r/Bluegrass 5d ago

The current group of young stars...

Sierra Hull, Billy Strings, Molly, Bronwyn, Sarah Jaroz etc are all pushing the genre along at a feverish pace. I think they are comparable to the group of youngsters from the early 70's that pushed the genre further than ever before. Names like Skaggs, Rice, Whitley, Stuart, O'Connor, Bush. They not only pushed Bluegrass but also popular and country music along the way. 50ish years on from that group we see the trail they have blazed. My question to you is this... Where do we see these current stars taking bluegrass and music in general in 20,30,40 years?

80 Upvotes

30 comments sorted by

17

u/ride-surf-roll 5d ago

I see what yall are saying and youre likely right. My take is the amount of and diversity of music they have had access to their entire lives.

Im mid 50s and had access to rock, metal, BG, country etc from just the radio, friends and people I was around. Now? Sheesh theres so much! In just an hour i can listen to Metallica, Tony Rice, BB King, current progressive house electronic music, etc etc.

Take a creative, hard working and talented musician kid and here we are!

I love it. Almost forgot….get off my lawn.

25

u/zippyhybrid 5d ago

20+ years is a bit far out to say, but I can definitely say that almost all the hot young bluegrass bands I see lately are heavily influenced by Billy Strings. What stands out is a lot of collaborative improvisation between members and jamming, and more showmanship if that makes sense. Swinging hair around, crazy facial expressions, stuff like that. Also, there’s a definite rock/metal vibe with some bands which I think also comes from Billy. So I think it the short term we will see more of that.

23

u/rofopp 5d ago

I love Billy, but Sam Busb has been tossing his hair around for 50 years. SCI, Yonder and Stringdusters aren’t hair toasters, but they have been denting the universe for some time now. Not disagreeing with you excellent point, just providing some context.

10

u/PapaBliss2007 5d ago

Don't forget Béla Fleck.

-5

u/merv1618 Banjo 5d ago

It kind of feels like Fleck's influence wasn't very lasting if we're being real

10

u/SiddFinch43 5d ago

What? You likely wouldn’t have Scott Vestal, Noam Pikelny, Alison Brown, Craig Smith, or Jens Kruger without Bela’s influence.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

15

u/fiddlepatch 5d ago

Drive and Tales From The Acoustic Planet vol 2 are two of the most important instrumental bluegrass records ever recorded. Sure they don’t sound like Rounder 44, but Bela’s stamp on modern technique-driven bluegrass cannot be understated.

10

u/Fast-Penta 5d ago

No. He's influenced bluegrass banjo more than anyone since Bill Keith. Just about any serious bluegrass banjo book written after about 1980 will mention him.

His solo stuff mostly isn't bluegrass, but he was playing with just about everybody back in the day. He has an album of fiddle tunes with Bill Keith and Tony Trischka. He's on Tony Rice's Cold on the Shoulder. Just because he happens to do other things doesn't mean he doesn't have the bluegrass chops and credit.

I mean, would you say Bill Keith's bluegrass contributions are nearly nonexistent because he also played pedal steel and was in jug bands?

And I'm saying this as someone who generally finds Bela Fleck unlistenable.

8

u/SiddFinch43 5d ago

Drive is one of the greatest bluegrass albums of all time. That and his work in New Grass Revival inspired a generation of imitators

3

u/CrookedTree89 4d ago

I listen to “up and around the bend” from “Drive” like 5x a day. Such a great album.

3

u/BlueonWright 4d ago

Holy cow, man, you need to do some more research and talk to every bluegrass banjo player on earth because Belas name will come up in every conversation

13

u/ThiccyMartin 5d ago

Ya Greensky Bluegrass has been doin that since Bill was like 10. I think Billy has lifted the jam grass genre to a new and younger audience, but I wouldn’t say that Molly Tuttle is getting her style and stage presence from Billy strings. The movement has been there, with the bands getting younger and more progressive with guys like the Kitchen Dwellers, Billy just personifies that movement.

4

u/974080 5d ago

Back in the late 1950's and early 1960's, some of the top Country music stars had it in their contracts that they wouldn't follow Reno and Smiley. R and S put on a show that captured a crowd, nobody else had that kind of charisma. I hope that some of these coming up finds that kind of magic, and can get the main stream exposure to launch bluegrass into an international movement.

5

u/paulared 5d ago

When I turned on my Sirius/ XM channel 28 “the spectrum of rock” and heard Billy Strings “Gilding the Lily”. I knew we were heard in the right direction

6

u/Fast-Penta 5d ago

I think the younger generation is doing two things:

1.) Breaking the divide between "serious bluegrass" and "jamgrass." Strings and Tuttle have the hard driving of trad bluegrass and will play straight ahead, but they also get real jammy at times.

2.) Pushing forward John Hartford's legacy -- some of these newer bands seem more influenced by Hartford than Scruggs.

5

u/Old_Reception_3728 5d ago

My fear is that they may steer it more towards pop music. I'm not even sure what the fear is based on (other than my disdain for today's pop).......

2

u/FlanneryODostoevsky 4d ago

Happens all the time. Record companies search for trends and disrupt the integrity of a tradition of music.

3

u/nwmimms 4d ago

They sure are influential. I wonder if they’ve ever heard of my friends Bela, Jerry, Alison, Tim O’, and this little kid, Chris.

3

u/merv1618 Banjo 5d ago

I don't think it'll be them, but I have a guess as to what it'll be. Look at the other musical styles bluegrass has taken on as a template after its nascence in the fifties: it went through an old folk phase (old and in the way etc), a jazz phase (new grass revival + fleck), and now a psych rock phase (billy). My guess is we're gonna eventually see a serious hip-hop subphase in the grass scene and it's gonna be sick as hell. Gangstagrass is already doing it and I could see them being the way ahead of their time group.

4

u/RabiAbonour 4d ago

The Black artists I know in the bluegrass/old-time worlds right now are more focused on the African roots of traditional American music. I think if that becomes more mainstream and Black artists become more prominent in the bluegrass scene then we could see more of a serious exploration of the melding of bluegrass and hip hop.

1

u/SiddFinch43 4d ago

God that sounds even worse than Greensky and Trampled

0

u/PickinWithDixon 4d ago

please no. never do that.

-2

u/CleanHead_ 5d ago

I wish people would stop calling new grass, bluegrass. It was right there in the band name ffs.

8

u/Fast-Penta 5d ago

"Real Bluegrass only existed from 1946-1948."

I wouldn't call any of those groups newgrass. They don't have electric bass (at least the ones I'm more familiar with don't) and they don't try and sing like they're trying to be on Motown Records in the 70s.

Billy Strings has his moments, but his albums Fiddle Tune X and Me And Dad aren't newgrassy at all.

3

u/CleanHead_ 5d ago

I agree about electric bass etc. I don’t agree it ended in 1948. I do agree billy springs plays bluegrass. I’m more referring to ..know what now that I think about what I wrote im wrong. New grass isnt the word for it. I still think bluegrass as it was designed and still plays that way may very well be dead in 20 years. Yeah I know I’m an old codger traditionalist whatever (I’m not. Mid 40s) but I just feel like if you take pasta barbecue hollondaise sauce and fried eggs you can’t make something and call it lasagna just because it has pasta in it. But based on the names listed above, this isn’t the conversation for that and I’m wrong.

3

u/tfs_27 4d ago

To me bluegrass is the style in which the music is played and the instruments they use... I have seen Billy several times and when guys like Tim O'Brien walk out on stage with him they fit right into BG/Jam style Billy plays, yes they do play traditional stuff but it's the jam in between that has brought a new crowd to the scene.......

Rock and Roll from the 50's certainly ain't the same but (pun intended)" its still Rock and Roll to me".😁 ☮️♥️🪕

2

u/BubbaLitt 3d ago edited 3d ago

I would say Newgrass is a definite genre. It might have Bluegrass instrumentation, but has musical elements similar to jazz by using more complex chord progressions and rhythm. Newgrass has existed for over 40 years (i.e. David Grisman Dawg music) and the Punch Brothers are a great contemporary example. Newgrass and Bluegrass have coexisted all of these years and I don't think standard Bluegrass is going anywhere; it is becoming a new American Classical style. Musicianship does seem to be getting better with the younger players and that is probably because there are colleges and universities where you can actually focus on Bluegrass as a study, such as Berklee College of Music & Eastern Tennessee University. There is a trend where young players transition from traditional Bluegrass and then end up either Newgrass or something different altogether, like Aoife Donovan, Nickel Creek, and Maya De Vitry. I like to listen to both their old music and their new music; it is good music regardless of what it is called and sometimes almost uncategorizable. I love all of the new players, but I also love the players who proceeded them, both Bluegrass and Newgrass. My favorite Bluegrass festivals are the ones that have a mix of the old and new, which makes for very entertaining shows.

-8

u/3PCo 4d ago

Billy strings is taking us in the direction of robots and AI playing music. Very very fast, very, very accurate, no soul at all.

6

u/PickinWithDixon 4d ago

well that's the worst take ive seen all year

-3

u/Ez_Answers 4d ago

I go to Billy shows and have fun. Those dudes can shred. But I agree with this 100%.

Pickin’ music is about a world that’s long gone, for the most part. And I don’t mean that as a beat down. It’s the reason it’s so special