ANALYSIS/OPINION:
It’s difficult not to compare the growing pains of country music as it shifts from traditional into a form of country rock with the ongoing transformation of bluegrass.
Watching banjoist Noam Pikelny and fiddler Stuart Duncan — two of modern bluegrass music’s brightest stars — perform last week at The Barns at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia, underscored why bluegrass’ maturation is so heartily embraced while country music performers and fans are engaged in something akin to a civil war.
“Del McCoury’s willingness to collaborate outside of the bluegrass world and his dedication to the Punch Brothers and DelFest, that definitely reads as a voucher,” said Mr. Pikelny, a member of the Punch Brothers, of the wide spectrum of performers Mr. McCoury invites to enjoy the annual music festival he hosts in Cumberland, Maryland. “The first time I got to meet him, he was so welcoming to me. I remember getting to play tunes backstage with Del and I taught him my song ’For Pete’s Sake.’ Playing that song with him and the impact that had meant so much. I had assumed there would never be a way to break into that world.”
The respect that flows between younger performers, such as Mr. Pikelny, 33, and veteran bluegrass icons, including the much honored and celebrated Mr. McCoury, 75, is palpable not just in words but music. Earlier this month Mr. Pikelny won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Banjo Player of the Year and Album of the Year for “Noam Pikelny Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe.” Although Mr. Pikelny and Mr. Stuart, 50, who played on the album, included some of those songs in their set, they clearly delighted in playing a host of classic bluegrass songs.
“One of the things we have been playing is the ’Kentucky Waltz,’ ” said Mr. Duncan, whose awards include a Grammy. “We had said ’Let’s do something we have never done before,’ and we have been doing it ever since. It’s a good melody people recognize and it’s a good vocal range for me.”
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As were all the other songs in the set. The Wolf Trap audience’s exuberant cheers were punctuated with animated whispers of praise as they worked their way through a set that included renditions of ’Lonesome Moonlight Waltz’ and ’Wheel Hoss’ from Mr. Pikelny’s latest album, to Southern string band classic ’Lee Highway Blues’ to Merle Haggard’s ’Loneliness is Eating Me Alive,’ which Mr. Duncan rediscovered on a classic 45 record he bought at a flea market.
Mr. Pikelny and Mr. Stuart wound stories about their admiration for Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, and other traditional performers throughout the set. Although Mr. Monroe was overtly critical of performers who moved away from traditional bluegrass arrangements and instrumentation, the duo was nothing short of reverent toward the masters.
The capacity crowd at Wolf Trap — which constantly whispered praise about the performers to each other during the set — laughed with delight as the performers told vignettes about their brushes with classic bluegrass fame. Mr. Duncan told the story of his current “go to” fiddle, which his parents bought him when he was 12 years old and the family was at a Bill Monroe festival in Bean Blossom, Indiana. Bluegrass icons Kenny Baker and George Chestnut were selling fiddles at the festival, one of which Mr. Duncan’s parents purchased.
The duo’s overt admiration contrasts sharply with Blake Shelton. Soon after Mr. Shelton received the 2013 Country Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year award, the self-proclaimed country music historian and fan sharply criticized fans and performers of traditional country. He stood by his words, though he said the intent was misconstrued and he reportedly apologized to longtime icons Ray Price, Willie Nelson and others. Still his words deepened the divide among fans and performers. If the Wolf Trap show was indicative, there is no such strife in bluegrass.
Consider Mr. Pikelny’s reaction to his recent IBMA awards: “What flashed through my mind was my life in bluegrass music, especially a lot of the images from my childhood and teen years when we were traveling around to bluegrass festivals. As I matured as a musician, what I had to offer was not necessarily falling in the confines of traditional bluegrass. It was sort of on the hinterlands and radically progressive bluegrass with the Punch Brothers. Despite my loyalty to it and fondness for it, it was a very winding path to make this traditional record. Even after all these years, to receive the IBMA Awards was really a shock for me. I didn’t anticipate being embraced so warmly by the bluegrass world.”
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