Comments on: Supersized Bluegrass Giveaway

By: Americana Added to Dictionary; Lady Antebellum Goes Unplugged; Ray Price Fills in for Loretta Lynn - Engine 145

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:17:11 +0000

[...] to Vincent Warner, the winner of our Supersized Bluegrass Giveaway. Vincent, keep your eyes peeled for an [...]

By: Scot Fuhrman

Scot Fuhrman — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:25:47 +0000

You can find every aspect of life in the songs. Love, hate, sorrow, joy, you name it. True American Music at its best!!

By: Paul W Dennis

Paul W Dennis — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:05:28 +0000

Yes – those Mervyn Conn festivals were wonderful -Dad and I saw the ones in 1969 & 1970 and Dad and my sister saw the one in 1971 – his favorite one of the three because the great Hank Snow, his favorite artist, appeared. As an American military brat, I also got to see American country acts that played at the clubs at the West Ruislip AFB. Also The Nashville Room in Kensington would occasionally feature American country acts as would the BBC when taping shows for airplay

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 07:39:52 +0000

…well, paul w. dennis, these mervyn conn festivals were fantastic. actually, the only chance to see country superstars live in europe (on the continent) for a long, long time. for me bluegrass is like opera – they only way i enjoy it, is live on stage.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:01:10 +0000

Wow, nothing brings lurkers and cheapskates out of the woodwork like a freebie! (lol)

I’ve enjoyed bluegrass since I was a kid back in the 1960′s listening to the theme song from the TV show “The Beverly Hillbillies”. The show even featured Flatt and Scruggs on at least one episode as friends (or was it kin?) from back in the hills. I also was hooked by “Dueling Banjos” from the film “Deliverance” although seeing that segment in the film with the inbred hillbilly and what came afterwards altered my perception a bit! (lol)

My appreciation for bluegrass music has skyrocketed over the last decade to fill in the void left due to the lack of quality, new yet traditional style country music coming out of Nashville. I’ve come to prefer newly minted acoustic music over the electrified stuff, and bluegrass fills the bill quite nicely. I just wish we had a more active bluegrass scene here in Los Angeles…

By: Paul W Dennis

Paul W Dennis — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 22:35:46 +0000

My Dad was a big country music fan but not especially fond of bluegrass except he loved hearing Lester Flatt sing. Consequently, except for Flatt aad Scruggs, the only bluegrass I heard as a kid was what little got played on country radio such as Jim & Jesse, The Osborne Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs and maybe an occasional stray track from somneone else.

One of my biggest diappointments came in 1969 – we were living in London, where Dad was stationed across from the American Embassy. Mervyn Conn organized the First Annual Wembley Festival of Country Music, billing Flatt & Scrugg as the headliners when we purchased the tickets in January 1969. Between the time we purchased the tickets and tha actual festival date in May 1969 , Flatt & Scruggs broke up so we had to settle for Bill Anderson & The Po Boys, Phil Brady & The Ranchers, Wes Buchanan, George Hamilton IV, The Hillsiders, Jan Howard, Loretta Lynn, Merrill Moore, Orange Blossom Sound, John Wesley Ryles, Conway Twitty & The Lonely Blue Boys, Larry Cunningham & The Mighty Avons and Charlie Walker. The next year’s show was bigger and better but our one chance to see FLatt & Scruggs was gone

No doubt Jon will nitpick this and tell me the group didn’t split up until after May, but whatever the date of the split up , they were not at Wembley

By: plain_jo

plain_jo — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:52:23 +0000

I like that in Bluegrass, typically they are great musicians first and foremost

By: Henri Deschamps

Henri Deschamps — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:02:36 +0000

Blue Highway all by it’s lonesome would be reason enough, and then you have all these 1,000′s of very fine folks just as sublime, each different but in one musical family which emerged from core musical values. Like all families they bicker but like The Captain & Tennille likes to say “Love Will Keep Us Together”. It is quite unique. It’s virtuoso words and music made by real human people worth listening to in a world so full of artificial noise designed by companies rather than artists. The only way not to find Bluegrass you like is to only listen to 3 artists and assume that’s the whole deal. Explore and Discover. It’s way more than people might sometimes think.

By: Ben Erlandson

Ben Erlandson — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:52:27 +0000

I was born with a bluegrass soundtrack in my head.

By: Ben Foster

Ben Foster — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:47:02 +0000

Elegant simplicity and raw emotion :)
Plus banjos are cool. I don’t care what anyone else says – BANJOS ARE COOL.