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Traditional Music in Kentucky by Erika Brady, Western Kentucky University
No
question about it—Kentucky is a musical state. The distinctive nature
of Kentucky music lies in its "homegrown" feeling—music
performed in the home, at church, in the community, played for and warmly
appreciated by friends and family. The musicianship may be virtuoso and
the performer may be respected worldwide, but the strength and beauty of
Kentucky folk music—the quality that makes it world famous—is
its unmistakable roots in the shared experience and history of members of
hundreds of communities statewide who pour themselves heart and soul into
their instruments and songs.
The community-based aspect of Kentucky music has indirectly served to feed the myth of Kentucky's isolation from mainstream American society, especially in the mountains and hollows of the eastern part of the state. The image of the minstrel-like singer of ancient ballads surviving from Elizabethan times was popular among outsiders who wanted to believe that the Appalachian region was the last bastion of "pure" Anglo-American culture uncontaminated by the taint of outside influences.
While it is true that many ballads and tunes of the Scottish and English
tradition persisted in the mountains, they survived alongside abundant outside
influences by European and African American immigrants and itinerant popular
entertainers, which the locals seized upon and adapted with enthusiasm and
imagination. Indeed, creative adaptation and synthesis of musical styles
across racial and ethnic lines might be considered a hallmark of Kentucky
music.
Consider the case of Arnold Schultz. A multi-talented black instrumentalist
born in the coal fields of western Kentucky in 1886, he played fiddle and
guitar on riverboats, absorbing numerous influences which culminated in
a unique fingerpicking style almost orchestral in its complexity. Dead by
the age of forty-five, he nonetheless influenced scores of musicians in
the area of Muhlenberg and Ohio Counties. Lineal descendants of the Schultz
"dynasty" include Tex Atchison (lead fiddler for the Prairie Ramblers),
Ike Everly (father of the popular Everly Brothers), country music star Merle
Travis, champion thumbpicker Eddie Pennington, and Bill Monroe, fabled Father
of Bluegrass music.
In
the early years of settlement in Kentucky, the predominant instrument was
undoubtedly the fiddle. Portable enough for a musician to carry easily,
it was capable of sustaining a penetrating melodic line while utilizing
an emphatic bowing technique that included playing across two strings simultaneously
("double-stopping") to maintain a rhythm strong enough to keep
a room full of dancers going through song after song. (Although the popular
imagination firmly links the mountain dulcimer to Kentucky, it does not
seem to have been in very extensive use—its tone was too gentle for
wide use as a dance instrument, although it provides delightful accompaniment
for the old ballads.)
The banjo, an adaptation of an African instrument first observed in use among plantation slaves, was adopted by the enormously popular minstrel ensembles of the early and mid-nineteenth century and became a favorite accompaniment to the fiddle by the late nineteenth century, especially in the five-string form in which the drone provided extra rhythmic punch. The guitar, often acquired by mail-order, was not a typical part of the oldtime string band until the twentieth century in most parts of the state. By the dawn of the recording industry in the 1920s, a typical string band ensemble might include a fiddle or mandolin, banjo, guitar, and bass, the musicians playing dance tunes that Jefferson would have found familiar, along with Tin Pan Alley ditties, Victorian parlor songs, topical narratives of tragedy and disaster, and the ubiquitous odes to romantic love, successful or (more often) blighted.
When in the late 1940s Bill Monroe and others kicked this instrumental blend into what folklorist Alan Lomax has called "mountain music in overdrive," the resulting sound was dubbed "bluegrass"—not for the region, but for Monroe's band, the Bluegrass Boys. Although popularity of bluegrass has fluctuated in the decades since that time, its popularity has never waned in the Bluegrass State, and today is stronger than ever. The Ohio River and the flourishing large and small commercial centers along its banks have served as a rich source of diversity in Kentucky music. Urban audiences are often attracted to novelty, and Louisville's jug bands were famous. In addition, these urban river-based centers supported a thriving blues culture documented by several important recording sessions in Ashland and Louisville in 1928 and 1931 respectively. The river cities also supported small but thriving immigrant communities with their own musical characters.
The influence of the commercial music industry on Kentucky's traditional music has been powerful and reciprocal. As early as 1839, Louisville boasted the third largest music publisher in the nation, that of William C. Peters. The best known publications of this company include the quasi-folk minstrel-influenced art songs of Pennsylvanian genuinely interested in providing a commercial showcase for talent rooted in Kentucky tradition but marketable to both a live and radio audience. Purchasing a tract of land in Rockcastle County in 1937, he established the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, announcing it as "the first and only barn dance on the air presented by the actual residents of an actual community." Broadcast over WLW in Cincinnati, and later syndicated through the NBC radio network, it became one of the most influential and successful country music shows of its era; the regular Renfro Valley show is a popular attraction today, and features a mix of homespun humor and musical talent that Lair would recognize.
Finally, no account of Kentucky traditional music, however brief, would be complete without reference to the profound ongoing importance of sacred music. Although much religious music by Kentucky performers is movingly accompanied by instrumentation, both Anglo and African American traditions rely on the power of the human voice raised in prayer. Indeed, many congregations forbid any instrument played within their houses of worship with the exception of the human voice. Here again, as in other areas of Kentucky music, these two traditions share roots and, in some instances, repertoires, while developing separate styles. Both were deeply influenced by the revival meetings of the Second Great Awakening that occurred on the Kentucky frontier in the early years of the nineteenth century, and contemporary accounts make it clear that both blacks and whites were present at these highly emotional events, giving vent to their feelings in song. Whether in the highly structured, fiercely strained tones of shape-note singing, or in the full-throated improvisation of a black gospel soloist, Kentucky's religions musical heritage has both roots and wings.
