Funny you mention TIS - my “nice” bass is pretty much exactly the same as the one Travis Book plays - absent the removable neck.
Sounds like there is a common body of work you and I enjoy, but our tastes diverge from that core in different directions. Which is totally cool.
I like the rawer oldtime sound - like Ola Belle Reed, Ginny Hawker, Tommy Jarrell… In terms of BG, I pretty much keep going back to Flatt and Scruggs. And Doc Watson never played anything I don’t like. Foghorn Stringband is IMO about as good as a string band gets. And no banjo to hate!
Hard to beat just a fiddle and banjo. Modern day examples are legion: Bruce Molsky; Lukas Pool; Adam Hurt; Jake Blount; Brittany Haas; Riley Baugus… The list goes on and on.
Someone who kinda defies any narrow category but who has been getting much more popular is Sierra Ferrell. Then there is The Wood Brothers. I could go on and on - but I won’t. So much music that is so good.
Béla Fleck was a banjo prodigy who at 13 became part of the New Grass Revival in the 1970s, hoping to modernize traditional ways. After a few years he electrified and became known as the best electric banjo player in the world with his group Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Vic Wooten, one of the best bassists in the world, was part of the group, along with Howard Levy, world-class on harmonica and piano, and Roy Wooten, aka Futureman, who invented the drumitar, and is the sole player of it, hence the best in the world (cheating, I know). The Flecktones incorporated bluegrass into a blend of country, folk, rock, classical, world music, jazz, and everything else to make their own genre of music.
Fleck has made dozens of albums in a vast range of genres with a variety of groups and collaborators, so he’s probably the only one who is into the music of every album. He has 39 Grammy nominations and has won in more than a dozen categories[!], from folk to classical and two in bluegrass.
The Flecktones’ first three albums are their best. They reformed the original group in 2011. I saw them around 2016. They were on fire, probably the best concert I attended in my 58 years of concert-going. As with many groups, albums simply don’t catch the magic on stage.
Béla Fleck may be the best non-classical instrumentalist on the planet who is this widely awarded and basically known only to a handful. I like to hype him whenever I can. Urging people to see him live, though, is chancy because nobody ever knows what he’ll be bringing to the day. Fortunately he’s touring with the Flecktones the rest of this year. Maybe they’ll bring the fire to you.
Love both of those acts and have seen them multiple times.
One of my all time favorites. I saw the New Grass Revival open for the Grateful Dead on New Years Eve. I saw the Flecktones a few times. I saw him do a duet show with Chick Corea that was straight up complicated jazz that they were reading from sheet music. One of my favorite concerts of all time was when he sat in with the Jerry Garcia Band in Berkeley in 1990. That was made an official release.
I enjoy Bluegrass. I guess it’s in my bones, because I’m related to Bill Monroe.
But it’s a genre that people can sometimes be gatekeeping dicks about, and I don’t like that. Bill Monroe supposedly supposedly lamented the number of long haired hippies involved in the music scene in his later days, and I don’t respect that.
There’s a free bluegrass concert series (with at least occasional jam session afterwards) near me that I go to regularly. Most of the groups that play there are semi-local, although some of them dabble in songs that might make it to Sirius XM.
One of the groups that played last summer was Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers.
Joe Mullins (and his son Danny) organize a Industrial Strength Bluegrass Festival each year (I’m not sure how long it’s been running). Last fall featured Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, so I persuaded my folks to come with me to Dayton-ish, Ohio just to hear her.
It was worth it. I also really enjoyed The Kody Norris Show– they have costumes with a ridiculous amount of fringe on them. Plus, their music is just plain fun.
Last week, I (and my parents), went to most of the first day of the Summer Version of the Industrial Strength Bluegrass Festival. It was awesome, although also a little hot, and we got rained on shortly after we got there. (Our own fault, really, I saw the clouds and didn’t suggest we drag our umbrellas with us).
When they play locally, I’ve been going to see the bluegrass band Big Richard[1]. They explained oldtime as “bluegrass’s drunk uncle”. I’m not sure if they stole that description from someone else, though.
Big Richard has gotten some pushback. It’s four women, and some of that is definitely sexism, and others are musical purity things (mixed with sexism), because they like to cover rock and pop songs. There’s even a video of them performing with a guest drummer!
I bow to your expertise, but my recollection is Earl Scruggs developed his particular three finger style (two finger was more common at the time) and Monroe was quick to incorporate it and Scruggs into his band and feature the banjo more prominently.
I am a huge fan of Bela Fleck. Been following him since his first solo album after Newgrass Revival. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen him live twice. Once as a duo with his wife Abigail Washburn and once as part of a quartet with Edgar Meyer and two Indian (from India) musicians. Both wonderful concerts.
Big Richard is a great band. I’ve only seen them once but they will be in my town in a couple of months. A local bluegrass band is opening who are good friends of mine.
I’m a casual listener to bluegrass music. I’ve seen Old Crow Medicine Show live, and I was given free passes to see Alison Krauss and Union Station when they recorded their live DVD+CD in Louisville, Kentucky. That may have been the most technically precise concert I’ve ever attended.
It’s not my favorite or preferred genre of music, but it’s listenable enough.
