Read no. 23

Greetings!

I hope you won’t mind my tooting my own horn for a minute. My daughter Casey, who writes for Women in Bluegrass, graduated in May from the University of Virginia with a double major in English and—tah-dah!—Women’s Studies. She is now free to pursue her main goal in life: becoming a professional, full-time banjo player! Right now she’s playing locally with Karen Spence and the Grass Reflection, which is anchored vocally and instrumentally by Karen on guitar, Casey on banjo, and Lisa Kay Howard on mandolin. Casey has also gigged recently with Gary Ferguson, whose band includes Sally Love on guitar and vocals. In July, she’s going to Prince Edward Island with Valerie Smith and Liberty Pike. This is all good. On the other hand, she and another woman were recently refused auditions with a band whose banjo player had just given notice. The reason: the bandleader didn’t want to hire any more women. So, we win a few, we lose a few. And we keep on pushing. Fortunately, the show described below is encouraging.

Surrounded by Estrogen

As a rule, WIB doesn’t talk much about specific recordings simply because we are so small and so quarterly. But I have to make an exception for Mark Newton’s new Rebel CD, Follow Me Back To The Fold, because, as the subtitle indicates, it is A Tribute To Women In Bluegrass. This recording showcases the singing of Rhonda Vincent, Dale Ann Bradley, Kathy Chiavola, Lynn Morris, Sharon and Cheryl White, Barb and Kim Fox, Gloria Belle, Claire Lynch, Valerie Smith, and Gina Britt. Laurie Lewis and Sally Jones join the entire group for the grand finale, “Follow Me Back To The Fold,” a tribute to Mother Maybelle Carter written by Dixie Hall and her husband Tom T. And, yes, Mark sings on each and every cut, but, hey, it’s his CD!

Women are also featured playing their instruments! Missy Raines plays all the bass and Kristin Scott plays all the banjo except for the three songs that feature Lynn Morris. Lynn also cross-picks guitar on one song, and Rhonda plays mandolin (lead and rhythm) on the song she sings. Interestingly, most of the songs were written by men. Three of these, including the title cut, were co-written by women (whatever that means). Claire Lynch’s “The Day That Lester Died” is the only song credited solely to a woman. Louisa Branscomb wrote the introductory liner notes.

The idea for Follow Me Back To The Fold was conceived by Mark in 1998, after he had released his debut solo CD, Living A Dream. This recording paired him with some of his “biggest musical influences”—who just happened to be all male. It was only afterwards that Mark realized “there was not one woman on it.” “It was,” he says, “an oversight.” He knew that “starting with Gloria Belle” there had been a lot of women who had had an impact on him, and he felt that he “needed to do something about that.” Mark put his (and Rebel’s) money where his mouth was and began the gargantuan task of pulling together some of the finest women in bluegrass for this project. The result is a strong, solid, very bluegrassy recording.

In May, Mark held a CD release party at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., which I emceed. The first half of the evening featured performances by the Mark Newton Band with special guest Laurie Lewis (who practically stole the show by singing—and yodeling—“Roundup Time In Texas”), the Lynn Morris Band, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, and Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band. Can you imagine having this many female-fronted bands on the same show? It was glorious! After a short intermission, Mark performed all 13 songs from the CD. He used the same musicians who had recorded them, which included, in addition to all the women, Tony Rice, Ron Stewart, Fred Travers, Alan Bibey, and Dudley Connell. (A logistical nightmare, to be sure!) It was a stunning showcase of female talent. As Claire Lynch said, as the women gathered for the grand finale, Mark was “surrounded by estrogen.”

I’ve often looked at the many all-male group projects that are being released nowadays and wondered when someone was going to include some women—as singers and players. Let’s hope that Follow Me Back To The Fold will pave the way for including more women on special projects; that it will testify to the fact that women can pick and sing and sell.

I’m out of space. See you inside!

—Murphy Henry

Sharon K. Watts

"If You Can't Run With The Big Boys, You'd Better Get Off The Porch"

If the name Sharon K. Watts doesn’t ring a bell, then you haven’t been paying attention to the masthead of your Bluegrass Unlimited. If you had been, you might have noticed that with the August 1993 issue, Sharon K. Watts, then just 28, became the managing editor of this highly-influential magazine, this Bible of bluegrass. Eagle-eyed subscribers might have noticed that she’s been listed as staff since June 1982, but she actually started working for the magazine in 1981.

And what exactly does a managing editor do? Sharon assigns articles to writers and photographers; she decides which records will be reviewed and who will review them; she works with media, publicists, and record companies on a daily basis; she communicates with all departments at the magazine and oversees every aspect of production. She describes herself as a “jack of all trades and master of none.” Having worked with Sharon at BU for over twelve years, however, I can tell you that, for once, she’s being modest. One of her sterling qualities is that she knows her own strengths and weaknesses, and she is not afraid to ask for help when she needs it. Another important part of Sharon’s job is working with non-bluegrass media such as PBS, NBC’s Nightline, the Country Music Foundation, or the Grand Ole Opry. When someone who is working on a bluegrass story says, “We don't know where to start,” Sharon starts them. Recently she’s been helping the producers of a PBS documentary on American Roots music become more familiar with bluegrass. In her broadminded fashion (no pun intended!), Sharon suggested that they visit festivals both large and small, traditional and non-traditional, everything from small fiddler’s conventions to Galax, from Christopher Run to Winterhawk, from the IBMA Fan Fest to Telluride. As a bluegrass liaison to the outer world, Sharon always tries to present a balanced picture of bluegrass.

And what about that unobtrusive “K” in her name? When Sharon took over as managing editor at BU, she didn’t want anyone to know what that “K” stood for. But as many folks now know, it stands for Kuykendall, as in Peter V. “Pete” Kuykendall, her father, one of the founders of BU. He has been editor and general manager of the magazine since 1970 when he gave up his day job to make his life’s passion his life’s work. And it’s not that Sharon isn’t proud of being a Kuykendall, it’s just that she didn’t want to ride on anyone’s coattails, not even her father’s.

As you might guess, Sharon has been closely associated with bluegrass all her life. Her dad missed the first multi-day bluegrass festival in Fincastle, Va., September 3-5, 1965, because of Sharon’s impending birth. (Of course, her mother Marion missed it, too!) When the first issue of BU came off the mimeograph machine in July 1966, Sharon was less than a year old. She spent her summers traveling the bluegrass festival circuit with her parents, promoting the magazine. As Sharon said, “Back then the only way you could get people to know about the magazine was to go to the shows, so we’d travel in the motor home all the way to Hugo [Okla.] and back, and it was fun, too.” Her first bluegrass job was at Bean Blossom, hawking programs printed by BU, “making ten cents a pop off of each one.” Other bluegrass festival memories include wading in the mud down in Lavonia, Ga.; wrecking in the motor home on the side of the mountain

while driving to McClure, Va., and having to climb out of the window; and making mud pies at Watermelon Park in Berryville, Va. She cooked her mud pies on the irresistible shiny, hot car bumpers in the festival parking lot, an act which got her into “big trouble.” I met Sharon in December 1987 when I started writing the General Store column for BU. As managing editor of the magazine, she is now my boss. I interviewed her in her home in Broad Run, Va., on May 13th.

Tell us about your dad missing the Fincastle bluegrass festival.

I am the absolute reason why my father didn’t get to attend the first bluegrass festival. I was born the Tuesday after [September 7,1965], so he’d stayed around and he missed it. He had several other people taping it for him so he could at least listen to it and document everything because he’d been quite involved in some of the organization. That’s why I became the official bluegrass brat. There were not very many kids running around bluegrass festivals, so the few of us that were running around, we all kind of cliqued together. Lisa Martin, Jimmy Martin’s daughter, and I were really close friends, so we’d look on each other’s schedules to see who was gonna be where, and we’d get to hang around with each other those weekends. And I used to hang around with Lester Flatt’s granddaughter Tammy and

Lance LeRoy’s son Lanny.

So that's pretty much what you did when you were a kid in the summers—go to festivals?

Oh, yeah. Usually we’d start Memorial Day weekend or the weekend before with Ralph’s show [in McClure] and then we’d go straight on through. I remember just about every Thanksgiving was spent down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at the Convention Center. And that would pretty much end our season. So we’d get our school work and do it in the motor home and turn it back in and come home long enough to clean the motor home and get back on the road again. A lot of times my dad just took my older sister [Ginger, also known as Sam] and me, and Mom stayed back.

Bean Blossom back then was like a two-week-long event. The show ran one weekend, the whole week, and then ended the following weekend. Then we’d leave a couple of days after. There was lots to do at Bean Blossom, or you could follow Bill Monroe around and wait for quarters! The funny thing was, he and I shared his birthday. I think we’re a week apart. [Bill’s is September 13.] A lot of times we were still on the road because festivals happen Labor Day weekend, which was my birthday, and wherever

Bill was playing they would always give him a big birthday cake. So he’d found out we had the common birth date, so every time, he would come and especially bring me a piece of cake. And I remember sometimes he’d just kind of look at me [and say], “You wanna get your cake?” And I’d jump on the bus. I was one of the few people who got to go on Bill Monroe’s bus. We would eat our cake and then I’d go. He used to call me “Little Pete.”

All this traveling to festivals in the summer must have made life seem pretty dull during the school year.

It was hard in the school year. I can say that was one thing I didn’t care for because it was really hard to fit in— everybody else had the summertime friends and social events and so forth. And I lived in the country and we didn’t have a lot of neighbors, so you kind of went back to school not having the social connections that everybody else had. You never learned to play anything. Why was that?

I had the intelligence—which I think is one of my biggest attributes now—to know that I wasn’t very good at it. [Laughs.]

Did you try?

Oh, yeah. I wanted to play the mandolin and, I think, the fiddle. At which my mother put her foot down, going, “Not going to happen.” My mother didn’t care for fiddling. And it wasn’t that I didn’t have the patience. I just kind of immediately knew that it was something I wasn’t picking up quickly, and I moved on.

Did you always know that you would work for your dad at BU?

No. I wanted to be a nurse. Actually, it started out that I was taking a lot of business courses in high school and was a pretty decent typist. And at that time, my sister worked there—she was a graphic artist. I never was interested in working for the magazine—I had moved myself away in that teen rebellion stage. I wasn’t even interested in bluegrass. And they were moving into the computer age. So Pete was looking for somebody to come in and keyboard all the subscriber names onto the new computer system. And I wasn’t afraid of it because I had done some of it at the school. So it started out with, “Okay, I could use a little extra money. I’ll come in and help you do that.” This was around December 1981. I think I might have been a sophomore in high school. And then they got the computer system, and finding somebody to work as an operator for computers was really hard because a lot of people in the work force still

hadn’t gotten to know PC computers. But they couldn’t find anybody. So it was like, “Okay, I’ll stay and come work afternoons and keep the subscriptions up and slowly move into it.” And my mother worked there [also as Managing Editor, doing the bookkeeping, writing General Store and doing the Personal Appearance Calendar] and Steve Spence. So my sister quit and went to college, and about the time I started working there part-time, my mother had gotten breast cancer and my dad and I needed to spend time with her. But the work still had to go on. So I would come in and start working the books because I had also done accounting in school and was pretty good at math. And I was doing the subscription stuff. Eventually my mother quit altogether and passed away shortly thereafter. So I started full-time. I was still going to high school, but I was only going like two hours a day, so I was there [at BU] by 9:30 in the morning and worked till 5:00 in the evening.

And then my mother passed away in ’84, so she quit about two years before she really got bad. She kept coming in and trying to work, but it was just more than she could do. And Steve and some of the others were doing graphic stuff—they would all jump in and play graphic artists to get the magazine out. So I did the computer and the bookkeeping stuff. Then eventually they needed proofers, and I knew enough to make me dangerous—I could recognize the fact that Kenny Baker didn’t play with Ralph Stanley. [Laughs.] Of course in the meantime, I got married very young and became a mother. I was 16.

But you kept going to high school.

Yeah, I finished high school in ’83. That was like a major thing for me. I really, really wanted to finish. I graduated in the top third of my class. But it was hard. The pressure of my mother being sick, my sister didn’t live here, and my brother had passed away in ’82, right after I started to work for BU. So I was the one left to take care of my mom, primarily. And then there was the business side of it and being a young mother. So, at BU you learned the ropes by doing a little bit of everything.

Yeah, and I had a basic knowledge in high school. I had done well in typing and their general business courses and the introduction to computers. They were really big on emphasizing to the kids of that generation “you need to know computers.” And they were not wrong. So everybody else [at BU] was scared to death of them. You might as well have stuck an alien in the middle of that office—they weren’t gonna touch it. And so I was like, “You know, it’s not gonna bite me. What’s the worst thing that could happen?” That’s like my motto: What’s the worst thing that could happen? So I just started doing it.

Don't you think it's interesting that BU’s office staff is all women?

On and off, in the last eight or nine years, it’s been primarily a female office. But prior to that I worked for one of the true masters of the trade, Steve Spence. I can honestly say that he is one of my biggest influences, businesswise. Everything I learned, I learned from him. He gave me such opportunities to learn what I wanted to learn. And I was an eager person. I was like, “Okay, now I’m bookkeeping, I’m entering checks all day, sitting around playing with other people’s money. This is fun.” And then doing the proofing, helping him out. Then Steve became managing editor, and it was like, “Here, can you give me a hand? I’m gonna give you this project to work on.” In some ways I feel like he was molding me for the job. I was really lucky that he gave me as many opportunities as my father did. But Steve spent more time with me.

When I started there, we were handwriting all the money that came in. Other than the subscriptions, there was no computer work involved. And slowly we’ve completely gone computers, and if somebody calls up and says, “Have you done an article on Ralph Stanley?” I say, “Let me check our database.”

But you had a lot to do with that, didn't you?

Yeah, well, like I said, I’ve never been afraid of computers. I think that’s really a good thing because I’ve always figured if I screwed up there’s somebody more intelligent than me that can come along and fix it. I’ve always had that kind of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? approach to life. You know, with the Lifeline? Either phone a friend, 50-50, or poll the audience. But eventually we’re gonna figure it out. [Laughs.] When I heard that the first time I watched that show, I said, “You know, that’s my whole philosophy of life.” I’m either going to learn it from somewhere, I’m gonna poll somebody, I’m gonna phone somebody who knows it if I don’t, or I’m just gonna fall flat on my face. You know, years ago we used to do our own mailing, and we learned everything there was [about mailing], Pete always said, “You’ve got to learn how it works in order to make it work.” So we had to learn the postal industry, we had to learn the record industry, we had to learn the promoting industry. You just can’t go in there and not know everything there is to know.

When did you take over as managing editor?

Steve left in June or July of ’93. And at the time the position came available, I was helping him do a lot. We’d hired somebody else to come in and do subscriptions, and I’d gotten them set up. I was primarily a bookkeeper and handling all the money. I was also

kind of like Steve’s administrative assistant. So when he left, there were several people who wanted the position, and I said, “Well, I’m gonna throw my name out there. What’s the worst thing they can do, say no?”

So your becoming managing editor wasn’t a given?

Everybody assumed it was a given. But it wasn’t. I said, “Listen, this is the part I know. These are the things I know, this is what I think I can do. And what’s the worst-case scenario? If it doesn’t work out, I’m happy. I’ll go back to being bookkeeper and you find somebody that it does work for.”

And you were talking with your dad about this?

Yeah, and Dick Spottswood. He’s still one of the major shareholders. And of course the entire staff. We work as such a huge team. I mean BU is not what it is without the team support. That’s why I always laugh when someone says, “Hey, boss!” It’s like, “No, we’re a team.” I happen to be the head honcho, but it doesn’t work without everybody being a part. But Steve had taught me so much. I was lucky—I had it over the other candidates because they hadn’t done everything in there. And obviously there were people within BU who had as good a shot as I did, but they weren’t interested in it.

But they don’t seem to have the bossiness that you have.

Oh, yes. I often say I got this job because I was a bigger bitch than everybody else. Yeah, I’m not afraid of that. And of course I had a big, huge stumbling block because obviously I’m this woman in a “good-ole-boy” world. Every week I have at least one instance of the “Let me talk to Pete.”

And what do you say?

I say, “Well, Pete’s not here. Is there something I can help you with?” They’re either gonna say that I absolutely can’t, they want to talk to Pete—which I’ve had happen many a time, they’ll slam the door right in my face—or some of them actually become receptive. But I still face a lot of that good-ole-boy thing to this day. Oh, well. And I’m lucky because up until the last year or so, nobody even knew I was Pete’s daughter. I wanted to make my friends and enemies on my own. That was the big thing. And I did. I said to him, “For a while I don’t want anybody to even know that we’re related, other than who works in the office.” Because I basically wanted to prove myself. Prove it to me, prove it to them. Because I was basically a nobody. And probably a lot of

people still say, “Who the heck is she?” They don’t know. And I dug in and tried to learn everything there was to know about every part of the business. Even today I face so many different challenges with MP3 and the internet and audio and royalties. Our presses have changed at least twice in the last year. Our time frames, our distributorships. These are all things even Steve didn’t have to face when he was there. They have been thrown in my life—“Make it work!” And you just do it. You just jump out there and you figure it out and you make it happen.

I know it makes you mad when people try to go behind your back to Pete.

Oh, yeah. But you know, I’m really lucky because he and Dick and everybody in there, even Wally, will say, “Well, ’deed, I don’t know. You need to call Sharon. I don’t have the foggiest idea.” Which makes me feel good because it’s like, “That’s great! They don’t know and they really do have to depend on me because I am the one that does know.” Or someone on my staff knows.

Since you've taken over as managing editor, what are some changes that have been made in the magazine?

One, we’re running a lot more articles. I hope we’re running a lot better articles. We’ve added some incredible people to our staff roster. I think we’ve got one of the most incredible teams of writers out there right now. I’ve made a lot of changes in the record reviews. With the quantity of product coming out, we just had to do something. And I wanted to still make available the opportunity for the new bands just starting out. We’ve made a lot of graphic changes. We’ve added a whole lot more color availability. And that was an economic issue. It was truly just learning enough about the printing industry to say, “All these other people are doing it. Why can’t we?” We didn’t have a lot of color advertisers to support it economically, so I figured out how to trap that mouse. It’s like, “Whoa, this wasn’t that hard.”

It all boils down to economics. People say “You did 112 pages. Why can’t you do more record reviews?” We obviously have to at least break even. I stay out of the whupping chair if we make money. [Laughs.] I can have pure-profit issues that are doing really well for us, and then we’ll just lose our butt on a couple of them, and I’m sitting back going, “What did the heck did I do wrong?” I take the ultimate responsibility when it doesn’t work out well. Because I didn’t take the time to figure out what it would have taken to make it work well.

It was like that whole Dolly Parton thing. A lot of people said, “What the heck did you go putting Dolly Parton on the cover for?” And I still stand behind my decision to do that.

[Some people] threw [their] jabs at Pete, but it was me who had done it. And I clearly let [them] know that it was me—it was not Pete. I did that. It was my decision. I did that cover based on our readers’ requests. This is what our readers wanted. We got a lot of interest in Dolly prior to that issue and, no, it wasn’t in my plans, to be honest with you. And then we started getting all these questions like “I heard Dolly’s doing a bluegrass album. What do you know about Dolly doing a bluegrass album?” We’re 1-800-BLUGRAS. Everybody calls us. I knew about the project from the press releases and working with the record companies. So I talked with one of the writers and I said, “You know, I’m getting a lot of questions about this. I think I’m gonna do it.” And when I got involved in the project and got to know what was going on, how much was involved, how good the CD was, I said, “This is incredible. She’s cover. She earned it.” We don’t give covers. I would honestly love to get out there that we do not give covers. They earn it.

With Dolly, we got a lot of response. But overall, with some 27,000 subscribers, it was less than one percent who actually disliked it. But you look on the charts. Who’s out there, who’s creating the stir? I mean the chart is almost 50 percent woman-dominated right now, which is incredible. And these people, they said, “You put Rhonda Vincent on the cover. How come you didn’t put so-and-so on the cover?” Because Rhonda Vincent is selling. Rhonda Vincent is out there gaining audiences and she is causing the stir and that’s what we respond to. 27,000 people tell me what they want. And they want to see Rhonda? Rhonda they get. Rhonda’s like number six, Dolly’s been number one pretty frequently, Laurie’s been in the top ten, Lynn’s been in the top ten, Claire just came in last month, I believe. Alison. But there’s just been so many incredible women performers out there. And it’s not if you’re a woman or if you’re a man. It’s what you’re doing and what the audience is responding to. And I think it’s just incredible that, yeah, they happen to be female or they happen to be young. It’s like Nickel Creek, I’m so excited for them. That’s just amazing.

You know after the Dolly thing a lot of people said, “Great. Now every has-been country artist is gonna come out and do a CD in bluegrass.” I’m flattered that they have enough respect for our music to do something. And if it does well for them, that’s great. But I don’t think bluegrass is a new stomping ground for country artists who don’t have a Top 40 country record right now. Dolly earned her spot. She has given more exposure to the industry and that’s not gonna hurt things.

Why do some bluegrass people seem to have a problem with this?

Well, it’s not necessarily just bluegrass people. I like to play armchair therapist a lot. And so many people are afraid of change. Me included. They just fear the unknown. They don’t like the element of surprise. “Yeah, I honestly believe that if so-and-so comes in then it’s gonna get all commercialized and it’s gonna be wrong.” I don’t believe that. And if a certain portion of it becomes that way, it doesn’t mean you have to participate in it. You know, each generation sees their music as so much better than the next generation’s music. They’re going to feel that something that they are comfortable with, something that truly made them happy, is where it should be and where it should maintain.

So, what do you think about the future of bluegrass?

I think we’re making a lot of progress and I see we’ve got a lot of challenges ahead of us. But I honestly think—I can already see the demographics are supporting this—that there is a huge upswing in bluegrass music. I’m hoping by the end of the year that we’re gonna see a little bit more of a surge. I don’t think it’s a direct result of anybody. I think it’s more that the general audience is disappointed in the other music they’re getting. Country kind of went Top 40, and I think there’s a lot of people in the rock music industry, we’ve seen a big upswing...

In people moving to bluegrass from rock?

Yeah, and a lot of those people are, for lack of a better term, Woodstock rejects. They were the flower children. The baby boomers. We’re seeing a big upsurge because they’ve tried rock and [they say], “There’s nothing here we want. This is all synthesizer and Top 40. We’re going over to country.” Then they realize that country’s no longer what they want, and there’s not even classic rock out there now. Then somebody happens to stumble on the singer/songwriter end of bluegrass, and it so happens that Tony Rice is playing on the same show that night, and they’re like, “Ohmygod, this guy is phenomenal” and the next thing you know they’re going to Tony Rice concerts and the next thing you know we’ve got a fan for life.

And now we’re seeing with the rise in the festivals, too, that there’s a lot more of that college audience getting out there. They started out getting attracted because of the Jerry Garcia/David Grisman type of music, and all of a sudden they’re jumping into bluegrass because of the musicianship of it.

And you think it’s basically because the other musics are failing them?

Yeah, I really do. I think that’s a big part of it. And of course Americana radio and Gavin are going to be major forces in bringing more and more bluegrass music to the audience. They may come in through the back door, but I have yet to see anyone who doesn’t walk out the front door.

I think a lot of people my age came in through the back door. Through folk music. I did. Yeah, exactly. They came in through folk music. I mean, I was raised around bluegrass all my life and I had a genuine like for it—I still had my Aerosmith and Lynyrd Skynyrd and everything else—and then all of a sudden I started really, truly appreciating the musicians and the singing. It was Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band and Knoxville Grass—it was a show in Wise [Va.]—and I was just buying everything they had, wanting to go to every show that they played, both of them. And this was when Alan O’Bryant was in Front Porch. And Knoxville Grass was—Whoa! Wait a minute! These are younger guys, playing maybe a little faster beat that just pulled me in. And I was like BAM! I was hooked. And I had been to hundreds of festivals up to that point. I was probably about 13 at the time. And then all of a sudden I was really getting into the music. Not just listening to it but really getting into it and understanding it. Next thing you know, I’m buying Del McCoury’s albums with “Rain and Snow” and the old Bill Monroe stuff, and I’m wanting to investigate everything. Just give me more!

Your mom was also managing editor. How much of a role model was she?

Well, I don’t know if it was my mom or my dad because we’re all really

professionals—very businesslike. I honestly think it was more my dad than it was my mom. They showed us that there’s things you just keep going out there and doing. My mom was a hard worker. She’d jump right out in the middle of the trenches and do, but she was also a very shy person, which I’m not. I’m the talker, I’m the socialite. I’d like to have half of her organizational skills. I got my organizational skills from my father. Everyone in my family is pretty big into bluegrass, but I was the only one who wanted to jump knee-deep into it. And I really love my job. It’s fun and I always get to work with different people. Lucky for me there’s lots of band turnover, so I always have these new people. [Laughs.] It’s never dull or boring. And I’ve really enjoyed a lot of the liaison work that I’ve been able to do.

With PBS and Nightline?

Yeah, and I’ve helped do some stuff with IBMA. And some of it’s just jumping in and having to find photos for a CD or a Bear Family project. But it’s kinda fun to jump off and

do something totally different. You know, taking somebody who has barely any knowledge about bluegrass, and they have to put together some sort of television documentary, and you’re like, “Okay, this is what we’re gonna do.” And it works and you see the final thing come out and it’s like, “This is really cool. It worked. Everything went together.”

That's a pretty powerful position.

Well...it is, yeah, I guess. I never really thought about it.

I mean, now of course we have IBMA, but before IBMA there was really just nowhere else for people to turn. I mean there were some other people that got called upon, some of the booking agents or record companies, if they were going for a specific artist. But if they weren’t, if it was a general knowledge thing...I mean when Bill Monroe passed away, we had everybody from the New York Times to Newsweek calling us wanting photographs. And before I know it, we probably had 40-something photos out on loan. And the ones I can’t stand are the ones that are given an assignment at a potentially good media source for bluegrass, say the New York Times. And they put this reporter on there who has 50 cents worth of knowledge about bluegrass and they want you to—I’ve heard this question numerous times— “Explain to me what bluegrass is in 50 words or less.” This is my statement back: “You explain to me about what rock music is in 50 words or less and give me a call back.” Because you can’t do it. If you want to ask me what’s so different between Alison Krauss and Hazel Dickens, I can give you a comparison, in my opinion. But don’t ask me how to explain an entire blasted industry. Do your homework!

Obviously you're not one of those people that is afraid of bluegrass growing and becoming commercial.

Heck no. I’ve seen it grow and become more commercialized just in the 18 years I’ve been in it. I don’t think it’s hurt anything. Do you think it’s hurt anything? I don’t ever think that bluegrass is going to have the mass market appeal of the rock industry, and I’m pretty tired of people associating it with country. Because they’re like two totally separate animals. They are absolutely different. We are more in line with the blues/jazz industry than we are with country.

Elaborate on that a little bit. What do you mean?

We share more in common with the blues and jazz market. We’re more a niche music, even our clubs and festivals. The music is based more on musicianship, rather than mass market appeal. Country and rock are more in line with each other. If you go to a blues club, you see these incredible musicians. Their emphasis is on musicianship. Their festivals are similar, their pricing is similar, their marketability is similar, their overall demographics and growth have been similar. The only difference is they’re making a boatload more money because they had somebody who was willing to stop talking and start doing. It’s just the overall marketability. I can tell you right now that if you wanted to sponsor an event in Winchester that I can find you a sponsor that’d be willing to give you $5000 day after tomorrow.

To sponsor a bluegrass event?

Uh-huh. Yep. Now, do you want it to be Budweiser? There are so many people who want to put so many barriers on it. Skoal Bandit came into this industry about three and a half years ago and offered numerous people the opportunity to have advertising revenue to promote their event. Specific sponsorship to offset any of their outstanding costs as long as their name went on everything, that free samples were allowed, that they were allowed to set up all the booths, and they ran the refreshments. And they were willing to put a lot of money in it and a lot of people turned them down. Because it was a tobacco product?

Yeah. And I’m not against someone standing up for a moral value. I’m all for that. If you want to stand for something you believe in, that’s great. But don’t shoot yourself in the foot.

Remember at Owensboro, one of the first IBMA Fan Fests was sponsored, in part, by Red Man Tobacco.

And everybody threw a fit.

And they were handing out samples. And some people didn't want Red Man to be associated with bluegrass.

Like I said, you’re going to get out of it exactly what you put into it. I think bluegrass is changing. I don’t think it’s changing fast enough to make me happy, but it’s changing. And I think what will eventually happen is that someone like Bill Gates will decide that he’s an incredible bluegrass fan who has enough money to burn. So he decides he wants to put on a completely top-notch event and pay a certain amount and he does.

And he’s gonna create this contest, and if you can’t run with the big boys you’d better get off the porch.

WIB

RALPHED!

By Casey Henry

I just graduated from college. I’m pretty proud of myself, I must say. And instead of going to beach week like every other normal twenty-something college graduate, I decided to do something I’d never done before: go to Ralph Stanley’s Hills of Home Bluegrass Festival in McClure, Va. And unlike the beach week attendees, I did not actually have any friends to go with me. I’ve always wanted to go to Ralph’s, and I considered it sort of a graduation present to myself. I figured there would never be a better time for me to go, and if I waited for someone to be available to go with me, I might miss my chance. So, much to my mother’s dismay (see the General Store column in the July issue of Bluegrass Unlimited), I went by myself.

I have been to many festivals by myself—it’s not like it’s a new thing—but never one so far away and with such a reputation for being a rowdy place. I know a lot of people in the bluegrass community, so there are usually some people there that I know well enough to hang out with. Usually I even find some people that I know to camp by. I get along just fine with just my little single-person tent, and I always have. But Murphy insisted on being nervous anyway.

The show started at 5:00 Thursday evening, the week after graduation. I figured on it taking at least six hours to get there, so I planned to leave by 11 a.m. Well, I got to talking with Murphy and did not actually roll out of the driveway until noon. I tell you, that festival is way back in the mountains. I got to the exit off of I-81 in five hours. From there it took me almost two whole hours to get to the festival itself. I have never been so far back in the mountains. The road that leads to the campground—an unlined, almost-two-lane strip of asphalt—feels like a roller coaster at times. I don’t know how the bands get their buses up there. Very carefully, I suppose. The festival site is no less hilly than the road leading in. Flat land is a scarce commodity in that neighborhood. The festival is held on the same land where Carter and Ralph grew up. Their old homeplace still stands right there, where everyone can see it. Almost all the attendees make the short walk up the hill to Carter’s grave to pay homage to one of the founders

of bluegrass music. It was an especially short walk for me, as I could see the cemetery from my tent. Kind of spooky, but I liked it.

Now, on to the music. The crowd at this festival was different from the crowds at any of the other festivals I have ever been to. I would say it was predominantly composed of older, retired folks driving motor homes. Most of the crowds in that age bracket that I have played for have been rather sedate, to say the least. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether they are still alive. This crowd, on the other hand, was lively and enthusiastic. They loved every band, and most bands got encores. They sat and watched the show for the whole day, so no band had to play to a sea of empty chairs.

The bands who played were all very traditional, no surprise there. What tickled me was seeing Ralph and the Clinch Mountain Boys play to their hometown crowd. These are the folks that Ralph’s music is designed to appeal to. They ate up every note that he played and every joke that his fiddle player James Price told.

Even though this crowd had very traditional tastes, they were not stodgy. On Friday, Ralph had booked Gillian Welch and David Rawlings to play. They both appeared with him on his Clinch Mountain Country CD, along with thirty-some other artists. Gillian and David write some of the best songs being produced today, and all of them sound old. So, even though Gillian fits into the alternative country or No Depression crowd better than she does a bluegrass crowd, the audience at McClure welcomed her with open arms. My favorite song that she has written is called “Caleb Meyer.” She wrote it specifically in response to one of Ralph’s signature songs, “Pretty Polly.” It also responds to all the traditional woman killing songs. In this song, the woman saves herself from assault by slitting her attacker’s throat. It is still bloody and gory in the traditional way, only the woman wins this time. Gillian ended her first set with it, and, as it happened, Ralph played right after her and opened his set with “Pretty Polly.” Later, during Gillian’s second set, she said she had gotten a request for “Caleb Meyer” during the afternoon. “I don’t usually repeat songs, but I heard Ralph do ‘Pretty Polly’ and I got all heated up again.” So the woman in the song won twice that day.

Another thing that tickled me was seeing Ralph get on stage during one of his sets and introduce all of his grandchildren, one at a time. He has five: Amber, the oldest girl; Nathan, the oldest boy, who plays spoons on stage during Ralph’s sets; another boy about a year-and-a-half old, and twin baby girls. He held each of them up (the ones who were still small enough for him to lift) and bragged on them personally. Anyone who does not understand why Ralph’s music is so popular needs to go up to his festival at least once to see where it all comes from. In fact, every true bluegrass fan should make

an effort to get to Ralph’s festival. You will forever understand why the Stanley’s music sounds the way it does, and you will never feel closer to the roots of this music.

Ramona Jones:

Make Music While You Can

Ramona Jones, 76, who still plays both fiddle and mandolin professionally, has finally completed the autobiography that she has been working on for ten years. Make Music While You Can is filled with stories of a young woman who just had to play music. (Nancy Cardwell told me that at a book signing in Arkansas, Ramona was asked by a woman, “What do you can while you’re making music? Is it tomatoes?” Gives the title a whole new meaning!) Many of you may know Ramona only as the wife of the late Grandpa Jones. But, as this book shows, Ramona, who was tuning her own fiddle by age six, was a professional musician long before she met Grandpa. As she puts it, “No one loves music or being on stage more than I do.”

Ramona does mention a few of the difficulties of being a woman in the music business. She says she was depressed at news of her third pregnancy because she’d hoped to get back to playing fiddle. She also endured a life-long conflict about whether to go on the road with Grandpa or stay home with the kids. As she notes sadly, “It seemed wrong either way.”

Books about women in early country music are scarcer than hen’s teeth. Ramona tells her story in an easy-to-read, enjoyable fashion, and the 170-page, soft-cover volume has lots of pictures. The book is available from Ramona at P.O. Box 199, Ridgetop, TN 37152 for just $17 including postage. Every wibber should have one!

—Murphy Henry

Helena Bretfeldova: Bluegrass Lady From The Czech Republic

By Lilly Pavlak

The Czech Republic has a high concentration of bluegrass musicians. There are lots of incredible players here. As it was written in a CD review of Banjo Jamboree Kopidlno 98 in Bluegrass Unlimited (February 2000): “The folk roots and bluegrass seedlings planted by such visiting American artists like Pete Seeger and Tony Trischka are now thriving.” The Czechs were always known as the musical nation!

But there are some important people behind all this who give their best to bluegrass. Not just musicians, but publicists, radio people, and a special sort of people who care about the musical future. Helena Bretfeldova is one such person. She said about herself: “Born in 1959, I feel I am a typical representative of my zodiac sign—Sagittarius. I started my musical career at the age of eight as a violin player at the Musical Basic School, but at that time I hated training on violin and preferred athletics, feeling myself like a future champion. Now I go back to the violin with a lot of difficulties. As a student of Grammar School, I found mandolin and it became my favorite instrument. At the same time I discovered bluegrass as my favorite music style. But I also love contemporary jazz.”

Helena used to play mandolin in the Brno-based bluegrass group named Stari Znami (Good Old Friends). She finished the Masarykian University (the Faculty Of Arts, philosophical department) as a Ph. D. and worked for several years as a scientific worker. Now she works as an independent publicist. She writes for several newspapers and Czech music magazines and has her own radio show. Lately she’s started to play bass. Eight years ago she became an organizational chief of the Summer Bluegrass Music Workshop.

Some of you may know Irena Silence Pribylova from her IBMA work. In 1990 Irena returned from the U.S. and brought the idea of musical workshops to the bluegrass festival Moravsky Hrozeno in Velke Nemcice (South Moravia). She organized a one-week workshop and served as coordinator the first three years. In 1992, before she moved to Great Britain, she turned the organizing work over to Helena. Two years ago the workshop moved to Hustopece, a little Moravian town. This year the 11th Annual Summer Bluegrass Music Workshop will start August 13th. Thirteen of the best Czech and Slovak bluegrass instrumentalists will give lessons on guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, Dobro, and bass. Other activities include open mike, jam sessions, and repairing musical instruments. The week will end with the bluegrass festival Moravsky Hrozeno. So, if you’d like to enjoy an unforgettable week of fun and bluegrass around the clock and meet many new friends in Europe, just join the workshop! Last year there were eighty attendees from five different countries. For more information contact Lilly Pavlak at lillybgrass@gmx.net

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Alison Brown: Girl's Breakdown

Talk about an I-wish-I’d-thought-of-that moment! I had one when I saw “Girl’s Breakdown” listed as the name of a banjo tune on Alison Brown’s new bluegrass CD, Fair Weather.

In case some of you are not immediately appreciative of the subtleties inherent in this nomenclature, perhaps a modicum of explanation is in order. “Earl’s Breakdown” is a well-known banjo tune written by Earl Scruggs. (As Gary Scruggs says when he introduces this tune on stage, “After my brother Randy was born, Dad wrote a tune called ‘Randy Lynn Rag.’ We’re not going to play that for you. Instead, we’re going to play the tune my dad wrote after I was born: ‘Earl’s Breakdown.’” That always gets a laugh. I laughed 25 years ago when the Earl Scruggs Revue played at the University of Georgia, and I laughed again at the recent show Earl and Company put on at the Birchmere.)

But I digress. “Girl’s Breakdown” is a wonderful play on words. And like “Earl’s Breakdown,” it features the use of the Scruggs tuners. Alison said she was a little apprehensive about the name of the tune, thinking some folks might find it presumptuous. However, when Jerry Douglas got a chuckle out of it, she figured i t would be okay. It’s one of the best new tuners songs I’ve heard. Check it out. Fair Weather is on Alison’s own Compass Records label.

—Murphy Henry