The Forward Roll
Unapologetically Me
Through studying these interviews, various recordings, board tapes, instructional videos and recounting the live performances I may have been fortunate enough to witness, I feel like I can start piecing together their personalities, and see it reflecting through their music. I understand where their licks and intricacies of their style are coming from. It’s almost like I can feel their conviction, and hear their truth, without them saying a word.
The History of Pride in America
One of the joys of Bluegrass Pride comes from the fact that it is joining together two communities that haven’t really been connected before. We are so proud of the work we have done over the past year introducing folks in the LGBT community to bluegrass music and culture. Today, we thought it high time to introduce folks in the bluegrass community to the history of the LGBT community in America.
Y’all Come: Reclaiming Bluegrass Music
For far too long have bluegrass communities tolerated bigotry and exclusion, all for the sake of getting in a circle and playing the music we all feel so passionate about… but while we were plunking away at our instruments of choice to the bluegrass standards we love, we were unwittingly excluding entire groups of people who might have gone on to win IBMA awards and write new bluegrass classics for the next generation.
Pride Outside the Bubble
The unique intersection of rural and queer identities is underexamined in our cultural narrative, and its acceptance and celebration are fundamental to the mission of Bluegrass Pride.
From Shame to Pride
It has, therefore, not always easy being a bluegrass musician or listener. The very term “bluegrass” carries negative connotations for many people. Be it images of tobacco chewing toothless hillbillies with moonshine jugs, Confederate flags, or an incorrectly perceived lack of sophistication in the music, “bluegrass” often conjures up ideas of uneducated backwardness.
Despite this, the joy of the music never left and I always had the support of my family for my musical endeavours. It was, however, attending my first bluegrass camp that made this music an indispensable part of my life.