talent? Are there reasons that women are not performing with the finest bluegrass bands? Do men doubt that women are good enough? Do they think that a woman will interfere with the camaraderie of a working band? Are many talented females opting for country music, where the money is better and the expectations are less constricting?

Or is it possible that in this age of equality, when half the students in medical schools are women, that there aren’t enough competent females who deserve to be playing with the best bluegrass bands? Do women give up too easily? Do they not work hard enough? Are they oversensitive? Are there not enough role models to encourage younger women to pursue bluegrass? Is it a matter of too much work for too little reward?

In pursuing these questions, we were fortunate to interview by phone or e-mail a large number of extremely talented women. And, as you’d expect, they all had different perspectives and varied opinions. In some ways, we ended with more questions than we started with. But in many areas, the comments overlapped. Overall, professional female bluegrass musicians are optimistic about the opportunities for other instrumentalists—providing they are willing to work hard, sometimes harder than their male counterparts.

It’s tradition—and a lot more. The women we spoke with agreed that there are many all-male bands that simply won’t ever consider inviting a female musician to perform. “It’s simply not done.”

When it comes to hard-core bluegrass sound, some people (women included) prefer all male voices. A recent rant on the internet’s Bgrass-L sounded off about how tired the writer was of hearing women singing high baritone parts.

Hard-driving banjo player Kristin Scott, who plays with the Larry Stephenson Band, said the issue of vocal blend was never a consideration in that ensemble. Larry sings high enough that he stacks both the baritone and tenor below him—a male-only

configuration. Kristin adds a fourth voice on gospel, a genre that seems to offer more flexibility to even the most traditional ear.

Bassist Missy Raines, who’s been performing for more than twenty-five years, has her own take on the vocal blend argument. “It’s interesting about the men who sing high tenor. They’re singing in a woman’s range, and that’s what’s very exciting about the music. Last night I heard Don Rigsby with Longview. He was singing in the stratosphere—and people went crazy. It always strikes me as funny to hear people say that women can’t do those parts, but men can.”

Vocals aside, many experienced musicians said that a certain percentage of bands won’t ever consider asking a female to join them. It’s not necessarily sexism, it’s not a preference about sound, it’s just so far out of the realm of consciousness that it’s not even a question.

Female musicians have great stories about their experiences breaking the gender/sound barrier. In many cases, it’s an eye-and ear-opening experience for men who just never imagined that a woman could kick butt and take names on an instrument.

Guitar player Betsy Rome was a founding member of Sassygrass, an all-female group that won the first Northeast Pizza Hut competition in 1992 over twelve other bands. She describes a jam session at the fabulous Winterhawk festival one year.

“After I took a fairly ordinary guitar solo on a song, this one guy stumbled out of the dark and declared, ‘Ah have never, ever, seen a woman play the git-tar like that. Why, down in Georgia, we only let the MAN handle the flatpick.’ And he was paying me the best compliment he knew how.”

Banjo player Suzie Gibson, a colleague of Betsy’s from the Sassygrass days, also puts the best spin on comparisons to male musicians. “People have said, ‘She plays just like a guy.’ I have always taken that as a compliment.”

Missy has been playing bass with some of the best known bluegrass names for many years. Two years ago, she drove into a festival with Michael McClain, a fellow band member. “The security guard at the gate was real friendly. He peeked in the van that I was driving and asked how we were doing.

We said, ‘Great, we’re here with the Front Porch String Band.’ He looked right past me and said to Michael, ‘So you’re in the band,’ and to me, ‘And you’re along for the ride.’ I said, ‘No, I’m in the band, too.’ Then he placed both hands on his hips in this very exaggerated movement and said, ‘Oooooh, well, well, well’—like ‘aren’t you something on a stick!’ I was so shocked I think I’ll never forget it.”

Later, Missy recounted the anecdote to a member of a “really male” band. Missy said she told it not out of a sense of outrage, but because it was such a funny story. “I remember this look of astonishment came over this one guy’s face.” He apparently had never thought about the way women in bluegrass were viewed and certainly had never thought such an incident could still happen.

“So when he heard it from my side and learned how I might be affected by it—and he’s known me forever—a light went on for him. It was the first time he realized what women have to go through,” Missy said.

Economics. The underlying assumption is that hardly anybody makes a living at bluegrass. Perhaps that’s why Dry Branch Fire Squad’s Suzanne Thomas said in her inimitable dry manner, “Bluegrass music isn’t something that lots of women choose as a profession—most women can usually find something better to do.”

Given that it’s a very tough business, economics may play a major role in preventing more women from joining bands. Gail Rudisill, who has been playing fiddle since age thirteen, is a top-notch performer who spent a year with Continental Divide. She talked about the complexities of a mixed-gender band.

Unless you’re touring in a bus with sleeping accommodations, the band leader will need to find an extra hotel room for the female member and possibly an extra changing room. That stretches the limited resources of most touring bands— creating a disincentive to hire females.

Then, there’s the opportunity to do better financially by moving to country music. Ginger Boatwright said, “The Andrea Zonns and Holly O’Dells are hired by the Vince Gills and Lyle Lovetts, and their primary focus is no longer ‘bluegrass’ per se, but making a living. How many people, male or female, actually earn their living playing bluegrass?”

Today, Gail tours with country singer Bill Anderson. Country music pays better, Gail says, and performing at eighty concerts a year gives her more time to spend at home in Nashville, where her fiancée is a studio musician. Bigger audiences and higher ticket prices mean that the cost of accommodations is not a big consideration, so it’s easier for members of both genders to travel comfortably.

Male country singers, Gail said, like to have women backup musicians who can sing the high tenor, a sound more acceptable to country than to traditional bluegrass audiences. It’s not an option available to banjo players, Gail acknowledged, but fiddle players are definitely in demand.

Social considerations. Lynn Morris believes that “Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars,” as the book says. “Nice” isn’t a priority in the male business arena—or in the male-dominated bluegrass world.

Lynn approaches the situation with a realistic, down-to-earth perspective. It’s not reasonable to expect the bluegrass world to change quickly, and women who expect a more touchy-feely approach are not going to succeed. She speculates that men may anticipate that women will want to be treated differently, and that in itself is a deterrent to opening up the business to women. “Guys get offended when people talk about the lack of women in bluegrass.” So women need to be willing to jump into a man’s world expecting no special treatment, and realizing they need to work as hard—and possibly even harder—than men.

Lynn, a former IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year and winner of the Song of the Year award, was already a two-time national banjo champion when she moved to the Southeast to pursue music professionally. She said she couldn’t get an audition with any of the bands she was interested in—and she believes it was because of her gender. The experience, she said, just made her more determined to work harder, and she sees it as a gift that helped propel her to her situation. She also said that in retrospect, she wasn’t as well-prepared as she should have been to make it in the extremely competitive bluegrass world.

Working with banjo player Tom Adams, former Johnson Mountain Boy who recently joined Blue Highway, she said she learned what real preparation is about. “If I’d had an audition and somebody like Tom had been in the running, I wouldn’t have had a chance anyway.”

Kristin Scott said about pursuing a bluegrass career, “I faced what every female has faced. I knew that the chances of getting into a really prominent band may have been slimmer for me, just because all the bands are male bands, very rarely are they ever mixed. If they are, it’s usually the female who’s the bandleader. But I never let it deter me from trying to go after it anyway.”

When Larry Stephenson decided to hire her, Kristin said that she had been recommended by a number of male musicians. She said she was surprised when she later learned who they were, as they were people she knew only casually. She was pleased that established male musicians were noticing her and were willing to pass her name on. On the other hand, after hiring Kristin, Larry received calls from several men who said, “This is never going to work.” They warned that the dynamics of having a woman in the band would be too tough. Kristin has proven them wrong.

The young banjo player says she feels lucky to be playing in one of the few slots available for a female sidemusician. “When you cross-section the bands that I’d be willing to play with and the bands that would hire me, that knocks out quite a few groups.”

Kristin acknowledges that there have been jobs for which she hasn’t been eligible simply because of her gender. “And it bothered me, obviously. If you know you can do the job musically, but you know you don’t even have a shot at getting the job because you’re female, you’d be inhuman if it didn’t bother you. But if that band consists of the kind of people who would feel that way, then they’re not the kind of people that I want to travel with anyway.”

Kristin feels that times are changing and opportunities for women are expanding. “Today, the prominent bands are getting younger and younger, and we’re seeing folks like Alison and Lynn Morris and Claire Lynch and all those people who are bandleaders. There are women on stage who are very visible and are gaining respect. The tide is turning. It may be a very gradual process ... but when you look back to 1980, the scene was very different. The climate in bluegrass today I feel is much more female-friendly than it’s ever been,” Kristin said.

Family Values. The jealous wife syndrome—does that really exist? In virtually every conversation on the topic, female musicians said they understand one barrier to greater inclusion for women is the discomfort of musicians’ wives about mixed-gender road trips. Many questions arise about this topic: Are women insecure about their husbands activities on tour? Do wives state this explicitly? Could men possibly use this as an excuse not to hire women? Do they shift the blame to other women—their wives—for

their refusal to open up the ranks? Do musicians have less trust in their marriages than other people do? Do the wives have reason to be concerned? Will female musicians always be the ones to bear the burden when the specter of infidelity arises? Missy Raines was told that she was kept out of a group because the leader’s wife didn’t want women in the band. More recently, the wife of a musician in an up-and-coming band became suspicious of her husband’s friendship with a woman bandmate. The general consensus among the male members was that the woman was going to have to quit the band.

In defense of the guys, the woman was the newest one to join, so it would make sense to some that she would be asked to leave. On the other hand, it was the man and his wife who were having the problem, so why should the woman bandmate have to leave? In most workplace situations, we assume that men and women can work side by side as adults, without threat to marriage and family. However, the music industry presents extraordinary challenges. One professional said that playing and singing together is “emotionally dangerous.” The blending of voices and the trading of licks creates an intimacy that is rare outside romantic relationships. Musical excitement and sexual interest can be confused with each other—and one can lead to the other.

Bluegrass bands are interactive in all aspects—from working out musical arrangements to loading the equipment in the van. The rigors of the road can form strong bonds among band members. Add to these factors the excitement of performance, the late nights, the weekends and weeks spent away from families—the emotional intensity can be destabilizing to even the most happily married couple. Without interviewing many male musicians and their spouses, this is a hard issue to tackle. It’s best to say that, valid or not, spousal relations appear to be a deterrent to a more integrated bluegrass scene.

Meanwhile, family issues affect musicians in other ways. As Missy Raines said, traditionally it has been the husband and father who’s been able to go out a couple nights a week and jam and perfect the music. Women more frequently have stayed home with the children.

That sets up a social structure that discourages women from playing and limits the opportunity to get better on an instrument by playing with other people. An earlier issue of WIB interviewed women about the difficulties they had holding family and home together while touring professionally. No matter how much things have changed, final

responsibility for the children still ultimately falls with mom. This places additional stress on the already strenuous circumstances of band travel.

Betsy Rome said, “The problem of going on the road is that we need WIVES ... people who don’t mind being our housekeepers, nannies, and case-carriers. What we tend to have is husbands or significant others who may also play, or have lives of their own, like bringing home the bacon. Though they can be very supportive, there can be tension in the roles we play when we turn the usual roles upside down.”

And it’s clear that some women do give up life on the road in favor of staying home with their children. So if being a mother is a long-term goal, there may be less incentive to put in the long hours necessary to get to the top of the music world.

Ginger Boatwright said, “One lady I know is a marvelous musician and really good singer, but never had whatever it takes to hit the road, and you can’t make it in music if you stay home. It’s a Catch-22 situation, because women, me included, have a hard time giving up traditional roles, and the motherhood gene is an awesome thing!” Years ago, Ginger was told she only had a short time to live. (She is still with us. Hurray!) She decided the best way to spend the last weeks of her life was on tour. Ginger was fortunate because her five-year-old daughter could accompany her much of the time. “The only reason that worked out was because her father and my cousin were in the band.” She’s referring to the much-loved and much-missed band, Red, White & Blue (grass).

The audience. It would be interesting to do market research on the impact of women in bluegrass bands on audiences. It might make a difference in the way music is promoted, sold, and packaged. It wasn’t so long ago when the prevailing country music logic was that women couldn’t have hit records and be stars because women (country music’s record buyers) only bought records by male stars. Kitty Wells slammed that notion into the dust with her number one hit It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels. Which paved the way for Dolly, Tammy, Loretta, and Reba. Not to mention Alison.

Lynn Morris said that promoters have told her they would book her for a festival one year and Laurie Lewis the next year, but never at the same time. (Kind of like refusing to hire Sam Bush and Jesse McReynolds in the same year because they’re both male mandolin players!) Lynn thinks that promoters are afraid of turning off the traditionally male audiences in the southeastern United States. Yet Lynn believes putting women on stage can bring new listeners to bluegrass.

And Missy Raines compared a bluegrass festival to the Lilith Fair, this summer’s all-female traveling music extravaganza. While more women than men were in the audience, she said, “There was no shortage of males.”

Public expectations have a long way to go, however. Many women say they still are met with surprise whenever they say they’re in a band or take a break on a high quality instrument.

Kristin Scott said, “I’m in a position to prove to people that it can work, that a woman can get a job in a band and do a good job and stay there a long time and make it a normal situation. I try not to make a big deal about it, to downplay it, to not draw more attention to that aspect of my playing than necessary, so that way people will get accustomed to it.

“If they could come to the festival every year and see that there you are, still there, and everybody’s getting along and enjoying themselves and you’re doing a good job, then hopefully, people won’t even think about it. If you could get four or five women in four or five different bands and make it work, then gradually it will help eliminate the stigma attached to being a female sideman.” And audiences would come to accept and expect to see women on stage.

Self-limitations. Many of the women interviewed said they had never felt any kind of discrimination as instrumentalists. Suzie Gibson said she has played in bands with both men and women ever since she began playing the banjo. “As far as I’m concerned, there is no discrimination toward women.”

When asked if she had ever felt that gender kept her from being invited to play music with men, Cornerstone’s fiddler Dee Specker said graciously, “Possibly these things may have happened at one time or another, but seeing how challenging and definitive real bluegrass music is, I would like to believe that I may not have been quite ready for the spotlight.”

Chris Lewis used to play with the Bay Area’s All Girl Boys. She recently moved to Nashville, where she has a career other than music. Of her experience, she said, “I have found that men are a little more hard core in their instrumental playing, and I fit in well with that. I don’t think I have been shunned too much by men players, and I think it’s because they like my mandolin chops.”

The consensus among many women, whether or not they have felt excluded because of gender, is that there’s a self-limiting process going on here. Most believe that if one is truly accomplished on an instrument and is willing to accept the bluegrass industry, with all its faults, anyone can become a bluegrass professional.

Chris said, “I’ve seen some really great players, but there are fewer star female instrumentalists than there are in male circles. Maybe that’s because we’ve been conditioned not to excel in this area.”

Lynn Morris said she doesn’t think the lack of women in bluegrass bands has anything to do with women not being good enough. The question rather, she said, is, “How badly do I want this? If you pull up short and don’t want it badly enough, you won’t succeed.” The things women must ask themselves are, “How many times am I willing to fail? How distinctive can you be?” She said that lots of guys really struggle in this profession—women have to be willing to match or exceed that struggle.

Lynn encourages women to ask questions, to find the people who are supportive, and to ask them everything they know that can help improve marketability. She singled out banjo players Craig Smith and Pete Wernick as men established in the music industry who are willing to share their knowledge and insights with beginners of both genders. When asked about her strategy for success, Missy said, “I used to get angry, and that did no good. Mostly now, as I pursue more of what I want to do as a bass player and gain confidence, I just try not to think about it. I just try to be as good as I can and keep my nose to the grindstone.”

Suzie Gibson said, “I’ve seen people react or shut down when a woman steps into a picking session and seems to expect some recognition because she is a woman. And when she doesn’t get any, she walks away mad, saying, ‘They won’t let me in because I’m a woman.’ I think women should quit their whinin’. They can do everything men can do except father a child. Musically and vocally, if you’re good, you'll be recognized.” Ultimately, women professionals believe that other women can be players. Some think women have to work harder and be better than the guy they’re competing against. Most agree that you have to play by the rules, even though they might not be the rules you’re most comfortable with. But they all believe it’s possible to succeed.

Are these valid questions? Despite the disparity of views, women musicians seem to agree that these are questions that need to be asked. Dee Specker said, “I just want

like heck to see women in bluegrass. On stage again this year at Fan Fest and whenever possible. I would like to commend any and all women who are working to promote and sustain the bluegrass music community and industry. Go, girls!” Betsy Rome said, “Is this valid? Sure it is. Bluegrass is a good-old-boys club. We’re not the wives or girlfriends. We want IN, and that’s just a little threatening to the men.” The best rise to the top. Back to the original question, “Why are there female band leaders but so few female band members?” Ginger Boatwright, who brings years of experience in her own bands and with such notables as Doug Dillard, offered a wonderful insight.

“In any band, there is a time when the sidemen, whether male or female, need to shine more than is possible in a given group situation. They MUST...I stress MUST...find their own level. How silly it would have been for David Grier to remain a sideman. He is, after all, David Grier. The same with Kathy Chiavola. Another example would be Alison Brown. She HAD to be Alison Brown. Claire Lynch? Ginger Boatwright? Lynn Morris? Growth is a part of the music, and I would hope we all keep expanding our horizons. “It would be a shame if a truly gifted young artist were passed over because of gender.”

Circled Out of the Jam

By MaryE Yeomans

[These thoughts from MaryE were first posted on Bgrass-L.]

I was raised in upstate New York, attended my first bluegrass festival there in 1982, and, for the next four years, attended many festivals in the Northeast, always by myself, as I enjoy traveling alone, and didn’t know anyone else who liked bluegrass. In 1986, I moved to Nashville after a one-year stint in the Baltimore area, and found I’d entered an entirely different world from that to which I was accustomed.

Ah, the great Southland. There are many lovable aspects of the South, namely, southern hospitality (though sometimes it’s scantly-veiled insincerity, “Oh, isn’t it quaint that you prefer to pick with the men in the living room when all the women are visiting in the kitchen. Why don’t you stay out here with us?”), great homemade pies, mild winters, outrageous accents, and snake-handling churches. But, in most parts of the South, things are still about two decades behind the times in ways that often offend me, as in un-politically correct. Being Caucasian, I notice this particularly in the area of gender.

Let’s go back to 1986, when I, alone, attended a festival in Clay City, Kentucky, arriving there around midnight, having driven four hours after loading up the truck after work. I didn't know anybody, and walked around in the darkness looking for what looked like a safe place for a single woman to camp, near a family or whatever. In about ten minutes, I had four separate drunks stumble up to me and slobber, “Hey, baby, wanna ****? Somebody looks like you hadn’t oughta be walking around alone this time of night.” For Pete’s sake, I was at a bluegrass festival, probably my 180th, alone, and I’d never heard anything like this—especially four times in a matter of minutes. I hurriedly found a place to camp near a family and went to bed.

As I settled into Nashville, living next door to Mike Compton and Stuart Duncan, and across from Mark Schatz, with David Grier and Roy Husky and a few others not far away, I thought this really was the life. And it was. Daily jam sessions (no, I didn’t even THINK about picking or singing with THEM) featuring this caliber of musicians, for free, in my living room or theirs. Doing the songs they wanted to, not the worn-out requests from the crowd. Whoa. Heaven on earth.

Now it’s twelve long years later, and I regret that I didn’t pick with them from the start, didn’t have the confidence to jump in and participate. But here in Nashville, with just a few notable exceptions (Kathy Chiavola, Andrea Zonn, Alison Krauss, Laura Weber), women don’t pick with the men—the big boys. It just ain’t done. Now, I know most of their wives or girlfriends do sing and/or pick, but they just don’t jump in and join their jams. They talk quietly off to the side, or all go into the kitchen and talk. You get the idea.

After many years of doing the same (with a few exceptions like the night I played with Connie and Babe and Joe Drumright and Red Roberts and Mike Compton over at Red’s house, many years ago), I decided a couple of years ago to “come out” with my guitar and even sing occasionally. Now, I’m just a rhythm player, don’t ever expect me to pick lead. But I LIKE playing rhythm. Every week or two there'd be a big jam at my house. I called up all the folks and invited them, cooked, served up the food, cleaned up the mess, and finally, hours later (nobody made me do all that work, I chose to), I’d sit down with my guitar and want to pick a few. More often than not, most of them had already packed up and gone home.

Now these guys were my friends, and Compton would tell me I should come in and pick earlier, but the reality is that I didn’t want to pick all that fast testosterone-laced Flatt and Scruggs stuff. I wanted to sing high baritone on some Stanley songs. Sometimes there'd be a few pickers left, but it seemed like the cases would start slamming shut as I

entered the room. I was offended and felt like they didn’t want to pick with me, and I’m quite sure I was right. Yes, they were my friends, but no, they didn’t want to pick with me. Now, I’m no great picker as I said, but I’ve been around listening enough that I know to stay at the edge and don’t play too loud and wait my turn to sing and don’t play rhythm too loud on someone’s break or over someone’s singing. Still, it was pretty clear that I was an outsider, and I just wasn’t wanted, and that caused me to feel shunned. A couple of years ago, I decided to strike out on my own and find my own jams with people whom none of you have ever heard of, and I don’t even know many of their names, but these folks greeted me enthusiastically and welcomed me to pick and sing, and some of them even complimented me on my rhythm playing and would ask me to sing a harmony part, which is what I like to do. And that felt really good. As with all good things, the chemistry wouldn’t always be the same in the group, because of the weather or biorhythms or whatever, no two times were just alike, but I began to prefer being around these folks who took an interest in me and enjoyed having me around and didn’t mind that I never had to worry about prostate cancer, only menopause.

Now, I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about being a woman, and while I was in the Northeast I was never made to feel “less than” in a jam session because of being female. I’m rarely in the “inner circle” of a great jam, but I know how to participate without stepping on people’s toes (or tongues as it were). Up North, I never had men literally step right in front of me with their backs to me while I was trying to play. Or tell me, “Hey, honey, why don’t you go get some coffee for us?” I never volunteered to sing the tenor part when a group was looking for someone who knew it and had the male requester point at a man who didn’t know his vocal cords from a biscuit ’n’ gravy and tell him to sing tenor and then exclude me from the group like I was invisible and inaudible, too.

Happily, it’s not always that way. Now that I’ve been around the South for a while I can actually go to a festival and have people beckon to me to come and jam with them. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but it’s nice to be wanted! And over the years I’ve gotten somewhat assertive with some men who have treated me (or other women) that way. Why do southern men become amazed when a woman can pick? I’ve seen that twice with Jackie Buzzell (Greenwood) and Chris Lewis, both excellent mandolin pickers, both friends of mine. I’m proud to see them turn heads and get invited into a jam. But I do happen to know that I can play rhythm as well as many of the testosterone-poisoned men I’ve been shunned by. And I love to prove it! And sometimes when they’re stumbling around for lyrics or can’t find a part, I just assert myself and enjoy their looks of surprise.

Times are indeed getting better. First, there are several women around the festivals I attend these days who I have fun picking and singing with, along with numerous men. I’m still, as a woman, in the vast minority in the jam sessions. Also, I find that the people who play and sing the music I love best do not exclude me because I know how to play and sing that stuff (Stanley music, mountain music, old time) and my heart’s in it. They don’t care about my gender.

Still, I hope that women will continue to gain increasing acceptance as bluegrass musicians, not only here in the South, but all over this fair country. I know some of what I’ve been dealing with is just that I’m a liberal Yankee woman in the midst of a gob of conservative Southerners. Lately I don’t even try to go where I’m not wanted. But it does hurt to be shunned when you know you love the music just as well as someone else. I hope we can all be sensitive to this and try to open the lines of communication and try to accept and learn from each other.

At SPBGMA here in Nashville in February, there was a black banjo picker around the lobby picking a bunch. I didn’t get close enough to hear him, but heard from others that he was good. You’d have thought there was a seven-legged cow with four tails standing over there, he attracted so much interest. I bet he’d just like to be one of the gang. Surely Gloria Belle and Murphy Henry, Suzanne Thomas and Missy Raines and some of the other professional lady bluegrass musicians have had a tough row to hoe over the years. But the Father of Bluegrass seemed to be fine with the idea of female Blue Grass Boys! As usual, he recognized those elements which would strengthen and preserve his music. Long live Women In Bluegrass! WIB

HazeI Dickens Speaks

On May 23rd, 1998, Hazel Dickens was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities from Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Here is the text of Hazel’s acceptance speech and some pictures from the party that followed. I don’t think her head looks any bigger...

First, I’d like to thank Dr. David Dunlap (President of the college) for his help and support. He’s really been great about all this. And I’d like to thank Rachael Meads, director of the Performing Arts Series here at Shepherd. And a special thanks to Dr. Linda Tate, Associate Professor of English, who submitted my name for this degree and who has been babysitting me!

I first came to Shepherd College in October of ’96 when I performed at the first Appalachian Heritage Festival. I’m excited to be a part of the College’s growing

emphasis on Appalachian culture. The festival has become an annual event, and I’ll be performing here again this year. Rachael and Linda are developing an innovative course that will give students the opportunity to spend time with West Virginia musicians, writers, and artists. I pledge my support for this very worthy cause, and I hope that you will, too!!

This degree obviously means more to someone like me that never had the opportunity to get a formal education than to someone who was born with everything. It’s the only one ever in my family and that will likely remain the case!

I grew up in a family of eleven children. Life was a challenge and our dreams never made it out of the holler, much less across the mountain. I often wondered about my mother. I wondered what it was like for her when us children asked why we had to eat the same thing every day or had nothing at all to eat. She never reprimanded us for asking, but would say, “Eat what’s set in front of you and ask no questions.” By example she taught us, though we were poor, to be thankful for what we had, to hold our heads up and not to feel sorry for ourselves, to accept the hand you were dealt and make the most of it.

So down through the years, I’ve tried to use some of that quiet strength and dignity I learned from my mother in my songs—to be a voice for the voiceless, to speak out against man’s inhumanity to man, to write songs that speak about the lives of common, everyday working people.

In closing, I’d like to remember a few deceased friends and relatives who have helped shape my life and actions:

My mother, Sarah Simpkins Dickens; my sister, Dovie Bailey; Alyse Taubman; Anne Romaine; Nancy McLaughlin; and Ralph Rinzler.

I’d like to thank the many friends who have come here today to celebrate with me. I especially would like to thank Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard for their encouragement and support of my growth in the music world and in my life. WIB

Katie Laur Speaks

“I Never Had Any Idea I Was Making a Statement Just by Enduring”

[Katie Laur sent the following in response to the questions posed by Claire Levine for her Sidewomen article. In her inimitable way Katie closed by saying, “I hope this might

give some of the other poor female wretches out there slogging away in bands some encouragement.”]

I began fronting my bluegrass band in 1975—the Katie Laur Band, it was—and at the time, it just seemed like I had to be the leader because nobody else would take the responsibility. You might say I was leader by default. If you had been traveling around the country with Buddy Griffin playing fiddle, Jeff Roberts playing banjo, Jeff Terflinger on mandolin, and Rich Flaig on bass (who left the band to join a cult in California in the late seventies), you might have well decided you’d better be taking matters in your own hands, too.

I had no notion of being the first woman front-person for a bluegrass band, just as I had no notion that other women weren’t doing it. As the years passed, I sometimes grew sentimental with the idea of perhaps being the first woman who fronted a non-gospel bluegrass band—can you think of any more qualifiers—but Jeff Roberts would always remind me of Betty Fisher, a woman I came to gradually resent, even though we never met, nor have we ever spoken. If you’ll recall, Murphy, the minute someone in Bluegrass Unlimited held me up as a “first,” you were there in the next issue, defending, who else, Betty Fisher! I was shut down again.

Actually, as the Katie Laur Band toured, I became more aware of women in bluegrass. I met a woman bass player named Helen somewhere near Detroit who was a ferocious Ralph Stanley fan. She took the whole band home with her one wintery January night, and I woke up the next morning to the smells of bacon frying, biscuits baking, sausages sizzling on the griddle, and what I heard was Ralph Stanley, singing, maybe, Little Bessie, or Hemlock and Primroses. The sun on the ice made all the light around me a buttery yellow, and I’ve never forgotten it.

I met Suzanne Thomas, who was then Suzanne Edmundson of the Hot Mud Family, and I would hang around with her because I was scared to death not to. She was so good she was frightening. I met Laura Murphy who played in a band called Muddy Water. Early on, I heard Julie Gray who played banjo with a band called Wheatstraw. Pam Gadd was a great banjo player and singer, and I think Pam was the first woman player besides Suzanne who allowed herself to have quirks, like male musicians. Both of their voices were true, and they were fine proponents of the music. I met Kathy Chiavola when she was dating Jeff Roberts. She was a fine singer, and the first one I’d met who’d studied opera at Indiana University’s fine creative music school in Bloomington. As my friend Wayne Clyburn would say, Kathy knew every note of opera music. But she still chose bluegrass.

I knew very early that I would never be offered work as a sideman. Sidemen were then and, though I see holes in the clouds here and there, they still are. Besides, I didn’t imagine I had anything to contribute that men valued in the particular masculine way they choose to perform music, and it would be years before I imagined that women could have a voice. I picked my battles carefully, and I didn’t take that one on. I wanted to be able to play, to lead the life of a merry road warrior, and, yes, I always wanted to make a statement. I just never had any idea that I was making it just by enduring. Since those years, I’ve been involved in jazz, where the situation is a little better for women, and I’ve written about all kinds of musicians extensively over the past twenty-five years. I interviewed a number of musicians like Curly Ray Cline and Red Allen, Suzanne and Dave Edmundson, Vernon McIntyre, Jim McCall, and Earl Taylor. I’ve also written extensively about jazz musicians or really about anything that catches my attention. The Katie Laur Band released our first CD on the JimBob label in 1997. The year before that, I was asked to be one of the women subjects of a documentary, done by other women. It was beautifully done and shown on public television a couple of times, then went on to win a national award. The name of it is “Mountain Shadow.” The questions I was asked in that documentary helped me organize my thoughts about actually having fought the good fight, and it helped as well to re-focus public awareness of what I’ve done (whatever it was).

Taking on the radio job as bluegrass host of Music from the Hills of Home (on WNKU, 89.4 FM) further defined me as a distinctive voice, at least in this region. I have done the show nine years now, and everybody around here recognizes my voice to the point where it is embarrassing. One woman nearly came in under my toilet stall in a hotel restroom when she heard my voice. (I was probably talking to myself.)

Along the way, I grew interested in presenting other bands in concert, and I have done that maybe once a year in the past ten years, and I savor the variety of musicians I’ve gotten to know this way. I never participate in these concerts. I prefer to remain in the background producing, watching, and listening. One true thing: when you begin to use other creative people as a vehicle for presenting yourself—and only for that reason—you lose credibility with your audience fast. That’s just my experience, anyway. Through the years I have kept writing songs. One was on Saturday Night Live for a few years and was routinely played as a fifteen-second “outro,” but it made more money for me than performing has ever done. I’ve done a musical score for Children’s Theater here in Cincinnati based on “The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow,” and I will do “Charlotte’s Web” in early spring of 1999. Buddy and Jeff and I performed the music for the Ichabod Crane play, and we looked adorable in colonial costumes, and for Buddy

and Jeff, tricorn hats. Eddie Cunningham and I started writing songs together earlier this year. Eddie went to songwriter’s camp in Nashville for a week and came back with all the rules and regulations written down, which was frankly kind of discouraging, considering we weren’t following any of those rules per se, and then we turned around and sold the second song we wrote to a movie, Last Train, which was filmed partly in Cincinnati. It is an “arty” movie, and if you see it, Eddie and I are the very dirty homeless people sitting on the side of the set bursting into spontaneous song just like an old MGM musical.

These are just a few of the ways I found to circumvent the sideman issue, and I think these various activities helped me grow as a musician and as an artist, and they have served as a means of supporting myself independently, working the way I want to work. I live above a coffeehouse called Kaldi’s in Cincinnati within a very unusual crowd of artists and poets, women who are experimenting in electronic music, videomakers, a guy who paints in phosphorescent paint so that all his pictures glow in the dark, one woman who makes very erotic models of female forms with fetuses inside them, unusual things I might have not wanted to explore years ago. I am thankful I have endured, as Ola Belle Reed might say, and that I am still open to life that way. I live alone, or rather with my old dog, Hoosier, who is my cranky alter-ego, and we rub along just fine, learning new tricks all the time.

[Shortly after sending this article, Katie had to put her beloved Hoosier to sleep. She died in Katie's arms. As the line in the song Old Shep says, “If dogs have a heaven, this one thing I know, that Hoosier has a beautiful home.”] WIB

Fair of Face

By Nancy Pate

One recent weekend I had the opportunity to play at the Georgia Mountain Fair, held in Hiawassee, Georgia, just thirty-six miles up and down a mountain from my hometown of Clarkesville. Our band was sort of an outdoor sideshow, right outside the carnival gate, and smack dab between the pig races and the llama petting area. When the wind was right, the smell could be pretty overwhelming.

It was a fine opportunity, though, to play four sets a day for three days running, the kind of intense playing experience I never get anymore. The professional playing I do now is all piecemeal: a gig here and there, often as a single, rarely more than one job a month, and sometimes much less. Besides gaining experience, one of the joys of this long-term job was keeping it all in the family: my sister Argen Hicks on bass, my niece Casey

Henry on her streamlined Stealth banjo, and my sister Murphy Henry on mandolin and whatever else she felt like picking. I played guitar.

As a group, the Hicks Sisters, we had already done our annual reunion gig in May, for Clarkesville’s Mountain Laurel Festival. The Georgia Mountain Fair was something extra for us, and though we have a large common body of material to draw from, it was great to have the time to smooth out the rough places—learn to start and stop together, fine-tune the harmonies, develop a little patter for the songs—the kind of whipping into shape that you never seem to get with practice, but only when faced with the threat of a live audience. My sisters and I are in our forties now, and I kept thinking about that on stage. I felt old, somehow, but in a good way, like, “still playing music, you go, girl!” Maybe I won’t just fade into middle age, but will burn right through it like Alice Gerrard and Hazel Dickens.

I’ll treasure this playing time for those reasons, but also for the absolutely funniest compliment I’ve ever heard directed to a band. After one of our sets an older man, probably a native to the area, approached Murphy. We had stressed on stage that although some of us had come from far to play, we were raised locally. So I hope, I fervently hope, that what the man meant to say would have indicated his pride in our hometown talent. What he actually did say, however, after complimenting us on the music, was, “Y’all are just a bunch of homely girls!” That still cracks me up—you go, boy!

Casey Henry—Ratifications

Summer Travels

It seems like every article I write for WIB is about traveling somewhere. You must think nothing happens when I am at home. That’s true, actually, nothing exciting anyway. I go to work everyday at Bluegrass Unlimited, which is the best job any bluegrass picker could have, and my boss is the nicest in the world. She lets me off whenever I want, so that I can play gigs and go to bluegrass festivals, so that I’ll have something to write about. She only squawked a little bit when, early in August, I told her that I needed almost two weeks off to go and play at the Georgia Mountain Fair in Hiawassee and then to travel to Nashville to interview Charlie Cushman and see the Lynn Morris Band at the Ryman. I have been known to plan some eventful trips, taking full advantage of my footloose and fancy-free status, which I’m sure can’t last forever, but this was my most involved excursion.

The trip started on a Tuesday. I worked half a day, to pacify my boss, and then Murphy and I drove to my grandparents’ house in North Georgia. Wednesday was supposed to

be a day of practice for the Hicks Sisters (how Murphy, two of her sisters, and I were billed at the fair), but it turned into a play day with my two cousins, ages four and six. Consequently we were slightly unprepared when we arrived bright and early at the fair Thursday morning. We muddled through our four sets just fine, though, and the audience never knew the difference.

Contrary to popular belief, the music wasn’t the most exciting part of the fair. That had to be the pig races. Now I believe Nancy, in her article in this same publication, has mentioned these races. Let me go into a little more detail for those underprivileged individuals who have never seen a pig race. Robinson’s Racing Pigs come from around Tampa, Florida. The owner brings nine pigs and his own track. The track is short, but despite that fact, huge crowds gather to see these swine run. The pigs run in two groups of four. “But what about the other pig?” you ask. The leftover pig is a little potbelly pig named Schroeder who, being too little to race with the big pigs, plays the piano. And don’t be surprised if you don’t recognize the tune he plays. He writes his own music.

The funniest thing about this entire ridiculous spectacle was the music they played before the race. They had the traditional bugle call to summon the crowd, then Old MacDonald Had A Farm, I Went To The Animal Fair, and some other race-related themes. In amongst all this drivel was a gem: the original 1949 cut of Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Flatt and Scruggs. I don’t think much of associating bluegrass with pigs, but at least they picked some decent music to perpetuate the stereotype. Since we were playing on a stage right next to the pig races, we got to see four races a day for three days. Lucky us.

The day that we had off from the fair (Friday), we ventured down to Atlanta to take in a Ricky Skaggs concert. This side trip was taken at my request. Its purpose was for me to interview Jim Mills, Skaggs’s banjo player, to write an article for Bluegrass Unlimited. It just happened that he and I were going to be in the same area of the country at the same time, so I took advantage of the opportunity. His playing inspires me and sets my heart on fire like very few others. His new CD Bound To Ride is right at the top of my list of favorite banjo albums. He recorded Bear Tracks, which I don't think anyone but J.D. Crowe has recorded before. He showed us the tuning on it and how to play it like J.D. That alone was worth the trip down to Atlanta.

It was from the sublime to the ridiculous as we returned to the fair to play our final two days. (Well, maybe not quite that drastic). We survived without any mishaps bigger than having to invite the audience up on stage with us when it started raining. (The stage was covered, the grandstand was not.)

We started the next leg of our journey on Monday when we drove over to Nashville. I did my interview with Charlie Cushman on Tuesday, and the contrast between the two banjo player interviews was interesting. Charlie’s upcoming album is titled Reno Instrumentals and contains just that: many of Reno’s early tunes, recorded in a fashion as close to the original as possible, designed to inspire people to go back and listen to Don Reno’s versions. Although Charlie’s and Jim’s histories were very different, they had in common their gracious manner and their gratitude at getting the publicity. Wednesday night we went to the Ryman to hear the Lynn Morris Band and Longview. I was particularly excited because I had a “new” outfit to wear. While I was at my grandmother’s house I was rooting through one of the dresser drawers in the room I was staying in, which I always do because I am a snoop. There is no telling what one will find in there because Grandmother has kept many of the clothes from when Murphy and her four sisters were growing up. I am taller than all the girls, so usually their old clothes are too short in the sleeves and legs. But this night I was having good luck and ran across a new-looking pair of black corduroy bellbottoms and a nice white cotton shirt (made in Iran) with embroidery around the top. It happened that they fit me perfectly, so I claimed them. Of course I didn’t have any shoes to match, so that is what I did Wednesday morning, shoe shopped, with much success. So I came out of this trip better in many ways. I have seen the pig races, I have two wonderful interviews to write up, and I have a whole new outfit for only S40 (which is what the shoes cost, the other elements were free). Now, if I can just find time to write the interviews and a place to wear the outfit, I will be all set.

WOMEN TO PERFORM AT lBMA

In the showcases: 22 bands—10 include women

Dale Ann Bradley & Coon Creek (includes Vicki Simmons and Deanie Richardson) Sharon Cort & New River Ranch

Pam Gadd & the Long Road (includes Cindy Matheson and Kathy Kuhn)

The McLain Brothers (includes Jennifer McLain and Ruth McLain Smith)

Nickel Creek (includes Sara Watkins)

Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike (includes Sheila Wingate)

The Stevens Sisters

Jeanette Williams & Clearwater

Suzanne Thomas and Missy Raines and friends

The Tews (includes Danette Tew)

At the Fan Fest: 40 bands—11 include women

Friday: Alison Krauss & Union Station; the Larry Stephenson Band (includes Kristin Scott); Hazel Dickens, Carol Elizabeth Jones, and Ginny Hawker; Missy Raines and Jim Hurst

Saturday: Rhonda Vincent and the Rage; Special Consensus (includes Andrea Roberts); Judith Edelman Band; Stevens Sisters; Nickel Creek; Lilly of the West Sunday: Suzanne Thomas

(Thanks to IBMA’s Nancy Cardwell for help in identifying all these women!)