Bluegrass Festival

If James Brown is the godfather of soul, Monroe is the godfather, founding father, and leading light of Bluegrass, with an endless catalogue of genre-forging classics, from the fast fiddles of Orange Blossom Special to the rock ‘n roll of Rocky Road Road Blues and the blues-tinged ballad of the Blue Moon of Kentucky.

There’s bluegrass events galore in Kentucky, with Monroe’s birthday lending a special significance to the annual gatherings, not least the 38th annual bluegrass bash at the Kentucky Horse Park in historic Lexington from June 9-12.

It’s America’s oldest bluegrass festival, set in the fabled Horse Park’s rolling bluegrass grounds. Started in 1973, the festival celebrates the deliciously addictive music to a packed house of footstomping fans each and every year

So what is bluegrass? Well, it’s a kissing cousin of country music but with roots easily identified in old-style English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish folk, but there’s even tinges of the west African music that inspired the blues.

Sound kinda odd? Well then let the founding father Monroe explain it better:

“Bluegrass is Scotch bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin’. It’s Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It’s blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound. It’s plain music that tells a good story. It’s played from my heart to your heart, and it will touch you. Bluegrass is music that matters.”

Got that? No? Well, just refer to the Coen Brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, an apparent homage to old time bluegrass music, starring Kentucky local boy, George Clooney. Soggy Bottom Boys featuring George Clooney

People still think Kentucky homeboy Clooney sang the song, he didn’t. But Dan Tyminski did, catch him here .

There should be a whooping good time at the Jerusalem Ridge annual festival, hosted at the home of Monroe and his family at Jerusalem Ridge near Rosine, Kentucky, the farm home of the Monroes since 1801.

Says the website: “Bill called the Ridge ‘the most beautiful place in the world’. The youngest of eight children Bill was left home while his big brothers went to town. He used to go up on the ridge with his dad and Uncle and listen to the fox hounds run at night. Here he would hear stories about the old ways and listen to the ancient sounds of Uncle Pen’s fiddle.”

As yet, no date has been set for the 2011, but look out for the bash in September/October.

If you want immediate satisfaction, check out  bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs on iTunes, Grammy awardwinning Alison Krauss, or even comic actor Steve Martin, a big convert to the banjo and bluegrass, mastering the instrument on his first solo album, called The Crow, with guest vocals by a little-known star named Dolly Parton.

Steve Martin loves the banjo. To him it’s “a high lonesome sound … generated nostalgia for experiences I never had, joy I was yet to experience, and melancholy that was yet to come”.

Thousands of devotees agree, all flocking to another annual bash, the bluegrass celebration known as the River of Music Party (aka ROMP) in Owensboro every June, at the bluegrass musical genre’s dedicated centre, the International Bluegrass Music Museum. Or if you have a phone, dial 1-888-mybanjo, of course.