Read no. 20

Greetings!

Empty nest syndrome is just around the corner! Casey, who has been home all summer, soon heads back to the University of Virginia for her last year, and Chris, who graduated from high school this June, is in Florida studying to be a recording engineer at Full Sail Recording Facility. What will I do with no alarm clock to answer to, no school med forms to fill out, no marching band performances to attend, no merchandise to hawk for school fundraisers, and no rock-and-roll band practices to clean up after? Can I get used to a full night’s sleep—no clock-watching in the wee hours, lying in bed, straining to hear the unholy throbbing from the powerful amps of a car stereo coming down the driveway at three o’clock in the morning? It’s tough, but I guess I can manage!

IBMA Awards Nominees

Congratulations to all the wibbers who are finalists for this year’s IBMA awards. The nominees are:

Missy Raines: Instrumental Album of the Year for My Place In The Sun on her own M.R. Records.

Missy Raines: Bass Player of the Year. (Our only female nominee in any instrumental category.) We’re hoping for a repeat, Missy!

Suzanne Thomas: Recorded Event of the Year for Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts on Rounder.

Valerie Smith: Song of the Year for “Red Clay Halo” written by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.

Eddie and Martha Adcock (Spirited on Pinecastle) and The Isaacs (Increase My Faith on Horizon) for Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year.

Pam Gadd & The Long Road; Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike; and Nickel Creek, with Sara Watkins on fiddle, for Emerging Artist of the Year.

Alison Krauss, Laurie Lewis, Claire Lynch, Lynn Morris, and Rhonda Vincent for Female Vocalist.

Women in bluegrass are making a much better showing this year than we did last year when only four women were nominated for anything! Still, I must point out that there were no female finalists—not even any women in the bands—for some big awards:

Entertainer of the Year, Instrumental Group of the Year, Vocal Group of the Year, and Album of the Year. And even on the long list of instrumental performers there were only four other women nominated in addition to Missy Raines: Kristen Scott, Alison Krauss, Laurie Lewis, and Sally Van Meter. So, we’re making progress, but it’s slow. Let’s continue to support all our fine women performers. Become a member of IBMA and vote!

Ask and It Shall Be Given: Women on the Charts

In our last issue, I was bemoaning the fact that so few women were on the charts. Then, boom!, I get my September Bluegrass Unlimited and I see FIVE albums by

women-fronted bands listed among the Top 15 Bluegrass Albums:

Lynn Morris at #3 with You'll Never Be The Sun

Jeanette Williams at #6 with Cherry Blossoms In The Springtime

Laurie Lewis and her Bluegrass Pals at #7 with their self-titled CD

Kathy Kallick at #10 with Walkin’ In My Shoes

Dale Ann Bradley at #14 with Old Southern Porches

These women also have SEVEN songs on the charts, with Jeanette Williams’s “Break My Heart” coming in at #3. Women are not yet faring so well on the Bluegrass Now chart, which reflects sales instead of airplay, but Lynn Morris’s You’ll Never Be The Sun carved out a #25 spot in July and a #30 spot in August. Alison Krauss continues to hang in with Now That I’ve Found You and So Long, So Wrong which have been top-sellers for months. It is certainly encouraging to see this strong showing by these hard-working women.

Inside

In WIB 17, right after the 1998 IBMA Trade Show, we printed a letter addressing a concern that had been voiced by many folks (usually women) during the week: the fact that some wibbers were appearing on stage without playing an instrument. We received no responses, but this topic continues to be bandied about the bluegrass world. In this issue, WIB jumps head first into this discussion by asking Valerie Smith and Jeanette Williams to share their stories. Suzanne Thomas and Julie Koehler also offer their points of view. We welcome your thoughts on this controversial subject!

We also have contributions from a number of other women. Casey Henry uses feminist theory to explain the dearth of women in bluegrass, Joann Sanders Loehr talks about mandolins that are set up for men to play, and Nancy Pate gives us a glimpse into the world of mixing.

I will be at the IBMA Trade Show and Fan Fest in Louisville, Ky., October 18-24. Come by my booth and say howdy. I will be bringing along some copies of Mary Ann Taylor-Hall’s fine book Come and Go, Molly Snow as well as my usual supply of Women in Bluegrass bumper stickers. See you there!

–Murphy Henry

BARRIERS IN BLUEGRASS

By Casey Henry

During the Spring 1999 semester at the University of Virginia, I took a course titled “Feminist Theory and Methods, ” a requirement for all Women's Studies majors. We had to do a field project which involved observing a social phenomenon or situation of our own choosing, and then explaining it by applying some of the feminist theories we had learned. I chose to apply these feminist theories to bluegrass music, and, more specifically, to the imbalance in numbers of men and women musicians. My research included observing and participating in jam sessions and stage performances, as well as drawing on memories of earlier jam sessions and memories of the learning process. During the summer of my nineteenth year, I got tired of not going to festivals just because I didn’t have anyone to go with. So I packed myself up and took my truck to any festival within reasonable distance (and sometimes unreasonable distance) by myself. This meant, especially at some of the out-of-state festivals, that I didn’t really know anybody there (except the bands), so I was on my own when it came to jamming at night. Many times I've joined people I didn’t know at all, who didn't know me, and have had to prove that I could pick, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a field. My experiences at these festivals heavily influenced what appears in this paper. What follows is the oral presentation which I gave to my Feminist Theory class, slightly edited for clarity and in consideration of my audience.

The definition of bluegrass music is based on a band called Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys: five men, who assembled in 1946 to play and sing the music that came to be known as bluegrass. Women have a particularly hard time breaking into this male music because it is equal parts playing and singing. Although women may be able to play like the masters when they pick, they will never sound like them when they sing. In a music which is learned and documented almost completely aurally, which is steeped in tradition and reluctant to change, women are stigmatized as not doing the music “right,” in part because when they sing it, it sounds different. Women’s disadvantage today is most evident in the sheer numbers. Bluegrass is an overwhelmingly male music. There are only a few more than ten females who lead nationally known bands, in a field of easily a hundred. (There are more on a regional level, but I have to leave them out for the sake of space.) Even fewer women hold positions as side musicians in national bands. Why so few women? This is the question I will address by looking at how men and women musicians interact on the way to becoming professionals, during the learning process.

Learning bluegrass is made difficult for women in several ways. First, the canonical music that everyone studies was played by men. The original keys in which it was recorded are generally too low for women to sing in. If they do learn to sing the standards, it’s difficult to sing them in jam sessions because everyone is used to playing them in the original keys.

Second, there is a lack of role models for young girls to look up to, especially in the instrumental field. The IBMA has been giving awards for nine years. Each year the members vote on and award the best instrumentalist on banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, and bass. Only two out of those fifty-four awards have ever been given to women. So, little girls have to look up to male role models, which not only makes it harder to envision themselves in that position, but it also reinforces the male image of bluegrass. Their gender doesn’t stop them from wanting to be Earl Scruggs (I certainly do), but it makes women try to be like men and prevents them from exploring music as women.

Third, the way that bluegrass is learned, generally, is by doing. You go out often and jam for long periods of time at festivals and with friends. This is problematic for women because they usually do not have other peer-age people of the same gender to learn with. They are isolated from each other and denied the camaraderie that men have while learning by the sheer infrequency with which women enter the music. Stories of young boys, thirteen or fourteen, going to festivals and spending the whole weekend picking with friends or strangers, forgetting to eat, and hardly sleeping are not uncommon. The impediments to this activity for women are obvious. Most of the picking at festivals occurs after dark, and there is frequently a lot of alcohol. It is not safe for a girl to be out in the dark among strangers, often drunk men, playing or wandering or whatever. I challenge you to find a parent who would let a daughter do that. One explanation for why women cannot roam freely after dark is provided by a theory called “radical feminism.” The group of feminist theorists who term their theory “radical” attribute women’s inferior position in society to men’s treatment of women as sexual objects for male pleasure. The threat of rape and physical violation is very real for all women, whether it has happened to us personally or not. Although festivals are, as a rule, fairly safe places, if what Adrienne Rich quotes Catherine McKinnon as saying is true, that “male sexual desire itself may be aroused by female vulnerability,” then a lone fourteen-year-old girl wandering through a dark campground is not in a smart position.1 It is no fault of her own, but the construction of sexuality and women’s position in our society prevent her from enjoying the liberty that boys have to wander and learn to the fullest extent.

Women are socialized by our society to be passive, meek, polite, and unaggressive, because these qualities are what men have defined as attractive. This socialization adds another dimension to the difficulty women face in learning bluegrass. Good bluegrass music is often characterized as fast, hard-driving, aggressive, and highly skilled—the exact opposite of the qualities that women are expected to have. The skills that men are socialized to have are what it takes to succeed in the bluegrass world: self-confidence, aggression, and self-assertion, or “tooting your own horn.” It often makes women uncomfortable to have to go into a jam session and show that you think what you are playing is the best that has ever been played. But that is what it takes.

People’s interactions in different jam sessions—of only men, of both men and women, and of only women—are very illustrative. In a jam session that is all male, a competition atmosphere frequently pervades: who can play fastest, loudest, who knows the most obscure song, who can play it most like the record. If you can’t keep up with the rest of them, you’d better scram because they will let you drown, or intimidate you from joining in the first place. They want to produce the best music with the best pickers. They subordinate the social function of the jam, and the personal relations in it, to the attainment of the final goal, whether that goal is to make themselves look best or to play the best music.

In a jam of mixed company, a male often takes the role of leader and picks the songs or designates who will choose the next song. If there is only one woman, who is not the bass player (who gets ignored pretty much, whether a woman or not), she has to prove herself before she is accepted as a full-fledged member of the jam. I have felt this many times when I have been the banjo player, especially in a group of people I don’t know. Soon after I join the jam, I will be asked, challenged almost, to “pick a tune,” and I know I should play a hard-driving canonical banjo tune to prove that I can cut it on my instrument. This is not something that happens to me because I am female, because they do it to men, too. Rather it is an example of how men interact with other jam participants in a confrontational way. It would never happen in an all-female jam. In jams with equally balanced gender ratios, where all the participants have approximately the same status, even if there is no obviously designated leader, men have a tendency to just start into tunes and expect everyone else to join in. Women, on the other hand, will make sure the song is all right with everyone before beginning, and if someone can’t play it, they’ll usually just pick a different song.

In all-female jams, there is an entirely different feel from mixed-sex or all-male jams. The main focus of the jam is that everyone participate. Whoever takes the leader role will most often ask the participants to take “turns,” going around the circle, each picking and leading a song. The participation of everyone is the important thing, not proving who is the best musician.

A group of feminists who promote “difference feminism” propose that men and women have fundamentally different ways of relating to other people and to the world. They find that women tend to value personal relationships while men value the rules or the abstract concept of how things should be. I found a parallel between men’s and women’s behaviors in jam sessions and Janet Lever’s study of boys' and girls’ behaviors in childhood games, as described by difference feminist Carol Gilligan. Gilligan says, “[B]oys become...increasingly fascinated with the legal elaboration of rules and the development of fair procedures for adjudicating conflicts.”2 If you consider the song being played as the“game,” the original recording as the “rules,” and the jam itself as the “relationship,” a parallel emerges. I see men’s more strict adherence to the recorded version of a tune as an obsession with “rules.” When in doubt, they almost always turn to the recording. Women, since usually physically unable to reproduce the sounds on the recording, exhibit what Gilligan describes as “a more ‘pragmatic’ attitude

toward rules, ‘regarding a rule as good as long as’ ” it was good for the game. Women have to sing in different keys and thus in jams are usually more open to different arrangements, different sounds. They are more interested in having everyone participate, so Lever’s claim, that “girls subordinated the continuation of the game to the continuation of relationships,” applies. Women generally will not play a song unless everyone knows it. They keep the relationship (the jam) going, and terminate the game (the song) if everyone cannot participate.

Many women are no doubt most comfortable in these type jams, but these jams are not the type that will announce your presence to the bluegrass world or get you “seen.” And they don’t really help to challenge and advance your picking skills. Thus fewer women get seen, and fewer women get hired. Thus girls have fewer role models to look up to, and fewer women try to learn. On the other hand, men, in their jams, hone their skills, practice self-assertion, self-confidence, and aggressiveness, all qualities that make good musicians whom people want to hire. And the cycle is repeated.

This is just a small part of the role that gender plays in bluegrass. I didn’t address many issues including: women playing mainly bass and rhythm guitar—supporting the male lead players; the constraints family and children have on women’s participation; gendered interactions within bands; women’s isolation and competition with each other for coveted jobs, contracts, or spots in male esteem; and many other things. But this is a small beginning on a topic which deserves much more attention.

1.Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Powers of Desire. Eds. Ann Snitow, et al. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983. 2.Gilligan, Carol. In A Different Voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982. p. 9, 10.

Obituary

Terry Boswell, 46, from Northern Kentucky, died on September 3rd, after a terrible battle with cancer. Terry, who was already a good singer, was becoming an excellent lead guitar player. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her.

Mixing It Up

By Nancy Pate

I have just had my first experience in mixing sound for my own recording, Georgia in the Middle of June. Before the mixing started, I suffered from a lot of anxiety, wondering if I would be able to hear what needed to be done for each song. Surprisingly, not only was I able to hear, I often could actually articulate opinions on how the music should sound. Of course some of my communications were at a very basic level, such as, “I think we need a little more of the mandolin going ‘tinka, tinka, tinka’ in that hole.” After the initial shock brought on by the revelation that I had opinions, what struck me most was the vocabulary we were using to talk about sound. It was almost as bizarre as

the descriptive words you read in reviews of wine. For instance, on the first song mixed, there was almost an hour of discussion on how “woody” the mandolin should sound. (Maybe I should have asked the engineer, DeDe Vogt, to make the vocal bouquet a little less fruity, too.) “Crisp” was bandied about with glee, while the word “muddy” was often accompanied by a discouraging shake of the head. Frequent questions included: Can you “brighten” the guitar? Can the bass have more “thunk” and less “boom”? Is there too much “top” here, and not enough “bottom”? Hasn’t this song lost all its “sparkle”? Even these interesting topics paled beside the discussion of reverb. “Which ‘room’ do you want your voice in?” DeDe would ask. “Do you want to be in a big church, a small church, or just sitting around a living room? Or, hey, let’s try the basement for this number!” As it turned out, I really liked hearing my voice in the basement. The blessing of having a good engineer was brought home to me in particular on one tune we mixed. It was the last day of mixing, and I was very tired. DeDe queued up a number that should have been a soft swing tune. Unfortunately, no matter what buttons she tweaked, it sounded like a march played by a high school band: “boom, boom, plod, plod.” I was beginning to feel desperate when DeDe said, “Let me try something completely different.” She messed around for a few minutes and, voila, a totally new sound, with the same instrumentation: light-hearted, breezy, just perfect for the song—exactly what I wanted, but had not been able to articulate. Shoot, I had quit trying to say anything, and had resorted to stomping around the room in a poor imitation of a lousy marching band. That’s probably what drove DeDe to try anything—anything!—to calm this woman down. It worked—from the depths of despair to blissful contentment in three minutes.

I have a new respect for recording engineers and the whole studio experience. I feel like I put a very personal stamp on my recording by being involved in the mixing process this time. Nevertheless, I hope there is no occasion for “mixing it up” for at least a couple of years. I may run screaming from the room the next time I hear the word “muddy.

”To Pick Or Not To Pick?”

By Murphy Henry

Many of you may be aware of the current bluegrass controversy centering around the decision of several of the newer bluegrass bandleaders to perform on stage without an instrument. Instead of showcasing instrumental prowess, these musicians are spotlighting their singing. This development is disturbing to some members of the bluegrass community, especially those to whom any change in the music is seen as a sacrilege.

Women in Bluegrass has chosen to address this topic because the bandleaders who are appearing without instruments are primarily women. This begs the question: Is this a gender-related issue? Other questions also come to mind: Why are no men doing this?

How would we feel if they did? Would we feel the same way we do about the women? What are the reasons these women are appearing without instruments? Why does this seem to be particularly disturbing to other women? Is this development sending any kind of signal—subtle or not, good or bad— to aspiring young women players? In the overall scheme of things, as a friend pointed out, this issue hardly registers on the Richter scale of life. But little discussions and small changes have their importance, too, and where better to talk about recent developments surrounding women in bluegrass than in a newsletter devoted to ideas and issues that affect women in our industry? When I first decided to address this controversy in print, I thought it would be unfair to begin without making Valerie Smith and Jeanette Williams aware of my intent. After all, they are the two most prominent women bandleaders who perform without instruments. Their recent accomplishments are many. Valerie’s cut of “Red Clay Halo” has been nominated for IBMA’s Song of the Year, and she and her group, Liberty Pike, have been nominated as Emerging Artist. Jeanette Williams’s new CD, Cherry Blossoms in the Springtime, is at number six on the Bluegrass Unlimited album chart and a song from that CD, “Break My Heart,” is at number three. How can we not be supportive of these hardworking performers who are among the few visible women in bluegrass? I wrote letters to them both, describing what WIB was up to and explaining that I didn’t want them to think we were discussing them behind their backs. Both Valerie and Jeanette took time out of their busy touring schedules to respond to this issue. Their comments will follow my introduction of the topic. Thanks to both Valerie and Jeanette for being a part of this discussion.

We look forward to continuing this debate—in a civil manner—in future issues. Join us by sending your comments to Women in Bluegrass, POB 2498, Winchester, VA 22604. We love email, too! We’re at nmhenry@visuallink.com. You can also fax us at 540-877-2422.

Now, let’s lay the groundwork for our discussion.

In our last issue, Tom Adler, in his article “Is There a Link Between Bluegrass Musicianship and Sexuality?”, invoked folklorist Mayne Smith’s definition of bluegrass music which was formulated in 1965. Smith said, “Bluegrass bands are made up of from four to seven male musicians who play non-electrified stringed instruments and who also sing as many as four parts.” Naturally, the word “male” rankles since it was not strictly true even from the beginning—Sally Ann Forrester played in a very early configuration of the Blue Grass Boys, 1943-1946. Nevertheless, notice that playing and singing are both part of Smith’s definition. The definition historian Neil Rosenberg offered in 1985 contains the same key elements: “Bluegrass is...a music in which singers accompany themselves with acoustic rather than electric instruments...Its performance demands mastery of virtuoso instrumental techniques...often executed at rapid tempos.” Again, notice not only the mention of both playing and singing but the

demand for “mastery of virtuoso instrumental techniques.” Tom Adler himself noted that “bluegrass is more easily definable instrumentally than vocally.”

These definitions obviously reflect the configuration of bluegrass bands at the time—a group of musicians who sang and played. Some might not have sung, but all played. So, from these definitions, it would seem that playing an instrument is an integral part of bluegrass music and being in a bluegrass band.

So, is this what’s bugging us? Is the very definition of “bluegrass” at stake? Are these women thumbing their noses at the rules? But as Valerie Smith asked, “Who makes the rules? And what are they? Where is the rule that says a musician has to play an instrument on stage? Who’s to say the next generation can’t set some rules?” These are all excellent questions. Surely “Who makes the rules?” hits home with any woman in bluegrass. We break the “rules” just by being in bluegrass!

Strictly speaking, of course, there are no bluegrass “rules” and nobody is making rules. Still, there are “conventions,” and the convention in the past has been that bluegrass musicians played instruments when they performed. There have been few exceptions to this convention. Why, when faced with exceptions now, do we find ourselves uncomfortable with the fact that some women are not following the convention of playing an instrument when they perform? And why is it that other women seem to be most concerned?

Let me posit one explanation. I will begin by drawing again on Tom Adler’s article in WIB 19. Adler notes that while women have always participated in the “parade of folk song and balladry that led towards bluegrass,” when it came to playing instruments, their numbers were small. Those who did play instruments usually confined their playing to the home. So, due to a variety of cultural reasons, playing instruments has not been our strong suit.

But, as Adler notes, “[b]luegrass defines a performance arena in which instrumental virtuosity was valued right from the start, especially on the lead instruments that women were so late to take up.” And when we did take them up—when a number of women started entering the field of bluegrass in the early '70s—some men were quick to insist that women couldn’t pick. (Of course, they also said we couldn’t sing either, but that’s another story!) So those of us who had taken up instruments—I took up the banjo—felt obligated to prove that we could pick. And not only that we could pick, but that we could pick like men. Comments such as “You pick pretty good for a girl" infuriated us. “You’re the best girl banjo player I ever heard,” was only slightly less annoying. I didn’t want to be the best girl banjo player someone had ever heard, I wanted to be the best banjo player they had ever heard. But as Adler says, "it was a long time before there began to be enough really good women bluegrass musicians—women who were not only

competent, but excellent—to begin to break down the male observation that women couldn’t pick.”

And, although it’s getting better today, I think that women in bluegrass, as a group, are still having to prove themselves instrumentally. (And not in the same ways that men, individually, are always being asked to prove themselves in testosterone-charged jam sessions.) Every time Kristin Scott or Sara Watkins or Sally Van Meter or Rhonda Vincent steps on stage, they prove to the world that women can pick. So, I think some of the concern that women— especially women who play instruments—feel when a woman steps on stage without an instrument is that this woman is a testimonial to the belief that women can’t pick. And, of course, that is grossly unfair. It makes one woman assume the great burden of representing all women. But, as Suzanne Thomas points out in her comments, perceptions are important.

On the other hand, perhaps the woman of the ’70s, and ’80s have proved that women can pick. Perhaps we should feel “mission accomplished.” Perhaps it is on the basis of this hard-won foundation that women in the '90s can choose to not pick, if they so desire. Still, old memories of how hard it was for us to win a spot in a jam session on the basis of our picking die hard.

One question still looms large: Why are no men choosing to be singers only? Are they more reluctant than women to fly in the face of tradition? Or is it just flat-out easier for men to learn to pick an instrument? As youngsters, are they given more

encouragement? Do young boys—but not young girls— have the aggressive attitudes and the thick skin needed to survive as beginners in a jam session? What about the point Casey makes in her article: that picking all night at a bluegrass festival is easier for the guys. All of these questions make me suspect that this new aspect of bluegrass is, in fact, gender related.

Time alone will tell if performing without instruments is a blip on the bluegrass radar or if this is the wave of the future. How do you feel about this issue? Let us know. WIB

Valerie Smith:

No Boundaries in the Creative Process

Before sharing my view on WIB's topics of discussion, I would like to share the personal experiences that have defined my philosophy of music. For most of my childhood, my musical outlets were found through church, school marching band, and choir. I can vividly remember purchasing my first Stella guitar and Mel Bay book from the school janitor for $2.00! I ran home, cracked open the book, and learned to chord and sing “Red River Valley.” From that moment I knew I was in love with music!

My parents went in search of outlets (other than the middle of our kitchen floor) that would allow me to develop musically, and I landed at a local bluegrass jam every Friday night. It was there that I met a kind-hearted fiddle player named Joe Grable who encouraged me to learn to play the fiddle. Although I enjoyed playing old-time fiddle, I was strongly encouraged to develop the instrument that I loved— my voice. I wanted to

learn everything that I could about singing, so I earned a degree in voice and decided to make music my profession. I was very lucky to have parents, teachers, friends, and mentors who encouraged me to contribute my music in whatever way I could. I have carried those positive experiences with me, and they are forever a part of my beliefs. I feel there are no boundaries in the creative process, gender or otherwise, when it comes to expressing yourself through music, and that music is a gift that can be shared through many different styles and presentations.

I would now like to address some issues which have recently been raised: Is it bluegrass music if the vocalist is not playing an instrument?

First, I would like to propose that the voice itself is an instrument. Like any other instrument, the voice requires care, practice, and study (for example, breathing, phrasing, placement, tone, range, and pitch). There are a handful of people who earn degrees in the art of singing and make it their life’s work. Numerous instructional books and videos have been devoted to illustrating the proper use of the human voice. As for the subject of singing, it is a major part of university and public school curriculums across the United States. Stage presentation of the music is subjective, and it is left to the artist to create and the audience to decide if they like what they see and hear. I certainly admire any artist who plays a variety of instruments with ease and grace. As for myself, I have decided that my voice is my strongest instrument, therefore I put most of my energy into the art of singing and songwriting. To me, this decision is as rational as a fiddle player preferring not to play a guitar during a stage performance. As a professional musician, my responsibility as a bandleader will always be to make sure that I offer my customer a good quality show, which means showcasing the best talent on each instrument. For example, for me to continuously play the fiddle when I have a highly accomplished award-winning fiddle player in my band would be a disservice to him and the customers. So, I will always do what is logical and best for the customers that come to my show and for the promoters who hire me.

Through the encouragement of other female artists, I am beginning to include my stringed instrumental skills on stage and will continue to grow in that aspect of my profession, however I certainly hope no one is discouraged from creating music simply because they do not play a stringed instrument.

Is performing without playing a stringed instrument a gender-related issue? There is little doubt that in our genre of music, there are few males who sing and do not play an instrument while performing on stage when compared to women. In this respect, this could be considered a gender-related subject. This fact then leads us to ask why is this so. I believe that much of the cause is cultural. I grew up at a time and a place where bands were primarily made up of male musicians. Very few female role models heading a band and playing an instrument were visible. It was accepted and common for a woman to sing bluegrass without playing a stringed instrument. Cultural

stereotypes can be changed, but it takes time and continuous encouragement from strong role models.

The future is looking bright, and I am so pleased to see that the number of ladies participating in bluegrass is increasing, and that women are continuing to develop a voice in the industry. My hope is that bluegrass listeners can allow new artists to contribute, grow, focus, and develop skills at their own pace without feeling the pressure of our expectations and ideals upon them. We, as women, can overcome barriers by working together with positive encouragement, determination, and unwavering commitment to pave the way for future female artists and musicians. WIB

Jeanette Williams:

The Human Voice Is An Instrument

Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to voice my opinion regarding female singers who do not play an instrument on stage. I don’t know if your readers are familiar with me and my career to date, so I'd like to give you a little background information about myself, which may help explain the reasoning behind my opinions.

I grew up, with my seven older siblings, on a working tobacco farm in Southern Virginia. Although my parents didn’t sing, except in church, we were always listening to some style of music. We had a radio at the barn, and would listen to music while stringing tobacco. On Sunday mornings, before church, we watched a gospel quartet show on TV. These four male singers were accompanied by a pianist. None of them played an instrument. One of my brothers is a very talented actor and singer, so we attended every musical and play that he appeared in. Although he does not play an instrument, he has earned a Master of Fine Arts degree, and is now a college professor, where he still performs occasionally. Another brother played electric bass and sang in a local Southern rock band. My dad watched American Bandstand, and Hee Haw every Saturday.

As you can see, I was influenced by many forms of music early on, several of which featured men who sang without playing. I took piano lessons for a short while, but quickly realized I did not have much interest in the technicalities of learning to read music. In my early twenties, I discovered Emmylou Harris’s Roses in the Snow (on 8-track!), and Skaggs & Rice. These were my first bluegrass influences. They are how and why I learned to sing harmony. I loved to add the third part to the songs on Skaggs & Rice! Having always been extremely shy, I reluctantly made my stage debut at age 23, when a local country band asked me to perform as Patsy Cline on their Mock Grand Ole Opry show. With trembling knees and voice, I sang “I Fall to Pieces” to a packed house. I could hardly believe it when the crowd cheered and asked me to sing another song. That’s when I realized that I wanted to become a performer.

In 1989, I met Johnny Williams, who invited me to sing tenor in his bluegrass band, Clearwater, and we were married in 1991. I took bluegrass fiddle lessons for several

years, until time constraints forced me to give them up. Johnny continues to teach me chords and rhythm on the guitar. At this stage in my career, I do not feel comfortable performing with an instrument because my level of ability is below the standard I have set out to, and will someday, achieve. Johnny is an excellent rhythm guitarist, and I am fortunate to have Stephen Fraleigh, a wonderful, tasteful fiddler in my band. I feel that my audience deserves to hear the best performance that we, as a band, can provide. We are a team, and each player deserves a chance to shine in their area of expertise. I feel that the human voice is an instrument, and that it requires practice and the cultivation of talent, as does any instrument. It is my opinion that the practice of playing while singing is driven more by financial necessity than gender. I’m sure we are all aware of the limited budget that most bluegrass promoters have to pay entertainers. If a band equally splits the payment received, each member must accept a smaller portion if there is an extra non-playing member.

In May 1998, I was offered a recording contract by Tim Austin, president of Doobie Shea Records. Tim is a highly-respected musician, engineer, and producer in the bluegrass music industry. With his vision and direction, we produced the CD Cherry Blossoms in the Springtime, which has done very well on both the Bluegrass Unlimited National Bluegrass Survey and the Bluegrass Now Gospel Truths chart.

Tim showed no discrimination, despite the fact that I don’t play an instrument; instead, he considered my vocals to be equally as important as the instrumental contributions offered by the fine cast of guest musicians appearing on the CD. Gena Britt, a multi-talented instrumentalist, graciously agreed to sing harmony on the song “In His Arms I’m Not Afraid.” To me, the instrument of her voice is equally important and sounds as lovely as any other instrument on the CD.

In December 1998, I accepted a position in Radio Relations and Advertising at Doobie Shea Records. Each day I learn something new about this business, both on and off stage, and I hope to encourage other women who may be interested in a musical career. I feel blessed to be in my current position, and want to set a positive example for future generations.

I believe that if we support each other, and keep a positive attitude, women in bluegrass have a bright future ahead! WIB

Timeless Music, Changing Times

By Suzanne Thomas

Although we have made great strides in the bluegrass music business, I think there are still hurdles to be overcome, particularly in the area of perception. And as in the larger world, this will take time and work, rather than legislation or quotas. As they say, you cannot legislate what people think. Aside from the sheer joy of making music on an instrument, most of us who started in the ’70s had to learn to play to overcome the perception that we were in the band because we were the sister or wife of one of the

“real” musicians. It was also a matter of economics: there were fewer venues, and not a lot of money to go around. If everyone both played and sang, you could get by with fewer band members and stretch those dollars. That said, though, it’s curious that in bluegrass music it’s never been uncommon for people (virtually all men, with a few notable exceptions) to play but not sing, while it has been uncommon for people (virtually all women) to sing but not play. Today, there are more and better venues than there were in the ’70s. There are a lot more bands with women as vocalists, bandleaders, and incredibly proficient instrumentalists. We need to change our perceptions to match the realities of changing times.

Particularly among the “younger generation,” there is some justifiable resentment about being expected to play by rules that one had no hand in making. But some of these “rules” are what sets a particular genre apart from other forms. If you want to sit on a piano in a low-cut dress and sing torch songs (a la Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys), that’s fine, but don’t call it bluegrass. If you want to tap dance while playing the harmonica, that’s fine, but don’t call it bluegrass. (Now, if a woman is using bluegrass as a springboard to a Nashville/mainstream country career, there’s even less reason for instrumental proficiency—Shania Twain wouldn't deign to cover up her belly button with a big ol’ D-28.) But even within such a structured form as bluegrass music, there is and should be room for different modes of experimentation, expansion, and expression. There’s nothing wrong with pushing the outside of the envelope—that’s how bluegrass was born!

Built For a Woman?

By Joann Sanders Loehr

I love playing the mandolin, but I did not start until midlife, and I find myself constantly trying to balance things like weak upper body strength and tendonitis with my desire to play like Bill Monroe. My first mandolin was a store-window beauty at a bargain price that could not make a decent sound. After suffering with it for a few months, I decided to go whole hog on a name-brand F-style (call it mandolin A), thinking that sound quality must be proportional to price. However, even with low action and light-weight strings, I couldn’t make clean sounds and was totally frustrated. That led me a year later to purchase a different name-brand F-style (mandolin B) that had a more resonant sound and has stood me in good stead these last two years. I kept it with relatively high action and medium-weight strings because I had been told by several people that this was required to get a good sound out of mandolin B. Then I started to get tendonitis, particularly from trying to use my little finger to play scales and tunes. Last week I took my two mandolins to see a luthier. He said that both my mandolins are overbuilt for me, that they are designed to satisfy the warranty and be whomped on by the heavy-muscle types. They are very sturdy, but the tops are too stiff. They need to be played very hard before the tone will really come out. He said that mandolin B was indeed a higher quality instrument than mandolin A. He agreed that mandolin A sounds lousy, especially on the G string, and said the problem is that the top is too thick. In

order to fix it, he would have to strip the top and shave it down from the outside. He showed me that the top on mandolin B is more flexible, and this is why I can get a better sound out of it.

The luthier went on to say that with my minimal muscle power, I should only be using light strings and low action. He watched me play and said my hand positions looked good. He told me to forget about trying to use my little finger—that women almost never have the strength there and lots of men (including himself) don’t either. He asked me to play a really strong chop. He laughed and said it wasn’t very strong. He suggested that I consider having him build a mandolin for me. He would tailor it to my needs—give it a very resonant top (Engleman spruce) that does well with light-weight strings. He said really strong players wouldn’t be able to play it, but that I would get much more sound out of it. He also would give me a curved fingerboard with larger frets and a smaller diameter neck. I am giving it some serious consideration and wondered what WIB readers might advise. Does this sound like a women’s issue? I can see that professional musicians need to be able to play hard and get a lot of tone out of their instruments. But for amateurs, the Bluegrass Police ought to relax a little bit. WIB

What’s the Problem!

To pick or not to pick? There’s been a lot of discussion since last year's IBMA showcases where several women fronting bands didn’t play an instrument. Apparently, this has broken some previously dormant rule of bluegrass—if you don’t pick, you can’t sing! The reasoning seems to be that if these women want to play bluegrass, they’d jolly well better choose an instrument and learn how to play it because this music was meant to be picked!

Honestly, folks, do you really expect these non-pickers to choose an instrument and learn to play it overnight? There are a myriad of reasons why a person doesn’t play an instrument. Maybe they never had the opportunity or came to the music as an adult; maybe they simply have no talent for picking or have a physical reason for not playing. For instance, people often ask me when I’m going to start jamming again and, since I no longer play guitar (due to back problems), I say I have no idea, adding that some people feel singers without instruments have no place in bluegrass anyway. Once another woman (whom I didn’t know) jumped into the conversation and said she completely agreed with that!

Certainly, if everyone sang and no one picked, it wouldn’t really be bluegrass. Personally, I’ve always thought that the voice is just as much of an instrument as anything else, so what’s the problem? Shouldn’t we be encouraging talented people, men and women, to use what they’ve got? Oh dear, what a liberal I am!

—Julie Koehler via email