Why Bluegrass in Arkansas? by Bill Nesbitt

The Old School Bluegrass Band plays bluegrass music in Arkansas. Why? The Bluegrass State, the birthplace of the Father of Bluegrass (Bill Monroe), is Kentucky. All the founding stylists come from Appalachia, not the Ozarks. In Arkansas, bluegrass music is a stepchild genre at best, and is largely unheard, except to those who are looking for it for whatever reason, and even then it can be hard to find. A few radio stations give it airplay, notably KABF Community Radio in Little Rock. I am encouraged that Barnes and Noble has a small bluegrass section between its folk and country CD racks. That's a step forward, remembering my early days when the only place I could find a bluegrass album was in the dollar rack at TG&Y. Bluegrass was cheap, but rare.

Also increasingly rare is the bluegrass festival in Arkansas. There are a few left — a couple are pretty big even by national standards and some have been around many years. But there was a time about 20 years ago when it seemed like festivals were springing up all around Arkansas and that a band could play 20 festivals a year and hardly have to leave the state. It doesn't seem to be that way now.

All that is to say this: Arkansas is hardly what one would consider a hotbed of bluegrass music. There are exceedingly few national caliber bands that make any real money playing this music traveling around the entire country, so in Arkansas one could hardly expect to come close to making even a decent living playing it, even in a Metro area like Little Rock (maybe especially in a metro area like Little Rock). On a national scale, Arkansas is much better known for its country stars (see Johnny Cash) and folk musicians (Granny Riddle, Aunt Ollie Gilbert, Jimmie Driftwood and the like) than for anything relating to bluegrass music.

So why does the Old School Bluegrass Band continue in this music after 17 years? The question could be looked at in two different ways: why the OSBB continues playing bluegrass, and why we continue playing it in Arkansas. In the end, the two questions aren't so far apart; in fact, they pretty much have the same answer.

First of all, it must be said that the success of the OSBB, both in terms of size of audience and quality of shows, has grown over the 17 years the band has been together. But we've never given the first thought of giving up our "day jobs" to play music full-time. So by "success" I don't mean anything like the sort of success a musician in Nashville might aspire to. I mean we play enough shows to develop a small local following and make enough money to make it worth getting out of the house and driving a hundred miles or so. We take the business end of it more seriously than the hobbyist would, but, like Glenn says, "When it stops bein' fun, we'll stop doin' it."

So to the first question: what is the particular appeal of bluegrass music? The four bandmembers of the OSBB don't listen to or play bluegrass exclusively. Glenn is a big fan of the country music favorites he grew up listening to in northwest Arkansas. Danny loves Zydeco and blues. Banjo Bill's musical interests include 60's folk and fingerstyle guitarists Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. Lately I can be spotted playing electric guitar in church or sweating over one of Django Reinhardt's jazz breaks. Even as a band we've swerved a bit over into folk and old-time music with songs such as "Froggy Went a' Courtin'" and "Katie Daly." But we keep returning to our bluegrass roots. Why?

Bluegrass has held a certain fascination with many people since its inception. Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys (with Earl Scruggs and His Fancy Five-String) regularly played to standing ovations and multiple encores at the Grand Ole Opry. When Flatt and Scruggs launched out on their own, they essentially preserved the music Monroe had started, keeping the same five-instrument format. Monroe, similarly, replaced Scruggs with other "bluegrass" banjoists — never a frailer, never a two-finger stylist like Stringbean (Scruggs' predecessor), always a banjoist who might be considered "Scruggs style." Other bands came on board with their variations on this new style: the Stanley Brothers took it into a more primitive Appalachian feel; Jimmy Martin added his "good 'n' country" approach; the Osbourne Brothers took it uptown and Jim & Jesse smoothed it out. By the mid-50's the term "bluegrass" was catching on and the style had come into its own as a particular niche apart from either country of folk music.

So, bluegrass as a musical style has remained unchanged, at least at its core, over a more than 60-year period of time. In fact, many bands, including ours, take a "preservationist" approach, playing a good deal of so-called "traditional" bluegrass, i.e., songs written and/or recorded during the early years, performing only a few songs written since the 1960's. The mere fact that a certain body of songs is referred to as traditional speaks to the strength of the genre and the affection people have for it — much like Mozart is considered "traditional" Classical music and Art Tatum is considered traditional jazz.. So there's something about this musical style that is special. I won't try here to present any kind of comprehensive list of attributes, but I can give a few based on my personal experience as a listener and musician.

The first thing that attracted me to bluegrass music was the above-mentioned Fancy Five-String. There is, I believe, an almost universal fascination with an instrument that, when played well in the Scruggs style, can produce such a barrage of notes that pound the ear (and the brain) with machine-gun music. I fell in with the rest who simply had to have a banjo and decipher the secret code that Earl, et al, had developed. Hearing Monroe play "Why Did You Wander" on mandolin and Doc Watson play "Black Mountain Rag" on guitar had a similar effect, with a similar combination of power, speed and emotion. The sounds emanating from my one-dollar bargain rack LPs were like magic to my ears. I had to listen more and learn all I could. Bluegrass was in my blood.

I've heard similar stories from other bluegrass musicians, and still see the music work its magic whenever the OSBB plays for young people or others unfamiliar with the sound. The fascination is the same. Something about that blend of pyrotechnics, harmony vocals, acoustics and rhythm gives bluegrass its appeal, an appeal which spans all age groups and nationalities. "Folk music in overdrive," as Alan Lomax put it. This organism, once it is planted and cultivated, keeps drawing us back to its roots. We'll never get rich playing it, we'll never become popular playing it, but we keep on playing it anyway — and preserving, nurturing and, hopefully, contributing to it. In short, we love the music.

Arkansas has a similar drawing power that is difficult to explain. Many people (I among them) have chosen to stay in Arkansas when greater economic and creative opportunities lay elsewhere. As with bluegrass music, there is no single aspect of living in Arkansas that keeps me here. It is a combination of factors, which must include the fact that I was born here and have family here. But leaving that aside, there is a certain charm about Arkansas that many have written about and many more have experienced, including myself. For me it is the variety of landscapes and cultures available within a two-hour drive of my home. Little Rock itself offers amenities similar to any other mid-size city in America. But go two hours east and you're in the Mississippi Delta region with its duck hunters and proximity to Memphis and Blues culture. Go two hours north and you're in the hillbilly Ozarks with its associated craft shops, junk stores, and, of course, the Ozark Folk Center. Two hours south and you're in the pine forests where the deer hunters flock every autumn. Two hours west and you're at Ft. Smith, one of the gateways to the Old West.

I could go on, but I think I've gone long enough on this page. Despite its shortcomings, Arkansas remains a good place to make a life. It may be considered by some a stepchild state — maybe it is. If, in fact, that is the case, what better music to play in it than stepchild music?

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