Read no. 17

Greetings!

What can I say? I survived my keynote speech at the IBMA Trade Show! As many of you know, I gave the keynote address Thursday, October 22, at the IBMA Trade Show luncheon. I spoke about women in bluegrass. Thanks to all of you who offered advice and support beforehand, and to all of you who said “well done” afterwards. You can read the entire speech, with audience reaction, inside. (I transcribed it from a live tape.) If you would like to hear the actual delivery, you may purchase a cassette copy of the speech from IBMA (1-888-438-4262).

One of the things I mentioned in the speech is that there were very few women nominated for IBMA Awards this year. Then, lo and behold, we went to the Awards Show that night and look what happened! (See below.) Must have been some powerful mojo working!

Tina Wright

This year at IBMA, I was delighted to meet and pick with the first African-American family to attend the World of Bluegrass. The Wrights—mother, Pat; father, Ray; Buddy, 12; and Tina, 10—are from Texas. Ray plays rhythm guitar, but Buddy and Tina are the show. They perform professionally as a duo, alternating between the various instruments that they both play. When I got to jam on banjo with them, they were both playing guitars and singing How Mountain Girls Can Love in A. Later, they switched to twin fiddles for Old Joe Clark. I talked with Tina a little bit and found out that even though she is only in the fifth grade, she’s already a multi-talented instrumentalist. She’s been playing fiddle for four years, piano for two, guitar for one, and mandolin for two months. According to her mother, “she likes them all.” Pat also said that their grandmother, who lives near Fayetteville, S.C., sang bluegrass music and loves to hear Tina and Buddy play and sing. Unfortunately, I had to leave Fan Fest before I had a chance to see Tina and Buddy get on stage to perform two numbers with the Sidemen. I suspect Buddy and Tina will be back at IBMA next year. I’m ready to pick again, folks! Inside, in addition to the speech, we also have some thoughtful letters, an analysis of dead-mother songs, and an article about the joys and frustrations of a new sound system. Sound stuff, all of it! Enjoy!

—Murphy Henry

Missy Raines Wins IBMA Bass Player of the Year!

Or as Jim Hurst put it, “Missy Raines Reigns!” Congratulations, Missy! We are so proud of you! Missy is only the second woman to win an IBMA Award for Instrumental Performer of the Year. (Alison Brown won for Banjo in 1991.) Bluegrass Now called her “The First Lady of Acoustic Bass” and this award seconds that notion. I don’t think anybody was more surprised than Missy herself! We had talked about the awards beforehand, and Missy thought that next year might be her year, since her new CD, My Place in the Sun, was released just this October, long after the voting had taken place. Looks like she was wrong! Luckily, she kept her wits about her long enough to thank her parents for their support (she started playing bass professionally at age 12!); Tom Gray and Todd Phillips, her mentors; and, finally, her husband Ben Surratt. This award will surely be a big inspiration to other women in bluegrass. And perhaps sometime in the future, there will be another young woman accepting this award who will say, “I’d like to thank my mentor, Missy Raines.” Well done, Missy, WIB

IBMA Keynote Address

WOMEN IN BLUEGRASS

Murphy Henry

(I was introduced by Lynn Morris, and I wish I had room to print her introduction. It was mighty fine.)

Thanks, Lynn. I appreciate those kind words. It’s an honor for me to be addressing the membership of the IBMA today. I've never really considered myself to be a public speaker, in spite of the fact that I do feel very comfortable on stage. I tell you right now, I’d be a lot more comfortable if I were up here with my Stelling banjo slung across my shoulder and a set list on the floor in front of me. Or I’d be even more comfortable if I were back in Winchester in our studio at the house where we make our Murphy Method videos. Where my husband Red can edit out any mistakes I might make or take out what he likes to call “excess verbiage.” [Chuckles.] I hope there won’t be much excess verbiage today. Or I’d feel the most comfortable in the world if I were sitting down and giving a banjo lesson to one of my students because all my students think that every word that comes out of my mouth is the gospel truth [chuckles] which, of course, is the primary reason I teach.

But I’m sure that you’re not going to take every word that I have to say as the gospel truth today, and one reason for that is that I’ve picked a little bit of a controversial subject to talk about. And one of the reasons I know it’s controversial is when I was mentioning this talk to my friends in Winchester, they were all saying things like, “Well, Murphy, if you’ve got to talk about this, do it nicely. Don’t tick anybody off.” You know, the other day, Andy Owens called me on the telephone. And he said to me, “Murphy, whatcha doing?” And I answered truthfully, I said, “Well, Andy, I’m listening to a Rose Maddox CD.” And Andy says, “Murphy, don’t you think you’re carrying this women in bluegrass thing just a little bit too far?” [Light laughter.] He says, “Don’t you ever listen to any men?” And I said, “Sure, Andy, I listen to men all the time. But don’t tell anybody because I don’t want to ruin my reputation.” [Light laughter.]

Well, what Andy didn’t realize is that the first twenty years of my bluegrass career I spent listening to nothing but men playing bluegrass music. It was all-male bands and the Lewis Family. That’s who I was listening to. So I feel like I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Now, some of you might remember at the Awards Show last year, Laurie Lewis got on stage to present a Certificate of Merit to Vern and Ray. And Laurie said she’d learned a lot about playing bluegrass music from Vern. And Vern had told her that if she wanted to play bluegrass music and do it right, that she had to learn to spill her guts on the stage and then walk in them. [Light titters.] Perhaps that’s a little graphic for lunch. Sorry. [Laughter.]

Well, I kind of feel like that’s what I’m going to be doing today because I’m going to be talking about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and it’s a subject that I think is really important for the bluegrass community, for IBMA, and for all of us if we want to grow and prosper as an industry, and as we move into the 21st century. So my topic today is Women in Bluegrass. I guess you’re not surprised. [Light applause.] Right here at the beginning I would like to say that I think IBMA has done some good things for women in bluegrass. And I would like especially to thank Dan Hayes and Kitsy Kuykendall for that. It was through their encouragement and support that last year at the Fan Fest women in bluegrass had a forty-minute set on the program. We put eight bands on stage—eight all-female bands—each band playing one number, and then we all congregated at the end for a great big jam session led by the magnificent Katie Laur. We sang Banjo Picking Girl. And the thing that I was most impressed with was after we got finished picking, a lot of people were coming up to me and saying, “I was so impressed by the level of the musicianship of all the women on stage.” And that’s a wonderful thing. I’m very proud of that.

Two years ago, when we were at Owensboro, at the Fan Fest on the river, we had the world’s largest all-female jam. We put 73 women on stage to pick three numbers. Of course, we did have to do it in the supper break, but that was okay. I was proud that we were up there. And I can tell you right now, that I have never felt so much estrogen in one spot. [Laughter.]

And the thing that was interesting about that is, after we got finished with that jam on stage, some of the guys were saying things—they were kind of saying this tongue in cheek—but nevertheless they were saying, “Okay, we’ve had the world’s largest all-female jam. When do we get to have the male jam?” And what they were forgetting was that for the first 25 years of the history of bluegrass music, almost every time there was a finale on stage or a jam session at the end of a festival, it was almost always all men. At least that’s the way it was down in the southeast where I was raised in bluegrass. I understand from the work I do with my women in bluegrass database that things are a little bit different out in California. [A few chuckles.]

But if you think that that’s just history, that it’s past and that things have changed significantly for women in bluegrass, then we only have to look at our own IBMA Awards Show to find out that things have not changed as much as we would like. Now I know a lot of you get caught up in the Awards Show. And so do I. It’s a wonderful production. We’re excited to see our friends and fellow musicians on the stage. But this is what I’ve noticed.

Last year we had a finale on stage. It was great. We had Earl Scruggs on stage picking the banjo, we had Uncle Josh on the dobro, George Shuffler on the bass fiddle, Kenny Baker on the fiddle. We had one woman on the stage for that grand finale. Rhonda Vincent—playing the rhythm guitar.

The year before that was the year that we had a tribute to Bill Monroe and were remembering Chubby Wise. When we had the last number on stage, everybody was gathered together to pick Rawhide. No women on stage. About halfway through the song, Laurie Lewis came bounding out from the side with her fiddle, but she stood in the back, and she didn’t take a break on the fiddle.

The year before that, Jimmy Martin was inducted into the Hall of Honor, and for the closing number, present and former members of Jimmy’s band joined Jimmy on stage to pick. One woman—Gloria Belle. Thank goodness for Gloria Belle. Where would we be without Gloria Belle? She stood in the back of the band and played her heart out on the

mandolin, but she didn’t get to sing, and she didn’t get anywhere near a microphone. Gloria, thank you just for being there. [Applause.] It was an inspiration to me. I feel like the IBMA is not sending a good signal to the women pickers who are members of IBMA. We’re not sending a good signal to potential women players, and we’re not sending a good signal to the world at large, who, if they only saw our IBMA Awards Show, could come away with the perception that we’re still an all-male industry. And we know that is far from being the truth.

Sometimes the IBMA is guilty of simply not thinking. In 1993, the focus of our Trade Show was on youth in bluegrass. And it’s a wonderful focus. Youth in bluegrass is very important. But, again, as part of our Awards Show, we put a band on stage that was the Bluegrass Youth All-Stars. And I was sitting in the audience when the curtain went up on this band. And the announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the future of bluegrass music!” And I watched the curtain go up on five young men standing on stage playing instruments. This was a put-together band. And it didn’t have to be that way. And it shouldn’t have been that way, because I’m here to tell you that the future of bluegrass music is not five men standing on stage playing their instruments. The future of bluegrass music simply must include women on stage playing their instruments and singing! [Loud applause and a whistle.]

It was this episode at the Awards Show that led me to start my database of women in bluegrass. Because I wanted to have a list of names, if this ever came up again, so we could get in touch with women, young and old. And it’s from the database that I did start my Women in Bluegrass newsletter. We’re starting our fifth year in December. I wanted somebody to be in a position to address issues that were facing women in bluegrass and to talk about us and some of our stories. And I’ve kind of adopted the motto for the newsletter “We’re little, but we’re loud.” [Small chuckles.]

Today, as you know from being here at the Trade Show, we have more women in bluegrass than ever before. But old attitudes about women and old attitudes about women in bluegrass are still around. And I want to give you an example.

Like a lot of you, when the old bluegrass is reissued on CDs, I like to buy the boxed sets. So when Columbia Records came out with a boxed set called The Essential Bill Monroe, I bought a copy of that. And this was two CDs of Bill Monroe’s music from 1945 to 1949. And I opened the booklet that came along with the boxed CDs, and I was reading about Bill Monroe. It’s a very fine-looking booklet and very well done. I got to the part where the author was talking about Bill Monroe and the mandolin. And he was telling a story that most of us know pretty well—how Bill Monroe came to play the

mandolin. You know that Bill Monroe was the youngest of his family, so when Birch took the fiddle, and Charlie took the guitar, Bill Monroe was left with the mandolin. Well, there’s nothing gender related about that story.

But this author chooses to inject gender into this little story. He points out that if we look at family band photos from that era, that the mandolin is usually being played by a kid or a girl. [A few light chuckles.] And the way the guy has written this up, it’s like, nothing could be worse—the mandolin is a girl’s instrument—isn’t that awful? [More light chuckles.] And in the next paragraph he goes on to talk about how Bill Monroe spoke proudly of the times when he played the guitar. And he did. He spoke about playing the guitar behind Uncle Pen, when he would play dances. And he spoke about playing the guitar behind Arnold Schultz. And this author says, and these are the author’s words, not Bill Monroe’s, the author says that Bill Monroe liked to play the guitar because it was a man’s instrument. And then he speaks about how Bill Monroe had some of his early Opry photos taken with the guitar. And how Bill Monroe played the guitar on the original bluegrass cut of Muleskinner Blues. And then the author says, “Did Bill Monroe harbor some fear that the mandolin, a kid’s instrument, even a girl’s, was not fit for the image he would project as an adult band leader?”

Oh, my goodness. What could be worse than playing a girl’s instrument? The author concludes by saying that Bill Monroe would create a “ferocious and hell-bent man’s music on an instrument disparaged as a kid’s or even a woman’s.”

A “ferocious and hell-bent man’s music.” [Small chuckles.] Well, I’m here today to tell you that Bill Monroe did not create a ferocious and hell-bent man’s music. It might have been ferocious at times. And it might have been hell-bent at times. But it was not then, and it is not now, a man’s music. Bill Monroe created a music for anybody that wants to play it—any gender, men and women. [Moderately loud applause.] And history shows us that Bill Monroe himself was both inclusive and supportive of women who played bluegrass, and I’d like to give you a few examples of that.

In this very boxed set that I’ve been talking about, the Columbia reissues, the first eight cuts that Bill Monroe made for Columbia Records featured a woman playing the accordion. Sally Ann Forrester. [Applause.] Sally Ann sang tenor on two numbers, and she took an accordion break on Bluegrass Special. She was with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys for at least three years, which is quite a bit longer than many of the Blue Grass Boys stayed with Monroe. [Laughter.] She was a professional musician in her own right, and she added to Bill Monroe’s show. I always find it interesting and curious that when we mention Sally Ann Forrester and the accordion, everybody chuckles a little bit. And I’m not sure if they’re chuckling because we don’t consider the

accordion to be a bluegrass instrument anymore, or because, in the past, we didn’t consider women to be bluegrass players.

Many of you are familiar with Bessie Lee Mauldin, who played the bass and recorded with Bill Monroe for a number of years. [Light applause.] But you’re probably not familiar with a woman named Juanita Sheehan. She and her husband Shorty were part of the house band at the Brown County Jamboree up in Bean Blossom, Indiana. And sometimes when Bill Monroe would come through, he wouldn’t have a full band with him to play a show. So Juanita would back him up on the guitar. And Neil Rosenberg says that Juanita was a wonderful guitar player. Bill Monroe didn't have a problem playing in a band that had a woman on the guitar.

Many of you also know that when Bill Monroe went out on the road sometimes he wouldn’t carry a full band with him. He went to Washington State in the ’60s without enough musicians to fill out his contract, so he used Vivian Williams on the fiddle for two shows. [Applause.] The thing that Bill Monroe said about Vivian Williams was this. He said, “I have never heard a lady fiddler that could beat Vivian, and a lot of men fiddlers can’t beat her.”

Bill Monroe was the one that encouraged Rose Maddox to record her landmark bluegrass album—the first bluegrass album ever recorded by a woman. Bill Monroe played mandolin on the album himself, he sang on the album, and Rose Maddox recorded a number of Bill Monroe’s songs. If you’ve ever had any question in your mind, any doubts about whether women can sing bluegrass, get this album and listen to Rose Maddox. Now, as a little aside about Rose Maddox’s personality, when she came in from California to do this album, she brought her steel player with her. And when she got in the studio, the folks said, “You can’t use a steel on bluegrass music.” Rose Maddox had two words for these people. [Tentative laughter.] No, not those! [Loud burst of laughter.] Never thought of that. [More laughter.] Her words were, “Watch me!” [More laughter.] It’s a great album.

Just one more example. The first professional bluegrass band that I played with was a group called Betty Fisher and the Dixie Bluegrass Band. I played bass in that group. Bill Monroe was the one that encouraged Betty to start this bluegrass band. He gave her tips on how to recruit young musicians to play in the band, and he hired her to play his festival at Bean Blossom. Bill Monroe didn’t have a problem with women being bluegrass band leaders.

Today I am proud to say that we’ve got more women leading bluegrass bands than ever before. We’ve got Alison Krauss, Lynn Morris, Laurie Lewis, Claire Lynch, Kate

MacKenzie, Dale Ann Bradley, and we’ve got Rhonda Vincent. It’s a great list of women. And slowly [hesitant applause], thank you, you can applaud those women [applause]. And slowly but surely we’re seeing some women move up through the ranks as side musicians in all-male bands. And, of course, Kristin Scott is a prime example of this. [Applause.] Kristin’s been playing with the Larry Stephenson Band now for three years. And I think we have to give Larry a lot of credit because some of you may not know that when Larry hired Kristin, he got quite a number of telephone calls from friends and acquaintances that said, “Larry, what are you thinking? It’ll never work. You can’t have a woman playing the banjo in an all-male band.” Well, every time Kristin and Larry get on stage, they prove that you can have a woman as a side musician in a band. And Kristin plays great banjo.

We have women in bluegrass now that are great songwriters, following in the footsteps of the legendary and great Hazel Dickens. [Applause.] And we can’t forget the women who work behind the scenes in bluegrass. We have women who are event producers like Mary Tyler Doub and Jean Cornett. We’ve got women who are newsletter editors all over the country— Elizabeth Burkett, with inTune magazine from California. We’ve got women who are magazine editors—Julie Koehler, the associate editor of Bluegrass Now, and Sharon Watts, my boss down at Bluegrass Unlimited. We’ve got women who are association presidents, and we've got women who are booking agents. How can I stand up here and talk about women in bluegrass without mentioning Louise Scruggs, one of the first women to be a booking agent and a manager and one of the best. [Applause.] She delighted in putting Flatt and Scruggs into places that had never even considered having bluegrass music before. And if you like the Carnegie Hall album, you have Louise Scruggs to thank for that, because that was her idea.

But in spite of all the progress that we’ve made down through the years, we still end up with a situation like we ended up with this year with the IBMA Awards ballots. We have two women on the final ballot—Missy Raines, nominated for Bass Player of the Year, and Dale Ann Bradley and Coon Creek, nominated for Emerging Artist. Of course, this is in addition to the five women who were nominated for Female Vocalist. And we can’t forget, of course, that Vicki Simmons plays the bass in Coon Creek. Also the Freight Hoppers were nominated for Emerging Artist, and they have Cary Fridley playing guitar. So a total of four women being recognized by the IBMA for their contributions. And we have nobody to blame but ourselves because we’re the ones that are doing the nominating from the ground floor up, and we’re the ones that are doing the voting. And this is a problem. I don’t know what the answer to the problem is. But I do think the problem stems from the fact that we don’t have as many women in bluegrass as we do men. So if we don’t have as many women in the organization, in the music, we don’t

have as many women making records, and if they’re not making the records, they’re not going to get on the air. And if they’re not going to get on the air, they’re not going to get on the charts. And if they’re not going to get on the charts, then we’re probably not going to vote for them because we’re just not going to remember them when it comes time to make those nominations.

We need more women making records. We need more women making solo projects. So many of the men are coming out with great solo projects. Where are the women making solo projects? Of course, the example that comes to mind, the exception to that rule, as she is the exception to many if not most rules, is Suzanne Thomas, who has just come out with a solo project. [Applause.] We need more women making instrumental CDs. Missy Raines just came out with a great CD that features her bass playing. [Applause.] We need more women making group projects—women that don’t normally play

together. This year we’ll see a release from Hazel Dickens, along with Ginny Hawker and Carol Elizabeth Jones. They made a wonderful group project. And we need more women playing as side musicians on all the projects.

Part of the problem is that the women who do make records don’t get the airplay that they need. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve turned off my car radio because I was listening to a bluegrass program that plays all-men bands all the time. And if I am doing this—somebody that loves bluegrass music—what are other women in the radio audience doing? Are they switching to talk radio? What are the other people in the audience doing? One of the complaints that we hear about bluegrass music is that it all sounds alike to people that are not used to listening to it. Well, if you’d interject some women’s voices, some women’s bands, into the radio airplay mix, then all bluegrass would not sound alike. And I hope we can grow our audience that way, by reaching out to people that we have not reached before.

In closing, I’d like to mention just two things. Musicians, I’d like to offer a challenge to you to stretch yourselves musically. I was in a jam session with Bill Evans this summer at Augusta Heritage Center, and Bill and I were both playing banjo, and Bill said he thought that everyone in bluegrass should learn to play the old standards in the keys that they were originally written in. And I think that’s a good idea. It’s good training. But then Bill went further and said, “And then I think all musicians should turn right around and learn to play these same songs in keys where women can sing them.” [Applause.] And banjo players, right, that means you have to learn how to play Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms in D. [Laughter.] Fiddle players, what about Footprints In The Snow in G? And how about you folks who want to crosspick the guitar? How about Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone in the key of E? [More quiet laughter.]

And, ladies, when you’re out jamming tonight I want you to think about that. And if you get the urge to sing Uncle Pen in the key of C, and somebody says, “But you can’t do Uncle Pen in the key of C,” I want you to remember what Rose Maddox said...[Laughter, starting small, and then getting louder as the audience remembered my earlier faux pas]...not that! Not that! I want you to remember what Rose Maddox said and just turn around and say, “Watch me!”

And, DJs, if I could just make one small suggestion. When May comes around and you do your annual program, the salute to mothers that a lot of you like to do, would it be possible to include some songs in your program that were not about dead mothers? [Loud laughter and applause.] I realize that in bluegrass music as it is today that may be a challenge. So I’d like to offer two songs for suggestions. Number one you are very familiar with. Our Song of the Year that Hazel Dickens wrote, the one called Mama’s Hand. Such a fine song. [Applause.] But the second song you might not be as familiar with. It’s a song that Kathy Kallick wrote. It’s called Don’t Leave Your Little Girl All Alone. And I’d like to quote just a little bit of that.

It starts out, in true bluegrass fashion, with a little girl begging her mother not to die. It says, “Don’t leave your little girl all alone / Don't leave your little girl without a home / Mama, don’t go/Her cry was soft and low / Don’t leave your little girl all alone.” Now, if this had been a traditional bluegrass song, of course, in the second verse the mother would be dead, and in the third verse, she’d be rejoicing with the angels up in heaven. [Laughter.] But, Kathy’s a mother herself. And she has two little girls. So she took this, and she wrote it a different way. She put a different ending on it. She says, “When the mother heard her daughter’s little plea / Her fever disappeared so magically / Baby girl, don’t cry / I’m not about to die / Come and kiss your mama / Let me dry your eyes.”

The mother says, "Baby girl, don’t cry / I'm not about to die.” In bluegrass music? I didn’t think that was allowed. [Laughter.] Thank you very much. [Applause.] WIB

Casey Henry—Ratifications

MOTHERS: DEAD AND NOT IN EARLY BLUEGRASS

[This article was originally written for Casey’s English class at UVA. Her mother is proud to say she got an A.]

Bluegrass music has been from its inception a lyrically backward-looking music. Songs are often nostalgic, featuring the old home place and a longing to return to those

untroubled days. By looking at the images of mother in these songs, we can see that, to the men who wrote and performed them, mothers embodied the love and nostalgia surrounding the home and childhood. Mothers were very religious, almost holy, and they spread the gospel to those around them. But most of all, mothers were absent, usually dead, and almost always referred to in the past tense, with longing.

These songs about mother from the 1940s and ’50s were culled from the work of four bands: Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and Reno and Smiley. They are a mere sampling of the music produced in the two decades when bluegrass was just beginning. Some of these songs were in existence before the two decades I am focusing on, but most of them are originals. I found 28 songs which mention mother. Of these, 22 are gospel-type songs; in 21, the mother is dead. Of the seven songs where the mother is not dead, two are not specifically about mother; in three, the son is wandering and the mother is waiting at home; four are not specifically gospel. A pattern occurs in many of these songs which will be useful to look at. The song begins with the author, usually the son, talking about the wonderful days of his childhood, perhaps wanting to go back to them. He describes his wonderful mother, the love she showed him, and the love he had for her. Then the mother dies, or we find out that she has already died and lives in heaven. Frequently the son expresses a wish to join her in heaven.

These 28 songs paint a picture of mother which is nostalgic, sweet, and idealized. All the mothers are loving and kind; the atmosphere of the past seems utopian and slightly unreal. Almost all the songs talk at some point about how life was while living with mother. A Pretty Wreath For Mother’s Grave, by Reno and Smiley, describes the experience: “Loving arms that used to hold me / As I sat on mother’s knee.” My Mother's Bible, also by Reno and Smiley, gives us a similar image: “I would sit around her knee / Mother looked just like an angel.” Once I Had A Darling Mother, by Bill and Charlie Monroe, portrays the reciprocal love of mother and son: “Once I had a precious mother / Whom I loved with tender care.” A Vision Of Mother, by the Stanley Brothers, contrasts the carefree world of childhood with the present world which is not so easy: “Oft my thoughts drift back to childhood / To the time when I was free /As I played before the fireside / Round my darling mother’s knee.” These elevations of mother, although they are very sweet, distance her from the present real world. This distance makes her unattainable and makes us forget that she is a real person with real feelings. We are not supposed to think about her own struggles and impressions of that childhood, which certainly were not so idyllic.

Along with this sentimental idealization comes a religious idealization. The single biggest thing that these 28 mother songs have in common is that 22 of them are gospel songs or imply a religious connection. Religion and mothers are seemingly inseparable. Mother inevitably goes to heaven when she dies, and God or appropriate messengers frequently call her home. “God called her,” in A Pretty Wreath For Mother's Grave; “The angels came for her,” in Always Be Kind To Your Mother, by Reno and Smiley. In Shake My Mother's Hand For Me, by Bill and Charlie Monroe, the singer asks the listener to greet his mother in heaven: “When you reach that golden city / Shake my mother’s hand for me.”

In addition to ascending to heaven, mother tries to get her children to pray so that they may join her there. In The Fields Have Turned Brown, by the Stanley Brothers, the parents entreat the son: “’Son don’t go astray’ was what they both told me / ‘Remember that love for God can be found.’” In My Mother’s Bible, the mother dies and leaves her son and husband the Bible from which she read to them. In Mother No Longer Awaits Me At Home, the mother prays for her son to come home but dies before he arrives. He is left to “meet mother there in heaven some day.”

I propose that this consistent association of mothers with religion results from the evangelical religion and moral motherhood that developed in the nineteenth century. As Nancy F. Cott points out in an article on Victorian sexual ideology, “Women became a majority in the Protestant churches of America in the mid-seventeenth century and continued to increase their numerical predominance until, by the mid-nineteenth century, Christian values and virtues and female values and virtues were almost identical.” This relation of women and religion occurred considerably earlier than the time when these songs were written, but they demonstrate that the association still held true in the 1940s and ’50s, especially in the rural areas where these writers grew up. According to the philosophy of moral motherhood, mothers were responsible for passing on these religious values to their children. So when these songwriters thought or wrote about mothers, it followed that they naturally associated her almost exclusively with religion.

The striking fact about these 28 mother songs is that 21 feature dead mothers. This is a scary 75 percent. Why this preponderance of dead mother songs? For one thing, the loss of mothers was a real occurrence that affected some of the authors of these songs. In their rural areas at this time (1940s and ’50s), medical care was still not fully developed and was difficult to obtain. Many women died from complications of childbirth, disease, or other accidents. Monroe’s mother died when he was 10, and the occurrence was certainly familiar even if the writers did not experience it themselves. But mothers were not the only ones who died, so this is not an explanation for the

disproportionate number of dead mother songs. Men were, apparently, obsessed with their mothers.

A major division within all the mother songs is a type in which the son wanders over the world while the mother awaits him at home. There is a mutual longing in these cases: the mother wants her son back home, and he desires to be there. Six songs in my sample feature this plot. In half of them, the mother is alive and actively waiting, wishing that her son would return. It is implied or stated that the son is all the mother has to live for, that she would be nothing without him. As in Wandering Boy recorded by the Stanley Brothers: “Oh, bring back to me my wandering boy / For there is no other left to give me joy.” In Mother No Longer Awaits Me At Home, by Carter Stanley, the mother dies the night before her son returns to her, but she tells friends to tell him “...how she was longing to see me / How lonely our home since I went away.”

Of the four songs where the mother is alive, two are about the family in general, and so do not have to feature the mother in an important role while she still lives. One features the mother alive but asleep and praying loudly. In the other, the son, surprisingly, recognizes his mother’s hard work. Even here, mothers are never separated from the mothering role. In Give Mother My Crown, by Flatt and Scruggs, the son wants his mother to receive recognition when she does get to heaven for all her labor on earth. But the labor is the work of mothering. She raised her kids by herself when her husband died and is appreciated because of that: “Adoption was offered but Mama said no / She raised up and taught us the right way to go.” She finds approval because she embraced her role as mother.

This small sample represents how the men who wrote and performed these songs thought of their mothers, at least in the abstract. They loved their mothers and thought of them in religious terms. Mothers were defined by their motherhood alone, and were overwhelmingly absent from the adult lives of their sons. Men idolized their mothers and mourned their loss while holding onto the hope that they would see them in heaven. However, there is nothing to suggest that they saw their mothers as anything but mothers. There is no human or imperfect element, so the mothers themselves would have a lofty reputation to live up to, if any of them were alive.

PLUGGED IN

By Nancy Pate

I now have my own sound system. I've had it since my 40th birthday celebration last spring, when I received this wonderful gift from my sisters and parents: two speakers,

an amplifier, two mike stands, two mikes, two mike cords, and two speaker cords. When combined with the two mikes, cords, and stands owned by my most frequent playing partner (sister Argen), and one mike and stand from a roving

instrumentalist-to-be-named-later, it exactly fills the amplification needs of our three-piece band, the Sissy Mountain Boys.

Gigs being infrequent, however, the first opportunity we had to try out the sound system in all its glory came at a recent October wedding. We played for the reception which was held in a pavilion beside a lake. After we set up that morning, I received my first lesson in how to set the EQ on the amp. It was a subject I had never paid any attention to before, despite having plenty of opportunities to learn, but suddenly EQ had a new relevance for me. J. D. Robinson, a banjo player who was fleshing out the Sissy Mountain Boys that day, took me through the basic steps for setting EQ. The basic premise seems to be that you turn up each microphone individually until the instrument or voice causes feedback in the room; then you adjust the EQ up or down until the feedback has been controlled. I hope that the time between jobs is not so long that I’ll forget all I learned.

The debut of the sound system was a big success, but not big enough to erase the memory of the debacle which occurred the first time I tried to set it up in Argen's living room. I have set up other people’s sound systems hundreds of times. I have plugged and unplugged and rolled up cords in my sleep in the wee hours of the morning. But for some unknown reason—excitement, nervous energy, whatever— I could not get the cords to stay plugged into the amp. I tried and tried, my mother and daughters watching anxiously, but I would plug them in and they would fall out. Argen was present, but busy helping my dad on some electrical project; why I didn't have her come in and try her hand at plugging, I’ll never know. Anyway, after repeated attempts I gave up in disgust, certain that either the cords or the amp itself were no good. Days later, Argen set it up by herself with no trouble at all, an event satisfying to the musician in me, which longed for a sound system, but deeply disturbing to the perfectionist within, which wanted the fault to lie with the electrical parts—“not in ourselves, but in our stars.” I’m not ashamed to admit that, the day before the wedding, I set the whole system up in my living room just to practice plugging in the cords. WIB

Wiblets

Women’s Voices

I’m sick and tired of hearing that women’s voices don’t sound bluegrassy enough! If you don’t like it—don’t listen. But for heaven’s sakes don’t criticize anyone who is working to

keep the music alive. Anyone, male or female, who plays bluegrass in public should be commended for trying to expand our audience and for getting live bluegrass music out there! Expanding the bluegrass audience benefits everyone in this industry—especially the musicians who play bluegrass professionally, which is, in reality, a lot of men! Why would they reject free marketing? Doesn’t make sense to me.

My husband and I are in the same band. He is very supportive of my participation in bluegrass with him. We are very much a team. However, even he had to be convinced to let the newest member of our band sing a significant number of songs with him and me. Although she’s a great singer, my husband was worried that we would sound too “girlie.” The truth is that her vocal range is more alto and mine soprano, and the quality of our voices is totally different. When she, myself, and my husband do three-part harmony, it sounds great! Quite frankly, the two females in our group are the strongest singers. So why on earth would we not want to capitalize on that? In any co-ed bluegrass band, is it logical to let the guys, who may not be as talented vocally, do most of the singing simply because they are men? I just don’t see the logic. Luckily, my husband is musically astute, and he quickly realized what enormous added value our new female member’s vocals brought to the band, especially with regard to doing killer three-part harmonies.

And another thing, regarding this issue about it being too hard to sing harmony to a woman because of her range. I can’t tell you how much it adds to our overall presentation to have various options for vocal arrangements. (1) Each person gets a chance to sing different parts and doesn’t have to be only the baritone, tenor, or lead singer. (2) The audience gets a pleasant variety of sound. Even if some of the songs sound similar (as they can in bluegrass), a different vocal arrangement can make them sound totally different, and therefore make for a more interesting set. (3) My husband has extended his vocal range as a result of singing with me, which is an asset to him. With regard to the issue of women being “oversensitive,” I just want to throw up! I have played in bands with several men, who play well as long as everyone is feeding them a steady stream of compliments. Their playing actually suffered if they were not constantly praised for their breaks and licks. Only women are sensitive? Give me a break! I think if you want to stereotype, it’s more accurate to say that musicians in general tend to be sensitive about their playing and singing.

—Toni Murphy, Sunnyvale, CA

Keynote: Bones To Pick

Thank you, Murphy, for the invitation to offer information and comments on issues you raised in your keynote speech at IBMA. First, my congratulations and thanks for raising the feminist view. Your delivery was great, and you made a lot of good points. I do have some bones to pick, but I’ll start with common ground: the need to be fair and clear with one another. The Golden Rule points us toward honesty and, on gender issues, to the view: Women and men should be encouraged to be all they can be, and no one should be denied fair rights based on gender.

Your history traced scenes at the IBMA Awards Show. It seems you feel the IBMA is not giving women a fair shake. But the picture you gave was exaggerated by your choosing to omit some important facts which I’d like to offer now.

Item one: The Bluegrass Youth All-Stars, the group I assembled for the 1993 Awards Show. The concept of this group was virtuosity, to powerfully raise a banner still not yet raised just five years ago: “young people in bluegrass.” Twelve-year-old virtuosos are hard to come by, and of those I was able to locate, only one was a girl. As I told you back in ’93, she was invited but was unavailable.

I asked you, after your speech, what was I to do, include a non-virtuoso girl mainly for her gender, out of her league? You said no, you just would have chosen not to present the group.

Thank goodness, it never occurred to me to sacrifice this great opportunity at the altar of gender representation. In my 12 years in IBMA, I’ve never seen a performance catalyze people the way this one did. Its long range effects surely have been, and will be, positive for bluegrassers of all ages and genders. I regret that, for some, this event is memorable as just another slight to females.

But, for the record, regarding IBMA’s role in presenting the band, they were not billed or introduced as “the future of bluegrass,” as you stated. I daresay anyone using that phrase after hearing them (as did an announcer on the show) was surely making reference to the age, not the gender, of the musicians.

Item two: The bands in the finale of the 1996 Awards Show were all-male. As stated clearly in the show, the concept was to include all past IBMA Entertainer of the Year winners in a tribute to the classic 1946 Blue Grass Boys recordings. And there again, as you know, a female-led band qualified but declined the invitation.

In the two cases above, had the schedules/priorities of two particular females been different, your portrait of gender insensitive IBMA would have lost a big part of its zing. It would have been nice to hear: “In all fairness, two women were asked...” and in fact, your leaving it out seems rather unfair. In particular, as good as I feel about the powerful message sent by the youth band, I feel stung by the public attempt to tarnish the memory of it.

Item three: Our awards voting is based strictly on merit, not on gender (it’s all in the awards criteria). Though indeed most nominees and winners have been male, do you know of instances of deserving females being ignored, based on gender? I hope in these discussions, people don’t suppose that who wins awards is based on IBMA policies. We intend for IBMA members to vote for whoever they think did best, period. Item four: I appreciate this forum where I can proudly state that IBMA has always strived for balance in our leadership. The Awards Show itself has been produced for years by a team of one woman and one man. Our staff is 2/3 female. We have had a female Board chair and three female vice presidents. Women are well represented among awards presenters and honorees of our special awards (voted by committees). Each year we call on women to be part of the Board nomination process, and try for gender balance (as well as other types of balance) among the nominees. I feel that in an historically very-high-percentage-male industry, we are doing what we can.

Do we agree that in making selections of all sorts, talent and accomplishments should be the bottom line? Despite raised sensitivity to sexism, gender representation is regrettably skewed at times. In the bluegrass world, as in most of the world, progress is steady but painfully slow.

How to help it? I feel the ball is mainly in the court of the female talent itself. If they do what it takes to rise in the industry, they will be rewarded. But they need to step forward and take themselves seriously (like Rose, Louise, Lynn, Alison, Laurie, Alison, you, et al). Still the gap persists. For example, at my banjo camps, typically two or three of twenty who register are female. I note a similar ratio among bands submitting their work to Prime Cuts of Bluegrass. These pathways up are not restricted by gender. The opportunities are there. As we say, “Pick It Up!”

What can the rest of us do? Be encouraging, both publicly and privately, as I don’t need to tell you, of all people! I’ve been doing this for a while, too. I regularly teach pickers to play in typical “women’s keys,” something I do a lot myself when my wife, Joan (“Nondi”), and I perform. In 1988 at IBMA I spoke and issued a written statement advocating hiring more female talent at festivals.

I was glad you applauded actions and statements made by Bill Monroe and by Larry Stephenson that have advanced women in bluegrass. It’s both pleasant and effective to acknowledge those who do the right thing.

Summing up, my theme is “choose your battles well.” There are important ones to keep fighting. I hope you will not waste effort and good will putting your allies on the defensive by attacking them for circumstances they can’t control.

Meanwhile, with much thanks to you and many others, thank goodness it’s getting better.

—Pete Wernick, Niwot, CO

Women Pickers

I was fortunate to get to attend IBMA all week this year... Murphy woke everyone in the room up with her compelling speech at the Thursday luncheon. I respect and appreciate Murphy’s boldness and courage to stand before a crowd and open up such a festering wound. It was an earthquake of a speech. Whether you agreed or disagreed with Murphy’s analysis about the subject of where women stand in the bluegrass scene today, you definitely were talking about it when you left the room. That’s what it takes to see real change start to happen.

I am going to address a couple of my greatest concerns: Women in bluegrass who do not play an instrument on stage. After Murphy’s speech, we had all settled in for the next performance with an up-and-coming female artist. I admit I was already a little tweaked because two previous showcase bands had female artists singing but not playing an instrument. Unfortunately, the next female artist didn’t pick either. There I sat at a table with two other accomplished female pickers and watched as she sang, holding a mike as the band played. I almost died! What was sad is that she is a great vocalist, and I really like her music.

But in case anyone has been asleep for the past fifty years, bluegrass is sung and played! What is going on with these women? I question why they were even showcasing when there are deserving bands with female pickers.

On the other hand, I was proud to see three of the five Pizza Hut competition bands with outstanding female artists as an intricate part of each band. And there were many outstanding female artists in the showcases like Dale Ann Bradley and Pam Gadd, just to name a few. I hope for new female artists on stage, not picking doesn’t become a

trend supported by the record labels. If women want to be taken seriously in bluegrass, pick an instrument and work as hard as the men do.

The sidewomen? They’re out there, and plenty of them were at IBMA. But only one lady made it through all three rounds of the voting body of IBMA membership [for Awards]. If you want to see change, join at the artist level (it costs more to vote) and next year pay attention to whom the outstanding artists are and vote. I’m proud to say I voted for Missy Raines. Not because she was the only woman nominated, but because she was, in my humble opinion, the most outstanding and most deserving of the honor this year. If there is anything women in bluegrass do not need its affirmative action. Last year there were many more nominees [for women]. What happened? Next year make a difference. Vote for those deserving women. There is not an instrumental category that couldn’t have at least one female artist make it to the final round.

I know there will be some who disagree with me. That’s okay. But at least the talk will continue.

—Dolly Mae Bradshaw, Yorba Linda, CA