Remember when you were a kid and went somewhere with your parents and tried to pretend that you were not really with them? Well, I did that a few times. I don't think I fooled anyone, including my parents.
It was sort of the same way with bluegrass/country music. My father, who's now 91, used to play guitar (not very well) and sing songs made popular by Bill Monroe, Ralph and Carter Stanley, Mother Maybelle, Hank Williams, and Patsy Cline. I used to pretend I didn't hear him.
As a teen and young adult, I was trying to "prove to them" (whoever they were) that I wasn't a hillbilly and that I could indeed thrive in non-hillbilly conditions. I used to cringe at the fiddle sounds in Orange Blossom Special and pretend I wasn't captivated by the rhythm of Wildwood Flower.
I'm not sure what changed. Did I gain enough self-confidence to be myself? Did I gain enough knowledge of musical theory that I could appreciate the nuances of sound from opera to rock to bluegrass? Did I gain enough life experience to emphathize with the emotions in bluegrass and country music: love lost, love unrequited, hard times?
Somewhere in my mid-to-late 20s, I began to tap my feet to bluegrass, to sing-along, to hear the beauty of bluegrass harmony, to listen in amazement at the sounds of a dobro and a licketysplit banjo or fiddle.
Yes, I'm a child of the 60s and I "Cain't Get No Satisfaction" and I grooved to "InaGaddadavida," and knew "There's a Bad Moon Risin.'"
I weep with pleasure listening to Mozart. All I want is "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" and want to feel like a "Natural Woman."
However, I would like to ride "The Orange Blossom Special." I would like to hear the "Wabash Cannonball" rumble past. I occassionally have seen "The Wildwood Flower" here in the mountains of Virginia.
Yes, I do like bluegrass music.
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