Read no. 31

Greetings!

Do you have certain numbers that resonate with you? The number of this issue, “31” was my basketball number, stitched to the black and gold sateen of the North Habersham Bobcats! I played back in the days when girls were deemed too delicate to run up and down the full length of the court. We played “half court” ball, with the guards staying on side of the center line and the forwards on the other. It is one of the minor disappointments of my life that I was not chosen to be a forward—someone who actually got to shoot the ball! But perhaps if I had been a forward, I wouldn’t have turned out to be a banjo player. You never know. Things have changed a lot for women in basketball since those days. Here’s to changing things for women in bluegrass!

I'm Writing A Book!

Big news! I have signed a contract with University of Illinois Press to write a book on women in bluegrass! I’ve got almost two years to get it finished and never have two years looked like such a short time!

One of my objectives is to try to find out if there were actually more women playing bluegrass from the git-go than anyone was aware of. What about the women who played only in a family setting? What about the women who played in local bands that never recorded? If you know of any of these unknown, unnamed, uncounted woman, please contact me!

IBMA Awards

Once again, I bring you what has become my annual report on the IBMA Awards. This year, we’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that three of the five Distinguished Achievement Awards recognized women. Two went to individual women, Janette Carter and Judy McCulloh, and one went to the Lewis Family which includes three women, Miggie, Polly, and Janis. Janette Carter, daughter of Sara and A.P. Carter, runs the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Va. Judy McCulloh is Assistant Director and Executive Editor for University of Illinois Press. She is primarily responsible for their tremendous Music in American Life Series which features over one hundred titles including The Stonemans by Ivan Tribe, That Half-Barbaric Twang by Karen Linn, Bluegrass: A History by Neil Rosenberg, The Bill Monroe Reader by Tom Ewing, with

Carl Fleischhauer and Neil Rosenberg’s Bluegrass Odyssey rounding out the first hundred.

Bluegrass Event of the Year went to the Down From The Mountain Tour, which features a number of women including Sharon and Cheryl White, Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and Gillian Welch. Best Liner Notes went to the project Newport Folk Festival: Best of Bluegrass 1959-1966, and writer Bruce Winkworth, on Vanguard Records. The CD includes three songs by Hazel & Alice. In the notes Bruce Winkworth says, “First of all, their appearance at Newport gave bluegrass a feminine face. There were women in bluegrass before Hazel and Alice, but typically, all of the big names in the genre were men. In addition, Hazel and Alice kind of exemplified the convergence of bluegrass and folk music...Their sound was deliberately traditional—raw, emotional, powerful.” Best Graphic Design went to Wayfaring Strangers, Shifting Sands of Time, Shawn Levesque, designer, on Rounder. This CD features the vocals of Jennifer Kimball, Rhonda Vincent, Cathie Ryan, Lucy Kaplansky, Laurie Lewis, and Tracy Bonham. But the performance awards, presented at the Awards Show, were somewhat sparse. The good news is that Patty Loveless was a co-host and also performed. But aside from Female Vocalist, won by Rhonda Vincent for the third year in a row, women received awards only when they were part of recording projects. Recorded Event of the Year went to Clinch Mountain Sweethearts with its large cast of women; Album of the Year went to Down From The Mountain which included a number of women. This is two years in a row that Recorded Event has gone to projects that centered on women. Last year’s winner, as you may remember, was Follow Me Back To The Fold: A Tribute To Women In Bluegrass.

Now, let me talk about the Awards Show performances. I wish I could do this in the spirit of a reporter objectively pointing out the numbers of men and women performing on stage, but I wouldn’t be counting to begin with if I weren’t aware that the gender balance in our industry is still tilted heavily toward the testosterone side. There were ten musical performances that night. Three bands were led by women: Rhonda, Alison, and Patty Loveless. Of these, only Patty’s band included other women, Deanie Richardson and Carmella Ramsey on twin fiddles. In the seven other performances there was only one woman, Missy Raines, bless her heart, playing bass with David Parmley & Friends. So according to my count, there were 49 male performers and 6 female performers. If you look at in percentages, it is a bit more graphic: 89% of the performers were men, 11% were women. Things may be looking more promising for women in bluegrass, but we’ve still got a long way to go. I was particularly saddened, once again, to see that the Grand Finale, a salute to Hall of Honor inductees the Lilly Brothers and Don Stover, included

NO women. Sigh. The words to this old song come to mind: “You don’t have to move that mountain, just help me, Lord, to climb it.” We’ve got some climbing to do, ladies! —Murphy Henry

ALISON BROWN - EMBRACE IT ALL

IBMA Keynote Address

Alison Brown—banjo player, bandleader, record company founder, and new

mother—jump-started this year’s IBMA World of Bluegrass with her insightful and often humorous keynote address on Monday, October 14. I am grateful to Alison for allowing us to print her remarks.

I am honored to have been invited to give the keynote address at this year’s IBMA convention. The membership of the IBMA is made up of a lot of very special people. When I think of my place in this community, I’m often reminded of the notion that members of the same family are not always born under the same roof. Tonight we’ve come from all over the country and all over the world to gather here in Louisville, individuals from very diverse backgrounds but a family joined by our mutual love of bluegrass music. I’ve always been proud to be a part of the bluegrass family and it is truly a privilege to get to share some thoughts and ideas with you this evening. But I’m sure some of you are wondering why is a progressive banjo player—a so-called jazz-grasser who regularly plays with piano and drums—addressing the IBMA? Well, I'll tell you why. It’s because I love bluegrass music.

I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t discovered Earl Scruggs when I was ten years old. I’ll never forget what an amazing feeling I got listening to Earl’s Foggy Mountain Banjo album for the first time. I just had to learn how to make that sound. And it’s funny because it wasn’t a sound that I heard growing up. My parents are both lawyers, neither one of them played bluegrass; in fact they labeled my Earl Scruggs cassette “hillbilly” music. And when they told me, “Alison, when you grow up you can be anything you want to be,” I’m pretty sure that “banjo picker” wasn’t what they had in mind. But, as for a lot of us I think, the music reached out and tapped me on the shoulder, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

As a teenager growing up in Southern California, my obsession with bluegrass contributed greatly to my popularity in high school. I clipped pictures of all my favorite banjo players out of Bluegrass Unlimited and carried them around in my notebook. I tuned in to Wayne Rice’s “Bluegrass Special” every Sunday night without fail. If I hadn’t met Stuart Duncan I might have felt like an utter pariah. But the two of us forged a

musical partnership born out of our mutual love for Star Trek, Chef Boyardee lasagna (in a can, of course), and the whole spectrum of bluegrass music from the Stanley Brothers to Andy Statman.

The summer I turned sixteen, I got a chance to make my first pilgrimage to the festivals “back east.” With Stuart’s dad Emmett at the wheel and our Bluegrass Unlimited festival guide readily at hand, we hit festivals from California to Kentucky, Oklahoma to Canada, Emmett often driving overnight so we could see J.D. Crowe on Saturday night in one state and wake up to Ralph’s gospel set in another. It was my first experience getting to hear the music in the places where it was born and it was an eyeopener in many ways. At one festival, Stuart and I entered the contest with a spirited rendition of an original tune called The Great Lasagna Rebellion, only to be warned by an irate festival goer not to “mock the music.” Up until that time, I don’t think I had realized that there were dividing lines in bluegrass.

When it was time for me to pick a college, I made my school selection in the only sensible way I could think of: I pulled out my copy of Bluegrass Unlimited again, compared the number of concert listings in New Haven to those in Boston and the decision was clear. At Harvard I hosted a radio show called “Living Traditions in Bluegrass” which followed the legendary “Hillbilly at Harvard” every Saturday (except during football season, of course) and we played everything from the traditional albums by Don Stover and Joe Val to the more progressive artists of the day including Larry McNeely and Byron Berline and Sundance. To me, these artists were all facets of the same diamond. I even convinced the History and Literature department to let me write my senior thesis on bluegrass music.

So when I say I love bluegrass music, I hope the depth of my respect and devotion to the music is obvious. But as a banjo player, I have often felt that there are lots of guys who can lay the thumb to the five far better than I can, and in an effort to follow my muse and make what I hope is a contribution to my instrument, my own musical pursuits have taken me to some very different musical places. But even though it might not always sound like it and even though I spend most of my musical life on the fringes of bluegrass, what I’ve learned from playing bluegrass music is at the core of what I do. So my message to you today won’t really surprise you. In fact it’s probably what you would expect to hear from me. And that is: when it comes to the music, embrace it all. I don’t say this just because I want you to support progressive bluegrass music. I say this because the growth that we are seeing right now in bluegrass that is capturing the attention of the media and the mainstream consumers is happening at the fringes of the music—not at its traditional core. However, I believe that every success on the fringe of

the music will ultimately benefit and strengthen the core of the music. That’s why I think it is more important than ever that our community draw together, support one another—traditionalist and jamgrassers alike—and embrace it all so that we can take advantage of the opportunities out there right now.

Let me take a few minutes and talk about some of the opportunities that I see for bluegrass music right now and some of the challenges facing us, too.

Without a doubt, this has been a great year for bluegrass. In the thirty years that I’ve been playing bluegrass, I don’t remember a time when there has been more national attention focused on our music. Sales of acoustic instruments are up, festival attendance is up, and satellite and cable radio stations are broadcasting bluegrass music 24/7. Certainly the phenomenal success of O Brother, Where Art Thou?— which has sold nearly six million copies according to Soundscan—has elevated the perception of bluegrass music within the media and has put this “hip” music on the radar of many consumers who have never owned a bluegrass record before. The Dixie Chicks have brought the sound of the banjo to Top 40 country radio. IBMA favorites Alison Krauss and Union Station and Nickel Creek are topping the Billboard charts. And the jamgrass acts like Leftover Salmon, Acoustic Syndicate, and Yonder Mountain have become such a powerful contingent that there was actually a multi-artist jamgrass tour playing the concert sheds last summer. In fact there is so much activity that Billboard magazine ran a recent cover story declaring “bluegrass is booming!”

But I think there’s a real paradox here. A lot of this music isn’t bluegrass. At least not if you stick with a purist’s definition of bluegrass as the music that Bill, Earl, and Lester were playing in 1945. It’s all very certainly related to, inspired by, and derived from bluegrass music, and in every case, played and sung by musicians who share a deep love of bluegrass music. But for the most part this music really exists on the fringes of the bluegrass tradition. However, without question, these mainstream successes are, by the very fact of their success, strengthening the traditional core of bluegrass music. How? That’s something else that I find very interesting because I don’t think that it is happening in the obvious way. You might assume that all the attention that bluegrass music is receiving means that sales of bluegrass records are up across the board. I haven’t found that to be the case. At the same time that the O Brother soundtrack has scanned nearly six million copies, the combined soundscans of the top five albums on this month’s Bluegrass Unlimited chart are less than 7000 units. That’s combined. Individually none of the albums has scanned more than 2000 units and one of them has yet to break triple digits.

Now, of course, you can make the case that Soundscan is an imperfect method of tracking sales, since not all retailers report to Soundscan. But even allowing for a 50% margin for error, I think the point is plain. There is a general record biz rule of thumb that 2% of all records account for 98% of the sales volume. I think the same rule applies here. A few albums—those on the Billboard Top Bluegrass Albums chart for example—account for almost all of the sales in the genre. The other 98% follow the more expected sales patterns for niche music, selling in small numbers through specialty retailers and at live performances and generally suffering in the overall dismal climate of today’s retail market.

So let me put on my record company hat for a moment and outline some of the challenges that labels face selling bluegrass music today. I don’t know how many of you follow the trades, but anyone who does is well aware of the state of misery among record retailers. The market is completely saturated with new releases—some 45,000 new albums were released last year in the U.S. alone compared to around 12,000 when I started Compass Records in 1995. And at the same time, the overall account base of retailers—the number of record stores out there—has fallen, especially the number of independent stores.

That trend is largely due to the fact that some new players entered the record retail market in the mid-90s, including electronics chains like Best Buy and Circuit City. These stores sell CDs at loss-leader pricing to drive consumers into their stores, driving independent shops out of business in the process. In the face of shrinking profit margins, many record stores have turned to mortgaging their floor space—in the form of listening posts, end caps, and other placement programs which they sell to record labels for $3-$5 per unit—a tremendous expense for labels and yet, often the only way to get the store to buy in a meaningful number of CDs on a new release. That means that if you go into a store and can actually see a release, if it’s not just stuck in the bin, it’s because the record label paid to position it in the store.

Quick turnover has also become the name of the game for retailers. In this climate, stores can’t afford to hang on to slower moving titles. Their credit limits with their distributors don’t allow for it. In order to stay competitive, they need to put their buying dollars into a hit product that will sell quickly. That doesn’t bode well for bluegrass titles that traditionally sell maybe a couple of units a month. I recently had a conversation with the head buyer for independent music at Tower Records on Sunset in L.A. Here’s a guy who has been with Tower for years and has a real passion for music. We started talking about Joseph Spence who is a legendary Bahamian guitarist. In his opinion, the world music section wasn’t complete without Spence’s music in the bins. But his ability to stock these legendary records is being compromised these days because the Tower

inventory system is programmed to delete any sku (or title) that doesn’t turn over four times within a year.

And speaking of Tower, when I first discovered bluegrass, I spent hours down at Tower Records on Sports Arena Boulevard in San Diego buying LPs and building my bluegrass record collection. In those days, you could count on Tower to stock all those great “catalog” albums. But with Tower teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for the last 12 months or so, stores are leaning out their bins and can no longer be counted on to stock older eclectic titles, even if they are classics to you and me, unless they sell through quickly. The same thing is true to some extent throughout the best-known stores that carry bluegrass music: Border’s, Barnes and Noble, and Virgin. In fact, the only music retailers that seem to be up in this climate are the racks, Target and Walmart, known throughout the industry as retailers for mostly hit products. Add to this the closure last year of one of the primary distributors of bluegrass music and the problem is compounded.

The problems at retail these days require labels to adopt a much shorter timeline for marketing bluegrass in order to be competitive. From the time an album is released, there is typically a three-month window where advertising, touring, press, and airplay need to line up. If a demand isn’t generated and the title hasn’t sold at the end of three months, it’s going to be returned to the distributor and then to the label. So the big challenge for labels and artists is how to get the word out within this narrow window. Radio is one answer to the puzzle. But since almost all bluegrass radio airplay is on specialty shows once a week, even heavy rotation can mean just 15 spins a week which isn’t enough exposure in itself to drive sales at retail. The sales figures for the top five albums on the BU chart this month are a case in point. Press is obviously another tool that labels rely on, although the very long lead times with the bluegrass and folk publications usually mean that feature stories and reviews don’t run for months after a new release has been shipped, and returned, from retail.

I get asked a lot: how do you balance being an artist on one hand and a record label exec on the other? It’s a challenge, for sure. But being aware of the obstacles and challenges to marketing music has made me think more strategically about writing, recording, and releasing my own music. And I think that if we are to take advantage of the bluegrass boom that is happening around us, one of the things we all need to do is think strategically. I would advise artists against going blindly into a recording project. Instead, envision the results that you want to achieve with an album—whether it be press you want to get, the type of touring you want to do, or the radio exposure you are looking for—and work backwards. In other words, design your outcome. And then support the release with a well-conceived and timely touring plan that gives the label the

chance to promote your release in key markets. With so many artists out there, and so many releases, this kind of planning is the best way to position yourself to take advantage of the increased awareness of bluegrass out there.

Earlier I was talking about the mainstream attention and success that bluegrass is enjoying as a result of O Brother, the Dixie Chicks, and Nickel Creek, among others. I’ve talked about how this hasn’t necessarily translated into increased sales for the bluegrass artists not directly involved with these projects and some of the reasons why it hasn’t. But as I mentioned earlier, these successes have benefited traditional bluegrass in more subtle ways. Among retailers, the perception that bluegrass is booming has driven them to create marketing and placement programs for bluegrass releases and has kept bluegrass bins in the stores at a time when the genre might just as easily have been consolidated into the folk bins. Among the press, the perception that bluegrass is booming has encouraged them to give the genre ink in mainstream tastemaker publications like Time, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. All of this mainstream attention is putting bluegrass in front of a new audience. And I think this is the greatest gift our community is being given right now.

But, in the bluegrass community, I think there is a tendency among some people to want to build a wall around the music in the hopes of preserving the tradition. Well, I think that when you put a wall around something, you stand more chance of keeping people out than keeping people in. And, particularly at this moment in time, that type of thinking is a real detriment to the music. The people who are discovering bluegrass music these days are more than likely coming to the music from a different place than you or I did. Instead of Flatt and Scruggs, it’s more likely to be because they bought a Dixie Chicks record or saw a Leftover Salmon or Flecktones show, But that’s great, because Bela Fleck, for example, might lead them to Tony Trischka which eventually might lead them all the way back to Earl. I know how happy it makes me when a young banjo player comes up to me after a show and says he searched out John Hickman because he heard John influenced my playing and that his research eventually led him all the way back to some of the earlier greats like Eddie Adcock and Don Reno. And in that way, the music that exists on the fringe is key in drawing new fans to the tradition of bluegrass.

So, in conclusion, it would be easy to sit back and congratulate ourselves on the current success of bluegrass music. But the spotlight that is shining on bluegrass music today may not be tomorrow. That’s the way the media works. Do any of you remember the Buena Vista Social Club from a few years ago? It is a wonderful Cuban record produced by Ry Cooder that spawned a documentary and sold many millions of copies. For a while, because of the success of that record, Cuban albums were appearing

everywhere and people who had never owned a Cuban record before were discovering the music. In the industry, they call a record that achieves that kind of mainstream success a coffee-table record. Well, the same thing is happening with bluegrass and O Brother right now. And chances are, a year or two from now, the media spotlight is going to be shining somewhere else. The question is, how many of these interested consumers and potential new bluegrass fans will we be able to draw in to our music while the spotlight is on us? Will we make them feel welcome, even if their initial interest comes from a more progressive place?

Imagine if we could go back in time a couple of years and I said to you, “I have a great idea for a movie. It’s a comedy starring George Clooney (you know, that guy from E.R.?) It’s going to have a country/old-time soundtrack and be directed by a couple of Jewish guys, and it’s going to be the best thing for bluegrass ever.” You’d have said, “That sounds great Alison, but I think I’ll keep Bill Monroe in my CD player and my money in Treasury bonds.” Well, as you know, it was the best thing that has happened for bluegrass in many years. But imagine if we could have shot the idea down? Where would we be today?

So that’s my point. This is our moment. It seems to me that what matters most right now is to tear down the walls. Remember that we all have an important role in this community. Support one another, whether you’re a traditionalist or a newgrasser, an old timer or a newcomer. Embrace each other. Embrace it all. The future of bluegrass music will certainly be the better for it. WIB

Music Stores: The Middle-aged Woman's Nightmare

A true story by Claire Levine

The other day I went into a music store near my work, one where I’m not known. I asked for two sets of banjo strings and I asked to look at tuners. The guy behind the counter started telling me about tuners as if I’d never used one before. First, he took out one he likes and said, “See, you can even plug this in. You use a cord like this and you can hook the clip onto your banjo.” (Duh.)

Then he started talking to me about a chromatic tuner. “Do you know the word chromatic?” he said. (I felt as if I’d wandered into Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.) He started to tell me why chromatic tuners are necessary for banjos and not guitars. “In case you want to play in G-sharp,” he said. (“God forbid,” I said, under my breath.) As it turned out, he didn’t even know the notes the banjo strings are tuned to in G tuning.

I’m no stellar musician, but I have been playing around with this stuff for about 25 years, and I obviously knew more about the banjo than this guy. Yet he was so @#$%& patronizing I wanted to scream. I couldn’t figure out if it was because I looked too old or (not likely) too young to know what I was doing, or if I looked stupid, or if I simply looked (surprise) female.

I’ve had other occasions where I’ve been ignored in music stores, and I’ve always assumed it’s because most people who browse in music stores don’t buy, so the salespeople don’t bother offering to help. Or perhaps it’s because no one knows what to do with women in stores that sell guitars and banjos.

I just talked to another woman banjo player who said she’s also been ignored in one music store we both go to. Is this normal behavior for music store employees? Is everybody like the employees in the movie High Fidelity?

Or is there some kind of subliminal message that any woman who plays an acoustic instrument must have picked it up because she thought George Clooney was really singing in O Brother? I would assume that somebody who comes in and asks to look at tuners, or anything in a music store, would know something about musical paraphernalia. If they don’t, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to ask some questions to determine a person’s level of knowledge?

Since that day, I’ve learned that just about everybody feels patronized in music stores. I’ve also learned the perfect response in case this happens again, thanks to Brad on the beginners banjo news list. He suggests planting hands on counter, looking the guy directly in the eye and saying, preferably loudly, so that everybody else in the store can hear, “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

I like it.

Sally Ann Forrester: The Story Continues

We have now examined Sally Ann’s life up through 1942 when both she and her husband Howdy, along with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, were members of Jam Up and Honey’s Grand Ole Opry Tent show. We will now begin to unravel the question of when, and perhaps why, Sally Ann started working with Bill Monroe as one of his Blue Grass “Boys.”

Billie Gets A New Name

During the time Billie played with Monroe’s band, she was known as “Sally Ann” Forrester, and this is how she is known to bluegrass fans today. Therefore, it makes little sense to keep referring to her as “Billie,” just as it would have made little sense to refer to her as “Sally Ann” before she joined Monroe’s band. Her old friends and family still called her Billie, but new friends would call her Sally Ann. As noted earlier, she would answer to either. Bob Forrester said that “Bill Monroe tagged the name Sally Ann on her, because in those days you had to have a stage name, so to speak. That was an old fiddle tune.” Joe Forrester added, “I believe at that time there was a bread called ‘Sally Ann.’ Loaf bread. That was an old one.”

It is true that stage names were often the rule, especially for women. But I can’t help but wonder, drawing on the experience of Bill Keith, one of Monroe’s later banjo players, if perhaps Bill Monroe was reluctant to have another “Bill” or even a “Billie” in his band. When Bill Keith was in Monroe’s band, Monroe called him “Brad” just so there wouldn’t be two players named “Bill” in his band. (Bradford was Bill Keith’s middle name.) It’s just possible that this might have been true for Billie/Sally Ann.

Why A Woman?

As far as Sally Ann’s joining Monroe’s band, there has been a fair amount of speculation by bluegrass fans and historians about why she was in the band. Is this speculation mainly about why there was an accordion (not now considered a bluegrass instrument) in the band, or why there was a woman in the band? Would this speculation occur if the accordion player had been a man? There seem to be no questions of this sort concerning the harmonica player, Curley Bradshaw, who was with the band in 1944 and 1945. Today, the harmonica is not considered a bluegrass instrument, but no one questions (or smirks about) Curley Bradshaw’s appearance in the band.

Behind this question of why Sally Ann was in the band there seems to lurk the larger question, “Why would Bill Monroe hire a woman?” This question is rooted in the belief by some that bluegrass is “man’s music.” Or as Mark Humphrey wrote “a ferocious, hell-bent man’s music.” But, in 1943, there were a number of women in what was still being called “hillbilly” music, which is what Monroe was playing at the time. (The designation “bluegrass” for his music had not yet been coined.)

In fact, there had always been women in “hillbilly music”—both in the public sphere and in the private sphere. Elizabeth Shlappi, Roy Acuff’s biographer, noted that Roy went out of his way to find a woman to play in his band. Roy “believed that a girl was needed in his act—men in the audience like to see a girl on stage.” (On the other hand, Acuff also told singer Johnny Wright, “Don’t ever headline a show with a woman. It won’t ever

work, because people just don’t go for women.” Wright’s wife, Kitty Wells, would go on to become the Queen of Country Music.) There were also other women on the Opry, which was a barn dance that was not particularly friendly to women. As Bufwack and Oermann point out, “no radio barn dance was as resistant to female performers as [the] Opry.” Minnie Pearl’s Grinder’s Switch Gazette noted in March 1945 that “we have so few girls on the Grand Ole Opry.” Those few “girls” included, in addition to Sally Ann, Rachel Veach and Minnie Pearl, Becky Barfield, with Pee Wee King; the Poe Sisters; Little Evie, with the Bailes Brothers; the Cackle Sisters; Alcyon Beasley, with the Possum Hunters; Judy Dean with Paul Howard and his Arkansas Cotton Pickers; and Texas Ruby, who played in a band with her husband, Curly Fox. When the Grinder’s Switch Gazette listed their band as “Curly Fox and His Fox Hunters,” the newspaper was forced to issue a correction in the next issue saying the name should have read “Curly Fox, Texas Ruby, and the Fox Hunters” [italics mine].

As Charles Wolfe puts it in an Old-Time Herald article, “One of the sillier myths being bandied about these days...involves the role of women in the history of country music. It is said...that before the advent of Kitty Wells in the late 1940s, women had little to do with country music’s development, they were cast as pretty faces only, along to dress up the act. This is, of course, nonsense, and an account of the significant women artists who contributed to the development of the music would take up the rest of this issue.” Bufwack and Oermann have doggedly documented the presence and impact of women in country music in their book Finding Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music. The WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago had many female “stars” including Lula Belle, the Girls of the Golden West, Lily Mae Ledford, and Patsy Montana. In 1936, Lula Belle was voted “Radio Queen of America” over all other female performers in America, not just those in country music.

Mark Humphrey manages to dismiss both Sally Ann Forrester and the accordion in one fell swoop. In talking about Monroe’s first recording session for Columbia (February 1945), in which Sally Ann participated, Humphrey says,“The anachronism of this session, given the later direction of bluegrass, is the presence of both a woman and an accordion. Neither were much heard in classic bluegrass thereafter. The woman [notice the lack of a name] arrived as part of a package deal with fiddler Howdy Forrester, and it’s been suggested Monroe kept her on as a favor to Howdy when he entered the Navy.”

Kept On As A Favor? No Way!

To suggest that Monroe might have kept Sally Ann on as a part of the show—for three years!—as a favor to her husband is insulting not only to Sally Ann but to all women. It seems to imply that “the woman” is not worthy of playing with Bill Monroe, the creator of

the “ferocious, hell-bent man’s music.” The statement also suggests that Sally Ann was not worthy of being hired on her own; that Monroe would have never hired a woman unless he were doing favor for a man. From all I have read about Monroe, he does not strike me as the kind of man who hires any musicians unless they were an asset to the show and could pull their own weight. We now know that by the time Sally Ann moved to Nashville with Howdy she was a seasoned professional in the music business. She would have been an asset to any show. And to think that Monroe, who was running a business, would pay a side musician unnecessarily—as a favor to a friend—makes no sense.

The question of Monroe hiring a woman to play accordion might best be examined if broken into two parts. First, why “the woman,” and second, why the accordion? As we will see, they actually go hand in hand. The evidence—both pictures and

letters—suggests that Sally Ann was not playing with Monroe in 1942. In addition to the two postcards mentioned earlier, there is a November 1942 letter to Howdy and Billie, responding to their letter of August 3, in which, Larry, a friend in service, writes, “It’s good to know you’re working for WSM again.” Sally Ann, of course, had never worked for WSM, the radio station that broadcast the Grand Ole Opry, but Howdy had appeared there with the Vagabonds in 1938. Bluegrass historian Neil Rosenberg states that Sally Ann was hired after Howdy went into the Navy, and says that “Monroe attributed his hiring of Wilene ‘Sally Ann’ Forrester...to the memory of his mother’s accordion playing....” (We will deal with Monroe’s mother and the accordion later.) Howdy went into service around the end of March 1943. But fiddle players could be easily replaced, and Howdy was replaced almost immediately by Chubby Wise. But keep in mind that this was just about the time that Monroe was getting ready to take out his own tent show for the first time. He would have wanted a strong show with a lot of variety. Monroe, who had worked with Sally Ann on the 1942 tent show, would have known that she was a professional and versatile entertainer. As Bob Forrester pointed out, she was a trouper. “You know nowadays, the term ‘show girl’ has sort of a negative connotation. But in those days, I heard my father talk about it, the show girls were people like Wilma Lee Cooper and Mama. They were just really sports. They were hard-working girls on the road that sang and got along and didn’t ask for any special quarter, and were really an asset to the show. When you were a ‘show girl,’ that was the ultimate compliment—’She’s a real show girl. ’” Cousin Wilbur, who worked with Sally Ann, agrees with Bob’s assessment. In his autobiography, he describes Sally Ann as “one of the finest ladies you ever met.” If Howdy had not gone into service, no doubt both he and Sally Ann would have been working the tent show again in 1943. But just because Monroe couldn’t have Howdy, that was no reason for him not to hire Sally Ann herself. This connection of events may have given the appearance that Sally Ann was

hired as a “favor” to Howdy, but Monroe probably hired Sally Ann simply because she was a proven asset to the tent show: a gifted musician and a “show girl.” That Sally Ann was hired specifically for the tent show season is confirmed by a letter from Howdy postmarked September 4, 1943. She and Howdy did not know if Monroe would keep her on after the season. Howdy writes, “I hope you can keep on with Bill and the boys throughout the winter as it will keep you busy and your mind free from worry. Nobody could worry around that outfit....” “Throughout the winter” would have meant after tent show season. Monroe’s tent show season for 1943 ran from mid-May until the end of November. Although we know Sally Ann’s total salary for 1943 was $1429, and we know her weekly salary was probably $50 or $60, it’s still too close to call as to whether she stayed on with “Bill and the boys throughout the winter” based on the money alone.

However, other evidence leads me to believe that Monroe kept Sally Ann on through the winter and made her a permanent part of the band. A letter from Howdy, dated May 15, 1943, when he was on nine-day leave in Washington, D.C., from the U.S. Naval Training Station in Bainbridge, Md., shows clearly that Sally Ann was working with Monroe at the start of tent show season: “Hope you are working alright now. I suppose you are counting money and tickets for the tent show by now...Tell Bill and all the boys hello for me.” The word “now” suggests that Sally Ann had not been working with the band before then.

At one point, I thought it possible that Sally Ann might have been taking up tickets only and not playing or singing, but Bob Forrester definitely thinks this notion is not correct. And, from what I know, the person who took up the tickets at the door and counted the money was always a member of the band. Cousin Wilbur had the job before Sally Ann. Bass player Cedric Rainwater took over the job when she left, and banjo player Earl Scruggs “got nominated to sell the tickets” after Cedric left. So, one has to assume if Sally Ann was taking up tickets, she was considered a member of the band. One can’t help but wonder why Cousin Wilbur, who was supposedly still with the band, was no longer taking up tickets.

But What Was She Playing?

Even though we now know Sally Ann was with the tent show, we still do not know if she was playing an instrument, and, if so, what instrument that was. The earliest publicity picture of Sally Ann with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys (with Chubby Wise, Curley Bradshaw, Clyde Moody, and Stringbean) does not show an accordion. All the other band members are holding their instruments, but Sally Ann is positioned, without an instrument, in front of the microphone, as if she were a featured singer. Perhaps on

the tent show she was a “female soloist” who would join the band for a number or two to add variety to the show. Also, Joe Forrester thinks that there might have been a time when Sally Ann got up on stage and sang a song or two without the accordion. Given the fact that absolutely no information about the accordion has surfaced for this time period or earlier, I think the idea of her being a featured singer is very likely. When she joined the band, the other members of the group were Clyde Moody, Stringbean (David Akeman), Chubby Wise, and (possibly) Cousin Wilbur Wesbrooks. Curley Bradshaw, on harmonica, was also in the band photo, but I do not know when he joined the group. Joe Forrester also thinks that it was Sally Ann herself who suggested to Bill Monroe that she play the accordion on the show. (And I will show later that I suspect she did not start playing accordion with the band until near the end of tent show season.) This makes a certain amount of sense because, if Sally Ann had never played accordion before—and we have no record or indication that she had—how could Monroe have known that she played? Sally Ann herself would have been the most likely one to realize that since she played piano, she could make the switch to the more portable accordion with little trouble. And you will recall that Sally Ann had seen another woman, Gloria Romano, play folk songs on the accordion on stage at Southwest Baptist College. And, perhaps—and I think this is important—Sally Ann thought that as a member of the band she should be playing an instrument. Perhaps she did not want to simply be the “girl singer.” Perhaps, as Joe Forrester mentioned, she would want to “pull her weight” and be on an equal footing with the other members of the band. Perhaps, as the musician and music lover that she was, she simply wanted to be playing an instrument. This letter from June 1943 may indicate that Sally Ann was already thinking about what she would do for work after tent show season. She was obviously considering work on a radio station in Kansas City. An unnamed female friend writes:

“...it was a bigger thrill to find you are still thinking of invading this old K.C. with your charm. No, kiddo, I don’t know the name of the program director, but I think if you just write to the “Program Director” Radio Station K.M.B.C., Kansas City, Mo., that should get it. I really believe they will be your best bet because of this show I told you about. Now every Saturday night they pack the Little Theater...having a show first and then an old-fashioned dance. The groups of people with K.M.B.C. also travel all over to the small towns around to give performances, dances...so they should make pretty good money. K.M.B.C. must have around 50 entertainers on their staff...Even if you couldn’t get on with them, there is always the Bomber Plant! I know you could find work here. Robert may have to go into the Army in September, and if he does we could no doubt find an apartment and keep house together. Think it over seriously anyway, chum, cause I’d sure like to see you come to K.C."

I think that the fact that she never took this job indicates that Monroe kept her on after tent show season.

Howdy also was keeping up with Sally Ann and listening to the Opry. On August 30, 1943, he writes from the Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Mass., where he was stationed: “Got your letter you wrote from Boone [NC] today... See on the list that you are playing Marion [NC] tonite. Guess Clyde Moody will take care of the drawing power there...I listened to the Opry Sat. nite. It sounded about as usual. Acuff has a good idea on the flour. He’ll probably sell it O.K. Bill’s program was fair enough but String Beans leaving really left an empty spot in it. It was really good to hear them though. I didn’t hear the first program...

The reference to “them” makes me think that Sally Ann was not yet performing with the band on the Opry, even though she was a part of the tent show. When she did start performing on the Opry, she almost always sang a solo number on one, but not both, of Monroe’s spots. (He had two spots every Saturday night.) There is a slim possibility that she could have sung on the first program that Howdy missed.

By October, however, she had definitely hit the big time—she was appearing on the Opry. In a postcard from Tulsa, Oklahoma, dated November 2,1943, Comora McGee, who must have been an old friend for she refers to “Billie” and not Sally Ann, writes, “Dear Billie, We enjoyed hearing you sing the last two Sat. nights. Hope to hear you every Sat. night...” The “last two Saturday nights” would have been October 23 and 30. I think this postcard provides clear evidence that Monroe had decided to keep Sally Ann on “throughout the winter.” Was this postcard kept down through the years and pasted into Sally Ann’s scrapbook because it had particular significance? Perhaps October 23 was the first time she sang on the Opry. Perhaps this was the first time someone had written to her saying that they had heard her on the Opry.

The next time we look at Sally Ann’s career, we will try to answer the question “why the accordion. ” Stay tuned! Back issues are available if you want the whole story!

Eulaine Blumenthal: Following a Dream

By Joanna Loehr

Eulaine Godfrey was born in the small hamlet of Rupert, Ark., in 1935. She left home at eighteen to move to Seattle, Wash., where other members of her family had found jobs.

At twenty, she married a musician and began performing with her husband’s band, Wells and Fargo. The marriage failed after the youngest of her three children, Kim, was born in 1966. Shortly thereafter Eulaine met Hank Blumenthal who became her lifelong partner in music and in raising her children. Their band, the Montana Drifters, performed country and mountain music in Seattle until 1985, when Eulaine and Hank moved to Mountainview, Ark., to follow their dream of being full-time musicians. There they became resident artists at the Ozark Folk Center where they were later joined on stage by their daughter, Kim Lowe, and their 6-year-old grandson, Kevin Lowe. Eulaine was chosen as a finalist at the Southern Regional Autoharp Competition. Eulaine and Hank returned to Seattle in 1999 along with teenaged Kevin, whom they are home-schooling to provide musical opportunities.

First of all, where did you grow up?

I grew up in Arkansas, way out in the mountains. It was about 110 miles from Little Rock. The little place where I was born and raised was called Rupert, and I think that has a whole bunch to do with the music. For anybody, I think it’s the place where you’re born, the family you’re born into, and the music that they like. My family happened to be a singing family, and the stuff we would do mostly was church. Of course, it was the old-time songs like I’ll Fly Away and Where the Soul Never Dies and, you know, you put the right instrumentation with it, it’s bluegrass.

I never learned it but my mom and dad could sit down with a songbook with shape notes and Mama would be doing the alto and Daddy would be doing the soprano. She’d be going “do, re, mi” and he’d be doing “fa, la, so” and harmonizing with each other with the notes and then they’d sing the words to it.

Did you sing at home or just mainly in church?

We’d sing some at home, but mainly in church. Of course, out in the mountains there they had all these musicians. You know it comes natural to a lot of people. They had banjo pickers and fiddle players. If they had pie suppers, those people would come and play. But Mama and Daddy would never let us go to the dances or anything because up in the mountains there they had the white lightning and all that bad stuff that they didn’t want us to be around.

What was the first instrument you learned to play?

When I was ten or twelve years old, we had an old guitar at home. My mom, she showed me a few chords, and I played a little bit at that time. Then, when I was in my

twenties I was married to a musician and the leader of their band heard me sing somewhere. So he said, “You know, she needs to start singing with us.” I started singing with them and he said, “Why don’t you get her a bass guitar?” So we bought a bass, and bass was the first instrument I got to where I could really play to accompany. Later when Hank and I worked in the taverns around Seattle, Hank did banjo and it was mostly country but we put in a lot of the bluegrassy-type songs. We finally didn’t want to play in the taverns anymore, so we joined the old-time fiddlers and I started playing the upright bass. Then our daughter Kim grew up and she wanted to play bass, so it forced me over onto guitar.

When did you learn autoharp?

We moved back to Arkansas in 1985 to a little town called Mountainview, and it’s known as the “Folk Music Capital of the World.” People from all over come there and they just sit out on the porch down around the courthouse and around the square and some nights there’ll be ten or fifteen groups sitting and jamming. That town is like that all the time, until it gets so cold you can’t move your fingers. There’s a place there called the Ozark Folk Center that we started working at, and it was built to preserve the culture, the music, and the dance of that area back in the 1800s and early 1900s. A lot of people was playing autoharps there on the shows. I bought an autoharp from a friend and she showed me a few strums on it. What’s neat about the autoharp is you can sit and play it without anybody else accompanying you. It’s got such pretty music to it and it’s got a full sound to it. Of course, I had heard autoharp playing on the Grand Ole Opry. That’s the one station that Daddy would listen to on Saturday night was the Grand Ole Opry and the Carter family.

Were you influenced by Maybelle Carter?

Maybelle and Sara is a big influence on the music that I do. The songs that we sing, the music that we play, I like to call it mountain music. I think the only difference between mountain music and bluegrass is you can play mountain music with two or three instruments, to get the sound the bluegrass people want you have to have four or five in the group.

Were there any other women that were influential in teaching you music or songs? When I first started really getting into the music in the Seattle area, I was probably one of the first women in this area that started playing bass and singing with a group. I think the women that influenced me because I was into a lot of country music was Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn, and there was Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton came along later.

Especially Dolly. I do a lot of songs she’s written that just kind of fit in with the way I grew up. We had the same kind of background as far as growing up in a poor community and not having anything.

Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley have both credited their mothers with teaching them music.

My mother taught us a lot of the old songs. I remember Strawberry Roan for one, but she used to do those old train songs like The Wreck of the 97. There was a lot of women, even if they did play a fiddle or a guitar, they didn’t play it out in public but they taught their kids to play it. I think mothers have a big influence in the music back there, especially in the mountains where the mothers are home more and have more time to spend with the kids. When both parents are interested, like with Kevin, our grandson living with us, you just want to pick it up and get involved with what’s going on. I think part of the reason we’re still playing is because of Kevin.

How did you and Hank meet?

Hank had a group [in Seattle] and was playing music and his bass player quit. He had a friend who said, “I know a woman who plays bass.” At that time I was going through some bad times, so I said “No, I’m not ever going to play music anymore.” He said, “Well, I’ve got this New Year’s Eve gig and I need a bass player.” So they came over and we practiced and I played with them on New Year’s Eve and we’ve been a group ever since.

You’d already moved to Seattle ?

I came to Seattle when I got out of high school. I came out here in 1953. I had a brother and sister that lived out here. When you’re born back in Arkansas out in the mountains, no money to go to college, no money to do anything, and in order to get a job I would have had to move away from home anyway. Out in the mountains where I grew up, most of us was pretty shy. I had never really been to Little Rock more than three or four times. When I was 15 we’d come out to the West Coast and pick fruit in the summertime. A lot of people look down on migrant workers but, believe me, it was a way of making a living. We ate in the wintertime then. That’s what brought me to Seattle, just to be able to get a job and not be stuck back there in the mountains my whole life. Then I just stayed and raised a family here.

What made you decide to move back to Arkansas?

We had been back there every year and Hank always loved Arkansas. In 1985 we went in June and stayed a month and my parents were getting older. We came back here and in October Hank says, “I wonder what would happen if we put our house up for rent and just moved back there for a while and see if we’d like it?” I think it was about two weeks, we decided, “Well, we’ll put the house up for rent” and that very first week, it rented. So we moved back there. We had found this little town that we liked, Mountainview. We had gone over with my Dad in June. As we came back through town Hank says, “Let’s drive around the courthouse.” We drove around the courthouse and here was all these musicians all over the place playing and we ended up staying down there till two o’clock in the morning and then the next day we went back down there. So probably if it really came down to a truthful answer, it was the music that took us back there.

Then you got a full-time job there?

Yes. We went to the Ozark Folk Center and auditioned and they hired us right away. When we first started there it was two or three nights a week on their night shows, then we started working their day shows. After we had been back there a couple of years we went up to Branson, Mo., and auditioned at Silver Dollar City. The first thing the guy said to me was, “You sound just like one of the Carters. That’s what we want here.” So we played their spring festival for eight years. Actually they offered us a job for the season but we didn’t want to move up there.

What made you decide to move back to Seattle?

The weather, the hot summers. Our kids were still out here and we still had a house out here and the music out here is good, going on the bluegrass campouts and the fiddlers’ campouts. You can really stay busy in the music. We play at farmer’s markets, senior apartments, music in schools. It’s paid, but not much. It’s harder to make money in the music out here than it is back were we came from in the South. A lot of the old-time fiddlers will go out and do their music free, which is nice and it gives them something to do.

How do you see yourself fitting into the bluegrass community?

Oh, I love the bluegrass community. I think we fit in better with the bluegrass people. A lot of people think bluegrass music is just real fast tunes, but bluegrass music to me is not only the instrumentation, but the harmony. The harmony is what makes bluegrass music and that’s what I grew up doing. We’d sing at church and we’d have a quartet. I think it’s the harmony of the voices.

Patrice O’Neil, the director of Wintergrass, is putting together the Women in Bluegrass Conference (Feb 22, 2002, in Tacoma). She came up with the title “Notable Exceptions” because the Bluegrass Museum in Owensboro, Ky., mentions that bluegrass has been primarily a man’s endeavor, but there are a few “notable exceptions. ”

You know really that isn’t true. The Carter family, to me they would be classified as bluegrass if they had the mandolins and all of that. We do a lot of Carter family songs like Bury Me Beneath the Willow. There’s a lot of women on the shows where we worked in Arkansas and a lot of them from out in the mountains that’s never been heard anywhere else except there at those shows. We had these two women, it was a mother and daughter, and they had learned all of these folk tunes from the mother’s mother. They must have known a thousand songs, it was just incredible, and they did them all a cappella. It was just kind of haunting, the harmony and the blend of their voices. How would you define yourself as a person?

First of all I’m a wife and in a family that plays music. I’m a Christian. I guess I’m just a down-home country woman.

Are you a musician?

Yeah, I am a musician. If I had a choice of doing something full-time and there was an availability to do it, I would do music. Yeah, a musician.

To That Mansion In The Sky: Rubye Davis 1937-2002

On August 23, 2002, the very day the “Rubye Davis" issue of Women in Bluegrass went to press, Rubye lost her battle with lung cancer. She was 65. She did see a rough draft of the article before she died. Dan Loftin, who graciously supplied the pictures for that article, has written a wonderful letter talking about Ruby’s influence on him. I print it now as our final tribute to a pioneer woman in bluegrass.

My banjo went under the bed when I realized the folk boom was over. That was around 1966 when I was a sophisticated sophomore in college. After graduating on a Thursday and being drafted into the Army three days later, the banjo didn’t make it from under the bed until my return from Vietnam three years later and only then because I had taken a job in Nashville, Tenn. Music City. Since the banjo was “out of the closet” so to speak, I guessed I might as well pick the thing', but six years of ignoring the banjo does not a better banjo player make. I needed inspiration. I looked in the local fish wrapper to see

who was where and lo and behold a place called the Bluegrass Inn near Vanderbilt featured Hubert Davis and the Season Travelers.

I went to hear Hubert play the five but got blindsided by this tall, dark-complected woman singing bluegrass standards with soul like I’d never heard. Talk about family harmonies! When the tall woman (Rubye) and Shelby Jean (Hubert and Rubye's daughter) sang, they knocked my socks off! Rubye Davis is the person I credit with making me appreciate bluegrass singers. (I had been attracted to the banjo in bluegrass, not the “high nasal sound.”)

From that point I became more aware of vocals in bluegrass, the harmonies, the trio and quartet blends. I know the band was known as “Hubert Davis and the Season Travelers” because of Hubert’s excellent Scrugg’s-style picking and witty banter with the crowd but after hearing their vocal renderings the band became “Hubert, Rubye, and Shelby Jean Davis and the boys!” Later I landed a job with a local newspaper as a photographer and would stop by the Bluegrass Inn after work and take photos of the band. I got to know the Davis family pretty well. Rubye was always very personable and upbeat even when attendance was off. We would sit and talk between sets. Rubye never tried to steal Hubert’s thunder when on stage, but always had a smile and a look that made one think that she was singing just for them. Shelby Jean, as young as she was, had learned stage presence from Hubert and vocal styling from Rubye and was the sparkling jewel of the Davis family. I have no idea how her parents talked a vibrant teenage woman into playing in a bluegrass band but when asked Shelby would reply, “It’s what we do!” “We” not I; that family thing—Hubert, Rubye, Shelby Jean Davis and the Season Travelers—not just Hubert Davis and those other guys. I think most of their fans felt that the Davis family was the heart of the band and the hand-picked side musicians were like cousins or uncles.

As often as work permitted, I continued to follow the Davis family to the Wind in the Willows and on to the “new” Bluegrass Inn down on Second Avenue. The new location was not drawing the Vandy crowds, and Hubert’s health began to fail. Rubye tried to keep the club going by hiring new banjo players and letting Shelby Jean emcee but with Hubert’s passing the circle was broken and it was never the same. I feel like Rubye wanted to keep “the show” going and never took time to grieve. The club folded and Rubye moved to an apartment with no phone and took a day job, Shelby Jean got married and moved to her husband’s hometown, and I lost touch with the Season Travelers. I tried to track Rubye to see if she was singing or picking anywhere, but never caught up with her. I saw Shelby Jean at a winter SPBGMA gathering and exchanged pleasantries. She had a new band out of Shelbyville, Tenn. (No pun intended.) Life went on.

When I got the bad news about Rubye, I got out my old Season Travelers LP’s and gave another listen to the voice that was the soul of the Season Travelers. I always thought of Rubye as the soul of the Season Travellers and Hubert as the Scruggs disciple and front person/comic relief; without Rubye, they would have been a square dance band. I remembered the band on the stage at the Wind in the Willows: Richard Hoffman on fiddle, Gene Bush on Dobro, Mike Compton with his mandolin, and the Davis family singing Fox on the Run to a full house of Vandy students and tourists who were singing right along with them. That’s the way I remember Rubye Davis: singing her heart out to a crowd of fans that knew she was singing just to them. We’ll miss you, Rubye.

Dan Loftin, Nashville, Tenn.

Japanese Translation of Bluegrass: A History

The Japanese translation of Neil Rosenberg’s definitive Bluegrass: A History has recently been published by the University of Illinois Press. Hisae and Taisuke Nishigauchi, who did the translation and additions, have been working on the project for eight years. The book is a 612-page, high-quality hardback with a classy cover and smooth-as-silk pages. As I said in Bluegrass Unlimited, I wish I could read Japanese! Not merely a translation, the book features an updated discography which includes CDs, a new and more detailed index, chapters divided into shorter subsections with headings, and an introduction written by Taisuke that fills in the gap between 1985 and the present and includes a subsection on women in bluegrass!

Hisae and Taisuke play together in the group Nowhere Bound, with Hisae on guitar and Taisuke on banjo. Hisae wrote an article about (what else?) women in bluegrass in Japan for WIB #27 and is pictured in that issue. She also translates articles from WIB into Japanese and posts them on her website. Taisuke says the book is selling better than they had expected, the first 1000 copies are almost gone, and a second printing is in the works. Congratulations to all!