Editor:
I must express my sincerest gratitude. Not only have my crossword grievances been rectified, but lo, I have been shown the light.
Your man Bob really swung the bat this time (“The Hum,” May 26). Where the rest of us so obviously failed, Mr. Doran took upon himself the heavy burden of giving some kind of definition at last to that which was indefinable.
Never again will we sinners wonder “Just what is this Bluegrass thing, and am I playing it?” The No Good Redwood Ramblers were, of course, deemed unworthy of this lofty title. We were judged, but it was a divine, cleansing judgment from on high. I cannot help but to think that I am purer for it. Cleaner now than ever I could have scrubbed myself upon my washboard.
Cameron Trujillo, Eureka
This article appears in Invasion of Big Lagoon.
Cameron,
It was not my intent to pass judgement on you, your band, or your washboard. On your Facebook page, you describe the No Good’s music variously as “jug grass” and “All American Freedom Grass,” the phrase I used in the Hum.
It’s not set-in-stone, it’s a personal opinion, but to my mind the “indefinable” word “bluegrass” is not that hard to define – it’s music in the style of Bill Monroe, the high lonesome mandolin master who came up with the term, basing it on the name of his band (and his home state). Jugs and washboards draw from an earlier era that I would, like you, call jug band music.
The real point, which I’ve made before, is that it can get confusing if you apply the term “bluegrass band” to any group that includes a banjo or a mandolin. You can disagree with me, but I don’t think Yonder Mountain String Band, for example, is a bluegrass band, nor would I describe the local old time music group Striped Pig Stringband as a bluegrass band (if I did they would probably complain). Of course we could simplify things much further by hewing to the words of Duke Ellington who said, “There are two kinds of music: good music, and the other kind.” What kind do you play?