The Forward Roll
Nominated for Best of the Best!
Holy smokes, we've just been nominated by the SF Pride Judges for the Best of the Best Overall Contingent Parade Award! We're totally blown away and incredibly honored to be considered. But mainly, we're just so proud of all of you, our beautiful and spirited supporters! Without your energy and time and dedication, we wouldn't be where we are today. So thank you and congratulations to every single one of you who made this happen!!
Public voting will be open soon, and we'll be posting with info about how to vote for us to win the big prize. Keep an eye on this page!
Happy Songs About Sad Stuff
They say bluegrass is just “happy songs about sad stuff.” It’s a bundle of contradictions, just like all of us. Our music comes straight out of the deep South, where it has steeped for decades in sorrow, anger, resignation, and defiance. It contains wide streaks of misogyny and racism only recently and patchily covered over. Its homophobia is rarely explicit, but it’s hard to miss. This powerful, irresistible music reflects and reproduces the world of its birth even as it provides a foundation for overcoming it. Megan Lynch Chowning: Being Brave Now
In 2005, I moved to Tennessee and became a professional (whatever that is...) bluegrass musician and I quickly found out that things weren't the same all over. People from back home were constantly asking me if I was experiencing prejudice against women or LGBTQ people and while I did notice it almost immediately, I was embarrassed to confirm their assumptions.
Live and Let Live -- Recorded Live at the Bluegrass Pride After-Party (June 25, 2017)
Not Settling for Less than Love
The last time I went to the Gay Pride March was in New York City in 1993 or so. Fresh out of college, I was working for the Gay Men's Health Crisis on their Dance-a-Thon fundraiser, and I took my mom to the march in her wheelchair -- she had MS and could no longer walk or dance. It was amazing, and so cool to bring my mom into that scene she was peripheral to. Peripheral because she never really identified as a lesbian even though she was in love with a woman, and feminist enough to leave her marriage and follow her dreams.