Read no. 21

Greetings!

The 1999 IBMA World of Bluegrass is behind us, and this year there were many events that featured women in bluegrass. However, there were also some aspects of the week that were troubling. Here is my report.

IBMA Awards

As you all no doubt know. Missy Raines won Bass Player of the Year for the second year in a row. Congratulations, Missy! Gloria Belle was presented with the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award, and I was proud to be the presenter. She confessed later that she had wondered what all my phone calls concerning pictures were about. (I told her I needed them for WIB!) Lynn Morris won Female Vocalist of the Year for the third time and second year in a row, and Sue Meyer won Best Graphic Design for Recorded Project for Restless On The Farm by Jerry Douglas on Sugar Hill.

Rounder Women Showcase

One of the high points of my week was watching the Rounder Women in Bluegrass showcase on Wednesday night. Seven strong women players who have new or

soon-to-be-released Rounder albums performed together: Beth and April Stevens, Laurie Lewis, Rhonda Vincent, Claire Lynch, Lynn Morris, and Missy Raines. And they absolutely kicked butt! April, in particular, caught my ear when she took both a mandolin break and a blistering guitar break on "Blue” which she sang with Beth. Rhonda’s singing on “Lonesome Wind Blues” impressed one of the folks at my table who said, “She’s singing the **** out of that!” And, in truth, she was. I’ve never heard Rhonda in better voice.

Joining the Rounder Women for their last number was the incomparable Hazel Dickens who announced, “It’s good to be up here with my children.” Hazel, who doesn’t mince words, followed that with, “I don't want to hear anymore crap about women who can’t pick or sing bluegrass!” Then she said, “Hit it, girls!” and the band launched into a powerful version of "Love Me Or Leave Me Alone” with Hazel singing lead. The crowd stood and applauded when they left the stage.

WIB Workshop at IBMA

The Women in Bluegrass workshop was also a rousing success. Missy, Pam Gadd, Sara Watkins, Rhonda, Hazel, Gloria Belle, and I charmed the huge audience with our playing and our stories. The highlight of the workshop was hearing Gloria Belle and Hazel sing “Banjo Pickin’ Girl.” They had never sung together before, but when Hazel reached up there and grabbed that tenor, I knew I was hearing the real thing. Missy said the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Unfortunately....

Unfortunately, although we did have the Women in Bluegrass workshop, there were no women included in any of the other professional workshops, with the exception of Hazel Dickens, the lone woman in the songwriter workshop. (There were young women in the Youth Workshop, and I’m not counting the Bluegrass Karaoke.) So no women were seen as instrumentalists—no women on guitar (two workshops), no women on banjo (two workshops), no women on fiddle or clawhammer banjo or mandolin or dobro. (There was no bass workshop.)

The Awards Show is making an effort to include more women, but unfortunately the show, which started at 9 p.m., featured no women as performers until 10 p.m., when the Women in Bluegrass, with Claire, Laurie, Lynn, Rhonda, and Missy, came on. So performance-wise, for the entire first hour, bluegrass music was once again portrayed to the world as an entirely male music. And except for the Grand Finale, which included Missy on bass for one number, Martha Adcock on rhythm guitar, and Laurie Lewis, who thankfully got to sing and take a break on “Walls Of Time,” there were no women included in any other performance slots, even as side musicians.

I think IBMA is obviously trying to include more women, and perhaps they are guilty only of not being aware of the absence of women in the workshops or of not trying hard enough to recruit women. But as we move into the year 2000, awareness is critical. I certainly hope when you women are asked to participate, you find a way to say, “Yes!” I always do. Segregating us into our own little “women in bluegrass” slots is no longer the best way to go about including women. Our 1995 “world’s largest all-female jam,” in Owensboro was a good way of acknowledging the fact that there are so many women playing bluegrass. But the fact that we continue to be assigned separate slots five years later is disheartening.

You Can Have A Voice

If you are concerned about the presence of women in bluegrass at IBMA, you can start by joining IBMA and having a voice. Then write to IBMA and let them know what you think. They do take note of what their members are saying. Also, I am on the Board of Directors—write to me, too. Believe me, a letter or an email gets noticed. Write to IBMA at 207 East Second Street, Owensboro, KY 42303. Email them at ibma@ibma.org. Dan Hayes is our Executive Director, Peter Wernick is our President, and Andy Owens is our Chair.

Lots of good stuff inside! Enjoy and let me hear from you! nmhenry@visuallink.com —Murphy Henry

The Flattop Ceiling: Where are the Female Flatpickers?

By Betsy Rome

Female flatpickers are rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to women who can run with the big dogs of bluegrass. In almost every other instrumental field, there are women who can claim to have made it to the top of the musical mountain. Think about it: without straining the brain, it’s not too hard to come up with names of ladies who have been nominated (or have won) in their category of IBMA Instrumentalist of the Year or placed in a major contest. There’s Alison Krauss and Laurie Lewis on fiddle, Sally Van Meter on dobro, Alison Brown and Lynn Morris on banjo, Missy Raines on bass, Rhonda Vincent on mandolin, and the list goes on. But name just one standout female flatpicker, a woman who plays world-class acoustic lead guitar in the demanding style of Doc Watson, Clarence White, Tony Rice, Norman Blake, and Dan Crary (the holy pantheon of flatpicking gods).

Sure, there are many women who play guitar well, as accompaniment to the voice, and who can match or best anyone on rhythm. And there are some notable ladies who can flatpick, but who are best known for their work on other instruments, such as Alison Brown and Lynn Morris. In fact, most of their audience may not even know the depths of their skill as flatpickers but solely identify them with their more famous talents.

Flatpicking Defined

Before we can dig into the depths of the why’s, we need to explore just what flatpicking is. To begin, I'll quote from the charter of the Flatpick-L, the Internet discussion list devoted to the subject: “The style of acoustic guitar playing known as flatpicking...is generally taken to include bluegrass, old-time, fiddle tunes, swing, new acoustic music,

newgrass, and flatpicked Celtic styles. It is not taken to include modern country, country and western, or rock and roll.”

Like bluegrass, flatpicking is more easily defined by the empirical dictionary of “I know it when I hear it.” You’ll know it by that flurry of notes blasting through your brain like a fast freight train headin’ south; by that blistering guitar solo cutting through the rhythm and leaving banjos in its wake. It’s the delicate weaving of warp and woof that is crosspicking, a sub-style that uses the flatpick in a series of patterns to achieve an overlapping of sound, much as an Impressionist painter uses brush strokes to create an image. Like a trapeze artist without a net, it’s the high-flying forays up the fingerboard in acoustic jazz and swing. It’s the simple and powerful low phrase used to great effect every time you hear the classic bluegrass G-run. You’ll know it—when you hear it. But you won’t often hear it played by women, unless you’re lucky enough to listen to some of the ladies profiled here. I’ve spread my net wide in hopes of finding some great female players, and what I’ve found is both disheartening and hopeful. Disheartening, because there appears to be the perception, by both men and women, that women lack the physical strength, competitive nature, and general one-track mindset (all right, fanatical devotion!) that seem to be required to become competent flatpickers. And hopeful, because despite the obstacles, there are indeed females out there in the bluegrass world who are boldly going where few women have gone before.

Historical Notes

Women have a long history of playing the guitar, dating from the times when the parlor instrument was considered appropriate for young genteel ladies to learn to play. And in other classes of society, accompanying oneself on the guitar was an acceptable activity, indeed thought more ladylike than playing the more rambunctious banjo and fiddle. In the early 1900s, the guitar developed into a larger steel-string instrument, more capable of holding its own with the popular and louder four-string banjo in orchestras. When early pioneers of guitar come to mind, one of the first names that crop up is Mother Maybelle Carter of the famous Carter Family. Maybelle is best known for her thumb-style lead, called Carter style, which became the standard method for playing traditional music on the guitar. Less well-known is the fact that she also played a flatpick style, possibly as early as 1930. She was an early and powerful influence on the instrument. Another influential traditional fingerpicker was Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten, who was discovered playing the Seeger family guitar by Peggy Seeger around 1951. Libba had been a housekeeper for the Seeger family since the mid-40s. She, of course, became famous for her song "Freight Train,” which even today is required repertoire for anyone who even dabbles in fingerpicking.

Both these women were role models for future female guitarists, and helped define their genre of guitar playing during their long and active careers.

Flatpicking: New Kid on the Block

For many years, the guitar’s role in bluegrass music was primarily rhythmic. Not until the Stanley Brothers came to prominence was there a major bluegrass band that featured a lead flatpick guitarist: first Bill Napier and then George Shuffler. Banjo player Don Reno also occasionally played fiery flatpicking solos with Reno and Smiley.

But it wasn’t until the 1970s that lead flatpickers began appearing in bluegrass bands on a more regular basis. Much of this had to do with the coming to fame of influential players such as Doc Watson, who influenced younger players such as Clarence White, who in turn influenced even younger players such as Tony Rice. All of these players preferred the large, boomy Dreadnaught-size Martin-style steel-string guitar, an instrument that came to define the style, and which was needed to project volume when competing with the five-string banjo, a wrestling match rarely if ever won by the softer-voiced guitar.

The incorporation of lead guitar into bluegrass led to a change in dynamics in bluegrass bands, the lower volume of the guitar's leads and fills lending a subtlety to the instrumental palette. To even be heard in that setting, the guitar needed to be picked forcefully, in a style that required a firm attack. And to keep up with the flurry of notes produced more easily on a fiddle, banjo, or mandolin, a flatpicker had to develop speed, a difficult task on an instrument optimally designed for chord accompaniment rather than single notes.

“What does all this have to do with women playing or not playing flatpicked guitar?” one might ask. Lead guitar in bluegrass came to mean a fairly aggressive style, very difficult to master. Few women seemed to be interested. It also meant you had to be a bold and forward kind of player to even get a break in a jam session. At traditional bluegrass jams, the quieter lead guitar may rarely get a break, because of the lower energy and volume of the guitar, regardless of the gender of the players. That is, until the players prove themselves to the other musicians as being capable of holding their own. It takes a long time to acquire the kind of skill on the guitar needed to be a competent bluegrass flatpicker, male or female, and it’s daunting to not even be able to hear yourself in a jam, let alone try to get a break in a closed circle. So the limitations of the instrument and the genre itself may be pivotal in the issue of why more women aren’t flatpickers.

That Gal Could Flatpick!

There have been women in bluegrass music who have made their mark as flatpick guitarists. Betty Fisher, one of the first female bluegrass bandleaders in the tradition of Bill Monroe, played lead in a traditional style, primarily using down strokes on the first three strings. Glenda Faye, of Porter Waggoner’s all-female country backup band, was a standout lead soloist. Her 1987 instrumental album, Flatpickin’ Favorites, showcased Glenda’s flatpicking lead on classic flatpick tours-de-force such as “Beaumont Rag,” “Black Mountain Rag,” and “Bill Cheatum.” With its all-star cast of Bill Monroe, Vassar Clements, and Jesse McReynolds, this recording proved beyond a doubt that women could flatpick with the best of them

Dede Wyland, lead vocalist of Tony Trischka’s groundbreaking 1980s newgrass group Skyline, sang so beautifully that her guitar playing was often overlooked. Paired with guitarist Danny Weiss, the two often played flatpicked duets in highly arranged compositions. Her earlier work with Grass, Food, and Lodging shows a strong bluegrass rhythm guitar, as well as lead on melodic fiddle tunes such as “Staten Island Hornpipe.” A WAMMIE (Washington Area Music Awards) nominee for her vocal work, she currently fronts her own five-piece Dede Wyland Band, featuring veteran side musicians Mike Munford on banjo and Darren Beachley on dobro.

So, Who’s Out There Now?

Regretfully, there are no women players at the moment who are ready to ascend the Mt. Rushmore of flatpicking to join the aforementioned pantheon of male guitar gods. But there are musically talented women working on their own paths, some of which lead to other mountains.

There are a number of female guitarists who are actively playing music in a bluegrass context, but who are primarily known either for their vocal or songwriting abilities rather than their flatpicking prowess. These include Dale Ann Bradley, the leader of her band Coon Creek, who can rip off a fast guitar break with the best of them, yet who emphasizes songwriting and vocal interpretation as the strong suits in her rising bluegrass career.

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Judith Edelman leads her own band, performing and recording her uniquely original bluegrass-flavored material. Judith has a strong right hand on the guitar and a melodic emphasis in her lead work, but generally tailors her guitar playing to remain in a support role to the song, preferring to let her side musicians handle the lead solos.

Some prominent musical ladies play a driving guitar, but are really noted as rhythm guitarists as opposed to flatpickers in a lead sense. Mary Gibbons, in northern California, is a sought-after bluegrass rhythm guitarist, currently touring with Laurie Lewis and Her Bluegrass Pals and featured on their new CD. Mary was profiled in WIB. as well as in Flatpick Guitar Magazine’s regular feature, “Masters of Rhythm Guitar.” Molly Mason, also featured in the same “Masters” series, is nationally renowned for her swingy rhythm guitar playing.

Many women tend to prefer being team players rather than seeking the limelight of solo performance. So we have the phenomenon of women guitarists who could be

front-and-center flatpickers, but who instead blend their music more seamlessly into the fabric of their band. Suzanne Thomas, formerly with Dry Branch Fire Squad, has been known to pick a melody on the guitar, but is more focused on her rhythm work as well as her old-time banjo playing and vocals. Becky Isaacs Bowman, of the Isaacs, is a strong rhythm guitarist who often takes a forceful lead on stage, though her lead playing is not often featured on the Issacs’s recordings.

Then, there are those women who are outstanding lead acoustic guitar players, but who prefer to play in styles other than bluegrass. California’s Nina Gerber is a musician’s musician, a professional Bay Area session player, proficient on both acoustic and electric guitar. When contacted, she confessed she didn’t think of herself as a flatpicker perse. In fact, Nina prefers not to play in this competitive style, choosing instead the more open singer/songwriter-oriented material that she frequently is hired to perform or record with others. But ask any West Coaster who has seen her live, and they’ll tell you Nina can flatpick with the best of them.

Playing guitar with one of the legends of the instrument can be a tough job, but Nancy Blake was always up to the task during her tenure as part of the Grammy-nominated team of Norman and Nancy Blake. Often challenged to prove she was worthy of her position as Norman’s partner, Nancy played guitar, cello, and mandolin with Norman, and can be heard on their many albums, as well as her own recording. The music they played was more old-time roots music than actual bluegrass, but her guitar work was definitely flatpicking.

Many names popped up in researching female flatpickers, and one of those deserves special mention. Terry Boswell played flatpicked and fingerpicked guitar and was on track in her development as an up-and-coming player when she succumbed to cancer at the age of 46 on September 3, 1999.

Hot Tickets

She may not play in a bluegrass band, but Minnesota’s Kari Larsen is an outstanding flatpicker and one of the finest female flatpickers actively playing today. Kari and her musical partner Dakota Dave Hull play in a duet act, aptly named Hull & Larsen, exploring the voices of guitar, mandolin, and ukulele in traditionally-based musical forms. Their instrumental recordings are outstanding examples of melodic guitar work, creatively arranged and expertly performed with a full range of dynamics. Kari and Dave both flatpick on their albums, rendering traditional classics such as “Over the Waterfall” as well as creatively arranged material from Ray Charles to Turlough O’Carolan, plus excellent original Hull & Larsen melodies.

I asked Kari about her experiences as a flatpick guitarist, and why she has chosen the path of duet work over playing in a full-sized band, bluegrass or otherwise. “There’s a lot more flexibility and you’re not quite as locked in. If I miss a section of an arrangement, it’s much easier for us as a team to fill in the gap. We’re used to improvising and can take up the slack.” Kari cut her musical teeth on the popular folk-rock of the ’70s, and became interested in learning fiddle tunes on the guitar. While going to college at UC Santa Cruz, she was invited to play bluegrass guitar with the Continental Drifters bluegrass band. Kari did a stint with Bay Area bluegrass band Sidesaddle, following Jackie Miller’s departure. Upon moving to Minnesota, Kari was in search of a guitar teacher who could teach her some swing chords when she found Dakota Dave Hull. “The lessons turned into a jam session. Then he booked us some gigs. I started out as his backup player and integrated into the melody.” Now it’s a full-fledged partnership, and the Hull & Larsen duet has just released their third recording, a Christmas CD, The Goose Is Getting Fat.

Featured in the second issue of Flatpick Guitar Magazine. Susan Snyder of Greenville, S.C., is the owner of 5th String Music, as well as the guitar player for the 5th String Bluegrass Band. One of the best flatpickers in her locale, Susan teaches guitar to sixty students a week at her store. She was a contestant in the SPBGMA band competition in the 1980s, back when there were very few women in bluegrass bands. As an example of her level of competency, flatpick guitar guru Steve Kaufman always insists that she join him onstage when he performs in her area, and now I know why. I listened to a live tape Susan sent me, and about got blown off my chair. Folks, this gal is the real deal. She may be a well-kept local secret down there in South Carolina, but Susan Snyder’s got the three T’s—tone, taste and timing. Susan’s style is rooted in the classic Doc Watson school, with plenty of Clarence White influence. But Susan Snyder plays her own notes, not like the many “clone” players out there.

As far as her guitar playing goes Susan says. “I’ve been accepted pretty well but sometimes I have to prove myself.” When asked about her experiences at the SPBGMA contest, she recounted, “Nobody would have anything to do with me, because I play a Louden, and I didn’t have a Martin. I own Martins, but that’s the one I chose to play. There was this little group of mandolin players, banjo players, and the guitar players, and it was like I was the outcast until my band played in the competition. Then they were saying, ‘Did you have that guitar special made?’ or, ‘ Boy, that really sounded good! ’ But then it was like I was proved—I was okay in the group now. Then, another thing: this other girl, she was dressed up like Annie Oakley and had a tambourine to hit on her hip—in a bluegrass band! Come on! The other girl had an Ovation guitar, and all she did was whang chords and never even did a G-run. We were the three women out of the fifty groups. They heard me actually play lead and flatpick. Oh, well, she’s okay then!’ Before that, it was like, ‘Who is she?' I felt like I was the tambourine lady. Like it didn’t count, until you proved yourself.”

One of the many sideroads taken in the effort to play bluegrass music in a man’s world is the all-female band. San Jose, California’s Sidesaddle maintained an all-female lineup for 14 years, though in recent years they have integrated their membership to include males, because of the lack of a sufficient female talent pool for replacing departing members. Guitarist Jackie Miller performed with the band from 1990 to 1994, playing flatpicked guitar on their 1992 Indie Award-nominated album Daylight Train. Lead vocalist as well as lead guitarist, Jackie kicks off the first cut of the album with “Blue Diamond Mines,” picking a Doc Watson-flavored intro.

Jackie and I talked about her all-female band experience. "I thoroughly enjoyed it. All of our cycles ended up matching; we’d all get cranky at the same time!” It was convenient in a touring band to all be the same gender; they could all room together comfortably. Of Sidesaddle she said: “They didn’t have a lead guitar player before me; I came in after they were together 11 or 12 years. The band wanted to diversify its sound.” Having a lead guitarist also made for a more entertaining stage show.

Jackie shared an anecdote about how driven she was to play guitar when she was 13, living with her family in Germany. “I got into flatpicking accidently. The volume was so low, fingerpicking. So I went and got a matchbook and folded it and used it as a pick. My parents began to wonder where all their matchbooks went. Then I began getting all this ‘mulch’ in my guitar from the worn-out matchbooks! So I asked my mom if I could have the red plastic twisty off the bread, and I used it as a flatpick. So I said, this is the tool I need. I didn’t even know about guitar picks!” Later in the U.S. (where she found stores with ready-made flatpicks), Jackie got bit by the bluegrass bug when she encountered a banjo player at a barbecue. “I had my guitar with me, and that was it!"

As half of the award-winning team of Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Washington, D.C.’s Marcy Marxer has been a full-time musician since 1978. Marcy spent her teenage years entering flatpicking contests, then moved on to the art of performing and making music for her livelihood. A veteran of several bluegrass bands, including the all-female supergroup Blue Rose, Marcy has pursued the art of acoustic lead and rhythm guitar, and is known as a top bluegrass and swing session player in her area. Marcy’s swing guitar playing is featured on her own Homespun Tapes instruction series. Marcy and her partner Cathy routinely clean up the WAMMIE awards in the children’s music category, and made a clean sweep of the bluegrass, folk/traditional, and children’s categories for duo/group and recordings in 1997. With over 15 albums to her credit, Marcy is a seasoned performer, and one of the most visible female acoustic lead guitarists actively playing today.

Another woman multi-instrumentalist who wowed the crowd at the recent 1999 IBMA showcases was April Stevens. A rising act on the bluegrass scene, the Stevens Sisters feature April on the mandolin, but she sometimes changes over to guitar to rip off a hot flatpicked solo. We’d like to hear more of that, April!

LadyGrass-L

For those of readers unaware of Internet activity, there exists a bluegrass email discussion list named LadyGrass-L, devoted to the topic of women in bluegrass. Last winter the list included a thread on why there aren’t more women in the upper ranks of flatpickers and mandolinists. Music journalist Jon Sievert posed the question: “[This] discussion was about the complete lack of women flatpickers or mandolinists at the topmost level and [the presence of] very few women at the professional level. The question is “Why?”, given the wide exposure of the instruments, particularly the guitar, and the style over the past 25 years.

“Suggestions included cultural biases against women lead guitar players (in all styles), lack of time to put in the hours necessary to reach the top, and lack of strength. Clyde Clevinger, a guitarist/mandolinist, said that he didn’t think it was lack of strength because he thought playing bass was much more strenuous physically and that there are several very fine woman bluegrass bassists. I was inclined to agree on that point until I put the question to Laurie Lewis yesterday.

“Laurie, as most of you know, plays fiddle, rhythm guitar, and bass. She says she’s given this question a lot of thought and thinks that it finally comes down to strength, especially when it comes to producing tone. ‘It seems like all the great flatpickers and

mandolin players have massive forearms and thick wrists,’ she says. ‘Except for Tony Rice. I’ve tried to flatpick and play mandolin, and I feel I just don’t have the strength to get the attack and tone I want.’

“She discounts the bass strength argument, saying that it takes different muscles. Once she figured out how to use them and position her hands, she found she could play all night without getting tired. She also cites lack of time as a formidable obstacle. ‘It’s very, very difficult for women to be professional musicians, because they just don’t have the support network that men do. Even when there are women and men musicians together, I contend that women almost always have less time to devote to their music because they're picking up the slack.’

“Incidentally, Tom Rozum says that Alison Brown is the best woman flatpicker he’s ever heard. Somehow, knowing her background, that doesn’t surprise me.”

As a LadyGrass-L participant myself, I have been disappointed, but not surprised, that more woman flatpickers haven’t come out of the woodwork. There are plenty of lady banjo pickers and fiddlers, but female experts in fretted lead work continue to be far and few between.

Girls and Guitars

As a guitarist and educator. South Plains College professor Joe Carr is in a unique position to assess the progress of women in this field. Every year a new crop of hopeful musicians comes to Levelland, Texas, to go to school to get their “bluegrass degree.” I asked Joe some questions about the female students he sees—the numbers, the trends, the differences between the gals and the guys. He replied with some thought-provoking answers:

“At one time a few years ago we had more female students in our bluegrass program than males. At that time I theorized that women might be generally more predisposed to seek instruction (ask for help) than men generally are. We generally have more men in guitar classes at SPC. Workshops are like this, too. Early in June, I conducted a two-day workshop in England for nine men and one woman. The woman was the least experienced of the group.

“I don’t think upper body strength is a major issue. There are, after all, scrawny boys and muscular women. Women may respond better to, and participate more in, groupsupported musical experiences. There are quite a few excellent female fiddlers, many of whom started out in formal string programs. The lack of support may make flatpicking a more solitary course. Having so few role models has to be a factor. Stereotypes still

exist. Fiddles seem okay (to some) for girls to play. Big ole guitars are for real men. I wonder if the acceptance of smaller guitars in bluegrass will encourage more females to take up the instrument. (I play a 12-fret 000.)

“I have been told that the stereo industry accepts as standard information that men buy speakers based on the bass response of the speaker while women tend to choose speakers with good clear highs. If we are different physically, it could be women are generally attracted to the sound of higher pitched instruments than men. Although that doesn’t explain Missy Raines. One more thought. I’m not sure I believe this but one could follow the line that women traditionally are more experienced in supportive roles—rhythm guitar, bass. Lead guitar is more of a “Hey, look at me!” sort of activity. Some men find this second nature.”

The “Grass Ceiling”

It looks like there’s still a long way to go until women become equal players on the flatpick field, but there is progress being made. The ladies I interviewed shared the common experiences of repeatedly having to prove their musical worth to other musicians, simply because nobody would believe they could “cut the mustard” because they were female. Most of the women tended to have less of an interest in competitive musical contests than their male counterparts; they’re more interested in making music than winning ribbons. The result is that few if any women enter the proving ground of flatpick contests and band competitions, and the general perception is that women aren’t good enough to win these horse races. And until they do, it’s going to be difficult to crack that “grass ceiling" to enter the top echelon of bluegrass guitarists. I contend that until a few brave gals get up the gumption to enter and win the big contests such as Winfield, we’ll be forever having to put up with the earnest compliment, “My, you play as good as a man.”

There are some women currently working their way up the ranks of beginning and intermediate flatpickers. One of them, Nancy Mumford, answered a question posed on the Flatpick-L on why more women don’t become serious flatpickers. Her reply reflected the attitudes of many female players: “I don’t know the reason why there aren’t more, but I know if I played good enough to be there, I would love to jump right in and kick some guys’ butts! Maybe it’s because not many of us girls start playing early on. I knew a ton of guitar wannabes in my teen years, but I didn’t want to learn to play till later, and I don’t have the desire to strive for contest winnin’ in the first place, so maybe there is my downfall. I am striving to play better, though. It’s been the greatest of adventures so far!”

A special thank you goes to the members of Flatpick-L. Bluegrass-L, and LadyGrass-L for their suggestions and leads in trying to track down the guitarists I found. Thanks to Mike Seeger for verifying information on Maybelle Carter and Libba Cotten. I’m sure I missed some players, so apologies to anyone not mentioned in my overview. Or as poet Pat Parker put it in her poem Movement in Black:

& all the names we forgot to say

& all the names we didn't know

& all the names we don't know, yet...

WIB

Where You Can Hear and Read About These Women

Glenda Faye: Flatpickin' Favorites (Flying Fish 432), Soundbite "Black Mtn. Rag" at <www.rounder.com/rounder/catalog/bylabel/fly/432/432.html>

Dede Wyland: Late to Work (Flying Fish 261), Stranded in the Moonlight (Flying Fish 304), Skyline Drive (Flying Fish 388), Look Into Your Heart (solo recording) Betty Fisher: WIB# 18 and #19

Nancy Blake: Grand Junction (Rounder 231)

Marcy Marxer: Blue Rose, (Sugar Hill 3768), Info at: <www.cathymarcy.com> Susan Snyder: Flatpick Guitar Magazine (Vol. 1, #2, Jan. 1997)

Kari Larsen: Double Cappuccino, Moonbeams, and The Goose Is Getting Fat (Arabica Productions, 2515 36th Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN 55406)

Jackie Miller: Daylight Train (Turquoise TR-CD-5080) Sound bite at

<www.vradio.com/bands/sidesadd.html>

(Note: Flying Fish catalog carried by Rounder Records.)

Women in Bluegrass Workshop at IBMA

L-R: Missy Raines, Pam Gadd, Murphy Henry, Sara Watkins, Rhonda Vincent, Hazel Dickens, Gloria Belle (invisible, but there!). Said Hazel Dickens earlier: “I don’t want to hear anymore crap about women who can’t pick or sing bluegrass!” You tell ’em, Hazel! Gloria Belle, left, told us that one of the inconveniences of traveling with Jimmy Martin’s band was making pit stops on the side of the road. “That doesn't help me any!” she told Jimmy.

Hazel Dickens, right, said that when she played bass with a band in Baltimore, she was only occasionally allowed to sing a number. The reason she was in the band to begin with was that she owned the bass! Hazel once told me what the guy she replaced said when she took over on bass. I wish I could print that here, but this is a bluegrass publication and not Rolling Stone!

Betsy Rome

It’s Pretty Lonely for a Woman Flatpicker

By Rolly Brown

I met Betsy Rome, who wrote the preceding article, in 1995, when I was putting together the world's largest all-female jam for IBMA's Fan Fest in Owensboro, Ky. The group of 73 women was rehearsing “Old Joe Clark,” with me yelling out “Banjos" when it was time for all the banjos to play, and “Fiddles! ” when it was time for all the fiddles to play, and so forth for the mandolins and even dobros. When we’d finished running through the song, I heard a voice say, '' What about the lead guitar?" Lead guitar? I hadn't even thought about lead guitar! “You want a break?" I said. “Sure, " Betsy Rome replied. “Okay," I said. "Lead guitar!" And away went Betsy, ripping through “Joe Clark” confidently, with 72 women backing her up. She did exactly the same thing when we played it on stage. I was blown away. I'd never heard a woman play guitar like that—she was aggressive, powerful, clean, and tasteful. What an inspiration!—Murphy Henry Betsy Rome might consider it presumptuous to include herself in this treatise on the elite of flatpicking women, but she surely deserves mention here. Not only is Betsy a versatile and tasty rhythm and lead guitar player in the bluegrass and swing genres, but she brings to the table something which is often missing in the playing of more testosterone-based lifeforms. Dare I call it taste? I think “musicality” might be more accurate.

As a rhythm player. Betsy is a pleasure to play over because she combines strong forward drive with a light mobility. As a lead player, Betsy just doesn’t seem to be happy unless she’s making some kind of interesting statement. Many players produce a non-stop string of eighth notes; a sort of acoustic wall of sound, out of which may arise the occasional ear-catching lick. Betsy seems unwilling to include much of this fodder, and manages to speak economically without losing the rhythmic continuity and drive which distinguishes bluegrass flatpicking.

Betsy has studied the position of the guitar in a bluegrass band with great care. Here’s some of what she said when I asked her about the guitar’s place in a band: “I was taught that the ideal backup guitar player is seen and not heard. I’m not sure that I believe that so much because I have too much fun playing bass runs and licks in between, and punching the rhythm up when I can. The guitar and bass are really responsible for moving the music forward. The least important thing is your lead break. The most important thing is the rhythm; staying on top of the beat, and punching it forward. Really, it’s being a total support person.”

And about playing breaks? “Well, it’s a real challenge because it’s the lowest volume instrument, and you want to make sure that the whole dynamic doesn’t ‘fall out’ when the lead player takes a break. It’s a question for the whole band; how to back up the guitar player. For the guitarist herself, it’s important to quote some melody. Don’t just play licks through the chord changes.”

I also asked Betsy about her experience of being a woman flatpicker. “Well, it’s pretty lonely. I can go for years without meeting another woman flatpicker. And when you go to a jam, people assume that you’re just a singer, and you have to prove to them in various non-verbal ways that you’d like a break. It helps if you’ve been around a while, and people know who you are, but otherwise it’s pretty tough.”

Tough it may be, but Betsy has won much respect in the bluegrass world. Sassygrass, her early '90s all female band, placed in the Winterhawk band contest twice, and was Northeast regional champion of the Pizza Hut Bluegrass Showdown in 1992. She has placed in or won several regional flatpicking contests over the years, appeared on stage at Winterhawk with Martin Guitars’ flatpicking maestro Rich Starkey, and generally carved out a fine reputation while also raising a family and making a living as a graphic artist

Betsy currently sings and plays guitar in Too Blue, a trio which also includes Joan Harrison on banjo and vocals and Jack Murphy on bass. They were featured with three

cuts on the Plectology CD series, which is put out by Flatpick-L. Betsy also has been dabbling in the mandolin, playing with the Walkingwood Mandolin Quartet. Rolly Brown is a Winfield National Fingerpicking Champion. He is now on a path to mastering flatpicking.

Kathy Barwick: Role Models Are Important

We had email trouble reaching Kathy Barwick for our main article, so I finally resorted to the old-fashioned telephone, since I definitely wanted her to be included. Kathy and I had a one-on-one flat picking jam in Alaska, of all places, in 1993, and that was the first time I had ever traded fatpicking breaks with a woman. It was so much fun! Kathy Barwick, dobro player and featured flatpicker with California's now-defunct All-Girl Boys, started flatpicking in her late '20s. She started chording guitar at age 16, inspired by a Girl Scout camp counselor, and then moved into fingerpicking. As a “loner” who enjoyed playing by herself, fingerpicking suited her. But, as a woman, she automatically internalized the idea that "girls weren’t allowed to go past the fifth fret.” However, she did like to play fast. And, being a technician rather than a singer, she was soon fingerpicking everything ninety miles an hour. Someone suggested that if she wanted to play that fast she should get a banjo. So she put the guitar down for five years and became a banjo player.

It was while teaching banjo at the 5th String in Sacramento that Kathy picked the guitar back up to play rhythm, using a flatpick, with her students. However, it wasn’t until she saw Nina Gerber playing flatpicked lead guitar with Kate Wolf that Kathy even thought about flatpicking herself. Kathy took a few lessons from guitar guru Steve Pottier and "that’s all it took,” as Gram Parsons sang. When I saw Kathy on stage in Alaska with the All-Girl Boys, she took flatpicking leads on “Farewell Blues” and “Nashville Blues,” both better known as banjo tunes!

As a flatpicker, Kathy enjoys most playing in “snooty guitar jams with no banjos allowed.” Playing guitar in big bluegrass jams where she has to fight to be heard over a “bunch of banjos” is “not satisfying.” She knows in a jam session you’re supposed to “muscle it out” by playing as hard and loud as possible, but she rejects this approach. She hopes with prominent guitar players like David Grier rejecting the “muscle” approach, perhaps a small amount of rationality may be creeping into guitar playing. Kathy thinks the answer to the question “Why so few women flatpickers” is circular in nature. First of all, she stresses the importance of role models, especially those in her own guitar career. She recognizes that there are few role models for women and thinks

that this is because flatpicking is “really hard physically—it’s hard to pull tone and volume.” Therefore, few women take it up. Thus, the circle remains unbroken, expect, as we’ve seen, for a few brave souls. She also recognizes that you have to be strong mentally to invade this male space. At a recent guitar show, she and another male performer were going to be demonstrating new guitars. When they arrived and received their name tags, his said “performer;” hers said “guest.” Kathy took it in stride. Recently, Kathy has been playing dobro with the Avocado Brothers, whose lineup also includes Mary Gibbons and Steve Pottier. At heart, she still thinks of herself as a banjo player, but she finds playing guitar by far “the most emotionally satisfying.”—Murphy Henry

She’s With the Angel Band: Sally Ann Forrester

The Original Bluegrass Girl, Sally Ann Forrester, 76, who was known to her friends and family as Billie, died November 17th in a Nashville nursing home. Her son Bob was with her. Sally Ann had had Alzheimer’s Disease for years.

Sally Ann played accordion with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys from 1943-1946. In 1942, she was with Monroe’s tent show. She recorded eight songs with Monroe in 1945 including “Kentucky Waltz, ” “Rocky Road Blues,” and "Blue Grass Special.” all of which featured prominent accordion. She also sang tenor on two vocals, “Come Back To Me In My Dreams” and “Nobody Loves Me,” which, unfortunately, weren’t released until the ’80s, thus obscuring the fact that women had sung bluegrass right from the start—and with none other than Bill Monroe himself.

Born in Raton, N.M., on December 20, 1922, and raised in Avant, Okla., Sally Ann played piano, guitar, and violin as a youngster. In high school she was noted for both her guitar playing and her singing. In 1939, she began performing with her guitar as the Little Orphan Girl on the Saddle Mountain Roundup on KVOO in Tulsa, Okla. Occasionally she played the fiddle. Also working on this show was fiddling Howard “Howdy” Forrester, whom she married in June 1940. His telegram asking her to join him at the radio station where he was working in Wichita Falls, Tex., read: “Come prepared to stay. Bring fiddle.” They were married for 47 years. They played in bands together until Sally Ann retired from music in 1949 and Howdy took a job playing with Roy Acuff. I did my Master’s Thesis on Sally Ann, and was happy to disprove the rumor that she had been hired by Bill Monroe to “hold Howdy’s place” in the band when Howdy was called into service. She was hired because of her musical ability and the fact that she was an asset to the show. As her son Bob says, “She was a real trooper.” —Murphy Henry

Musical Gender Bending: Proving Yourself in a Jam

By Casey Henry

Casey wrote this paper for her Women in Music class at the University of Virginia. Bluegrass music is, and always has been, played mostly by men. Throughout the history of bluegrass this has always been the case, although more women are entering the music now. As a woman who plays this predominantly male music, I am frequently made aware of my gender, especially in jam sessions where I am playing with and for men whom I do not know. Gender is relevant to the entire jam session setting both in the character of the music itself and in the interactions between the players. One particular jam session at a festival in North Carolina two years ago provides a nice setting for exploring how gender interacts with and affects the playing of bluegrass. But first, a little background on gender and bluegrass in general.

The band that most people consider the quintessential bluegrass band, Bill Monroe’s 1946 Blue Grass Boys, was composed of five men: Monroe on mandolin, Earl Scruggs on banjo, Lester Flatt on guitar, Chubby Wise on fiddle, and Howard Watts on upright bass. That band, and the other bands around that time— Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, Reno and Smiley— defined, and still define, what bluegrass sounds like. So the original bluegrass sound itself was a male sound; it was played, sung, and written by men. Up until the mid-1970s all the major players and singers were men. Since I play banjo, I’ll use the banjo as an example. Earl Scruggs is the founder of bluegrass banjo. Following in his footsteps are Ralph Stanley, Don Reno, Sonny Osborne, J.D. Crowe, and many others. No widely known women appear on the list until the late ’60s and early ’70s with Roni Stoneman, Alison Brown, Murphy Henry, and Lynn Morris. Still today when the average bluegrass picker or fan thinks of “great” banjo players, no woman will come to mind. So, as bluegrass banjo players, all women, myself included, are following in the footsteps of men; we are trying to play like men.

Along with the male legacy that women players have to contend with is the character of bluegrass itself. The music is often fast, intense, aggressive, and competitive, characteristics which are associated with masculinity in our culture. People expect “good” bluegrass to have these features. People also expect women to possess the opposite of all these qualities (demureness, deference, politeness) and that those qualities will come out in their playing. Thus the term playing “like a girl” to describe wimpy picking. Women playing in jam sessions have to prove that they can perform on their instruments, defying bluegrass’s male legacy, and have to field comments about how they play “good for a girl" simply because they play competently and are not too

shy to prove it. In order to be judged a decent picker by the other players a woman has to overcome cultural stereotypes of femininity and project male characteristics in her playing, a sort of musical gender bending.

To bring all these generalizations down to the specific, one jam session in September 1997, at the Bass Mountain Bluegrass Festival near Burlington, N.C. demonstrates many of the stereotypes and difficulties that women face. I drove to the festival Friday morning by myself because I wanted to see some of the bands who were playing and did not have anyone to take with me. That night I found myself a decent picking session in the dark campground near a roaring bonfire. I approached the session, banjo in hand, and stood, as etiquette demands, waiting to be asked to join. All the pickers in the circle were men, and I did not know any of them. Most of the women present in the surrounding listening audience were, no doubt, the significant others of the jammers. I approach these types of sessions assuming that they expect me to play inadequately, or that they will ask me to play more out of curiosity—to see whether I really can pick—rather than because of anything they hope I will bring to the session. I know that they are judging me on the basis of my gender and, as a woman who plays banjo, I have a particularly (stereotypically) masculine role to fill on the loudest instrument. Before long someone asked me to get out my banjo, so I did and joined the circle. They already had one banjo player, and generally jam sessions do not need more than one. They would not have asked me to play if I had looked like I was going to take over the session from the other banjo player, which many male pickers (the rude ones) tend to do. Their quick invitation in this case leads me to believe that, just because I am a young, fairly good-looking female, they were either testing me out, or wanted the pleasure of my company. They were all older men, and I've rarely met a man who didn’t prefer a young attractive woman player who is competent, or not, for that matter, to just another man. I may have gotten invited to join because of my looks, but I had to earn my place to stay by my picking.

The first thing they asked me to do was pick a banjo tune. This is the polite thing to do and it signals that the other players had accepted me into the circle. The first tune is also a convenient way to judge the new participant. What you pick and how you pick it are very important. It is your one chance to prove whether you can cut it or not. I feel that the first tune is especially important for me as a woman because I am fighting against the expectation that I cannot really play. I feel, whether this is really true or not, that I have to play twice as well as the average man to be accepted on the same level. Fortunately, at the average campground jam, I can hold my own, so they have little choice but to accept me. But I still had to prove myself to them on the first tune, so I chose a fast, hard-driving, canonical tune, “Shuckin’ the Corn,” by Earl Scruggs.

Choice of tune is important in a situation like this. I knew that this was a traditional bunch of players, so an instrumental from one of the three bluegrass banjo founders would be appropriate: Earl Scruggs, Don Reno, or Ralph Stanley. Stanley's best known tune, "Clinch Mountain Backstep,” is getting to be fairly common, so if you really want to be impressive this is not the best choice of tune. Many of Don Reno’s tunes are complicated and impressive, but they are not generally as well known as Scruggs’s and it is best, at first, to choose something everyone knows. “Shuckin’ the Com” is standard three-chord bluegrass, but it is very fast and not easy to play, if you play it right. It can be impressive or it can be a real disaster. When I kicked it off, hard and fast, I got the usual reaction: surprised, impressed looks. I always feel like saying, “Yes, I really can play, so get over it and let’s pick.”

I think my choice of instrument, not only my level of talent, has a lot to do with the reactions I get in jam sessions. If I had wanted to join the session on bass or rhythm guitar, or even rhythm mandolin, they may or may not have let me in, but it probably would not have elicited much comment either way. Since I played a lead instrument and insisted on becoming an active, contributing participant, taking breaks and singing, I was taking a role not expected of a woman. To determine why bass and guitar are more common and less surprising for women to play involves looking at the roles that the instruments themselves take in playing the music.

In bluegrass, each instrument has a specific role to play, and these roles do not vary much at all, especially in jam sessions. The upright bass and guitar are mainly rhythm instruments. Recently the guitar has taken more of a lead role, but lead is not its main purpose. The mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and sometimes dobro play solo breaks, kick off songs, and play backup or rhythm while the singer is singing or another instrument is soloing. These lead instruments get to take the flashiest roles, have the chance for variation and improvisation, and get the most attention from the audience in a performance situation and from the other players in a jam. Since bass and guitar play the rhythm, they function to support the lead players and rarely get to step out and gain attention by taking a lead break.

These roles that the instruments play correspond rather well to the stereotypical social roles of men and women in American society. The people playing the lead instruments get the attention, get to make the decisions about what songs to play, and get to direct the jam by designating who is to take the next solo (with a look). The bass and (non-lead) guitar players get to support the lead players from the background and they generally get ignored, but the music needs them there or it couldn't exist. The lead players have the stereotypically male social role, and the rhythm players have the

stereotypically female social role. And, not coincidentally I think, the great majority of the women who have played bluegrass in the past, and who play it now, play the rhythm instruments.

Many of the few women professional musicians who were around in the early days of bluegrass played bass. If you wander through campgrounds or watch the stage at festivals today, of the few women performers you see, many will be bass players. This phenomenon would seem incongruous if you tried to explain it from a physical standpoint. Most people would expect pickers to play instruments suited to their size and strength. Men, who generally have more upper body strength than women, should be playing bass, which is the biggest, heaviest instrument and takes the most strength and endurance to play. Women, who are generally smaller, should predominantly play fiddle and mandolin, the smallest and lightest instruments, which require the most manual dexterity. But this arrangement is not the case at all. More women play bass because its role in the music most closely replicates women’s social role; likewise men play lead instruments because their roles correspond to men’s role in society. From a social standpoint the arrangement makes perfect sense, unfortunately.

Given that gender is so closely associated with choice of instrument, people are surprised when I can play banjo better than the average campground picker. But after they get over their surprise, usually they accept me as an equal and get down to the business of jamming. This was the case at Bass Mountain where our jam lasted almost four hours. It was a good session and there was a good singer who knew a lot of songs, which is the key to keeping a jam going. Throughout, I was the only woman playing or singing, so the gender differences in the way that men and women tend to act in jams were not too apparent (and, to tell the truth, I had not yet started studying them, so I did not notice at the time). But I will draw on my experience at numerous other jams to demonstrate how the behavior of men and women in jam sessions often replicates their behavior in society at large.

In my experience and from my observations, men and women tend to reproduce their culturally-assigned social roles in the context of jam sessions. Men often approach jam sessions as a contest. The general point of jamming in their eyes is to make themselves look good and to prove that they have the most bluegrass knowledge. They would never admit that this is the point, saying instead that the point is to make good music and to have fun, but it is evident from their actions that there is a contest happening. One of the most obvious signs of competition is men’s tendency to just start into a tune without announcing what it is or what key it is in. One man starts and expects everyone else to join in. It is partly a test to see if the other pickers can figure out what the song is, and

partly an assumption that they are the leader of the jam, at least for the time being, whom everyone will follow.

Men also have a tendency to want to play everything just like the record. Since bluegrass is learned mostly from recordings and by imitation—transmitted aurally instead of by written music—the original recording of a song is the authority, the assumed template to which all the other versions of a song are compared. The act of jamming is like a game for which the original recordings are the rules. The ones who can play a song closest to the record win. If you do not know the songs, the repertoire, you lose, and if you know the songs but don’t play them anything like the record you also lose. The goal is to sound like the record. This standard puts women at a disadvantage to begin with. Although women may be able to sound like the records when they play, if they are good enough, they will never be able to sound like them when they sing, because all of the original singers were male. It’s not that women lose the game from the beginning, but that they are excluded entirely. This makes it hard for women to compete and be accepted in this particular situation, because they would need to redefine the rules if they wanted to beat men at their own game. Some women like me, though, happen not to want another game, so we tag along with the men, hoping that they will make exceptions to the rules.

Sometimes women do succeed in redefining the rules within the context of the bluegrass jam session. This happens most often with the jam is composed of all or mostly all women. In these cases women use the jam session as a way to build a little community. Instead of competition, the point is to have everybody participate. When suggesting songs women ask if everybody knows the song and then wait for confirmation from everybody before proceeding. If there are one or two people who do not know it then, more likely than not, whoever suggested the song will choose a different one until she hits upon one that everyone knows. It is more important for everyone to be able to join in than for any particular song to be played. A common pattern in mostly female jam sessions is for everyone to go around the circle and each choose and “lead” a song (by kicking it off, singing it, and designating who is to take the breaks). That way everyone gets an equal chance to participate and the jam has no one leader. This pattern rarely occurs in mostly male sessions where there tends to be one leader who chooses the songs or designates who is to decide on the next one. The male way is more hierarchical than the democratic female way.

Since both male and female behavior at jam sessions developed around a male canon, it would be interesting to speculate if men and women would act the same way if there were a female canon. With more women emerging as major bluegrass artists—Alison Krauss, Laurie Lewis, Lynn Morris, Claire Lynch, Rhonda Vincent—will women jammers

insist on playing these tunes just like the record, or, rather, the CD? Or will women develop a different jamming etiquette? I know from experience that women have made Krauss’s tune “Steel Rails” into a jam session song. I do not know if they were trying to play it like the record or not, but they played it nonetheless. If women start to try and replicate the sounds on women’s recordings, men will then be pushed out of the game, just as women are now, because men cannot sound like women just as women cannot sound like men.

Another question that arises when considering the new female artists producing popular music is: will playing “like a girl” come to change meaning? All the above-mentioned women are virtuosos on their instruments. If playing “like a girl” means playing like Lynn Morris, I don’t mind being told that at all. The term "girl,” though, needs to be changed to “woman.” If she is under the age of twelve, “girl" is okay. Otherwise the bluegrass world needs to recognize that we are really adults.

I look forward to the day when somebody asks me to describe my playing and I can answer with, “Strong, aggressive, and supportive. I play like a woman.”

A TRIBUTE TO TERRY BOSWELL:

She Did Important Work as a Woman Instrumentalist in a Man's Game

By Katie Laur

Terry Boswell, 46, from Northern Kentucky, died on September 3rd, after a terrible battle with cancer. She was an excellent singer and guitar player in both flatpicking and fingerpicking styles. Her goal was to get as good as the "big boys. " Katie Laur, one of the first women bluegrass bandleaders back in the '70s, recently played with Terry around Cincinnati.

I don’t remember when I first met Terry Boswell, probably at the Appalachian Festival a few years ago when her band, Kentucky 31, was playing there, and I was the emcee. Terry was on guitar and lead vocals, Natalie McClelland on bass, Trina Emig on banjo, and Ed Cunningham on mandolin. Ed was a good lead singer on his own, but when he harmonized with Terry, or she with him, their duets were touched with magic. This singing, plus the fine instrumental work of everyone in Kentucky 31, made them a good band the first day they ever performed. But after a year of getting some pretty good ink and learning a substantial repertoire, Kentucky 31 fell apart as bands do, only to re-form here and there for special events.

Terry started her own band, the Boswells, who continued to work steadily at outdoor concerts and small bluegrass festivals. She took Trina with her; her husband, Jeff, who was a mandolin player; and used whatever bass player was around at the time, but the problem of harmony singing became a quarrelsome point with the band. One afternoon when I called her, she was blue. “No matter what I do, the harmony part of my music suffers.”

Eventually, we took a job with mandolin player Jeff Terflinger at a bar in Northern Kentucky called Rosie’s. Terry and I learned a duet on “Dream A Little Dream Of Me,” and she worked and worked on those difficult chord changes. Rosie’s was not ideal. The bar played sports on huge television screens everywhere you looked, and on break, after our soft, sweet music, they’d rock the house with heavy metal. When we’d get back up on stage, everyone’s ears had to get accustomed to us again. A lot of times it didn’t work, and we’d all go home with a headache. Still at Rosie’s we veered far enough out of the bluegrass repertoire to feel we’d found a niche for ourselves. We learned stuff from those gothic swing bands kids were listening to, and we learned some jazz, thanks to a songbook of lead sheets and lyrics someone made for me 17 years ago.

During this time, I noticed that Terry’s guitar playing was edging up a notch or two. She’d always been interested in the old Merle Travis/Doc Watson style of fingerpicking; now she began to learn at an accelerated rate. She could still play “Deep River Blues” just like Doc but she had become a fan of Claire Lynch’s and listened to every lick Jim Hurst played on their version of “Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring.” She already knew “A Little Further in the Hole,” from Claire’s earlier CD.

“You sound better than Elizabeth Cotten,” I told her one night, and I wasn’t kidding. “In fact,” I said, “think of just one really great woman guitar player nowadays,” but neither of us could do it. “You’re a Kentucky State Treasure,” I told her.

Brought up in Louisville, Terry’s first professional band was probably the Wildwood Girls, and she used to tell a funny story about that band. “Believe me,” she would say, with a wry one-sided grin, “We were not a standout act at Dolly wood, but that’s where we played a lot. One day we finished our set and started winding up our instrument straps and putting things away, and these little ole girls came up to us, screaming, ‘Oh, could you do just one more song for us,’ and behind them their mothers were calling. ‘Now, kids, you leave them stars alone.’ ”

When I went to see her when she was sick, her mother showed me her favorite pictures of Terry as a kid, and in every one of them, she was holding a guitar, a toy at first, but

she worked her way up to a Martin D-18, and she stayed with it because she liked the neck a lot. “From the beginning, she carried that toy guitar with her everywhere,” her mother said.

She began to have to cancel gigs, and there were the usual optimistic rumors: she’s taking shots of a wonder drug; the doctors think this round of radiation is doing her a lot of good. At Christmas her parents came to her house, instead of her going home to them as she usually did. Ed Cunningham and I wrote a couple of songs for a television documentary on literacy. I insisted that she get up and come in to WGUC, where we did the recording sessions for the soundtrack. She didn’t bring a guitar for once, but I wanted her voice on something, one last tape, so tired as she was, she sang one last duet with Ed, went home to bed, and she did not get up again.

Trina, Natalie, Ed, and I sang at her funeral, but for the first time in my life I couldn’t get through it. I’d open my mouth and start sobbing again. Everyone in the room was crying. Afterwards, we stood outside in the parking lot. The September day was becoming a scorcher, and Natalie, Trish, Ma Crow, and I stood apart a little remembering our friend and colleague. It occurred to me then that even though Terry’s death had been devastating, it was her life that mattered now. She had done important work as a woman instrumentalist in a man’s game. We women who are left honor her by continuing our own work and by giving our support to other women musicians. We honor her by rising above petty attitudes and reaching way, way out for the stars. Though they seem far away, they are light years closer just because Terry Boswell lived.

country.com

The internet site <country.com> recently featured an article on women in bluegrass titled “Gilded Lilies Need Not Apply: ‘Girl Singers’ Struggle to Find Their Niche in Bluegrass.” And what’s more, author Michelle Nikolai somehow managed to wrangle us a front-page spot for a day! Michelle had been at the IBMA World of Bluegrass and had seen, among other things, our women in bluegrass workshop. She did a nice job of pulling together comments from Gloria Belle, Sara Watkins, and me. Michelle also included a number of pictures. You can still view the article by going to the “Front Page Archive” (scroll down to bottom of front page). It’s also likely to be archived in Michelle’s regular column “Bluegrass Breakdown.” (Go to Music News; there’s an icon. Click on it; archive at the bottom.)

Chris Skinker also wrote a nice obituary for Sally Ann Forrester. I’m sure it's also in the archives somewhere! Check that out, too.