*Continuing The Bluegrass Tradition- A Documentary

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of the bluegrass group Nickel Creek in the film documentary "Bluegrass Journey"

DVD Review

Bluegrass Journey: A Documentary, various artists, 2004

If someone was to ask me quickly of f the top of my head to name a bluegrass group I would probably jump on the name Bill Monroe and his various bands. After that it would be the figures from the 1960s folk revival like The New Lost City Ramblers and the Greenbriar Boys. They while not , for the most part, raised in the country and thus bred to this type of music saw it as an important form of roots music and did as much as anyone to publicize it to urban audiences back then . I think, however, that most people who are not aficionados would have stopped at Bill Monroe. This film documentary, while paying due tribute to the pioneer efforts of Monroe and his combing of various genres to form what has since come to be called bluegrass, concentrates on the apparently thriving modern “real” (meaning people from the country are playing it) bluegrass music movement. So of you are trying to orient yourself to bluegrass music, what is currently good (and not good) this is not a bad place to start. Moreover, the bluegrass festival (rain and all) that forms the centerpiece for this exploration of the music features some very proficient guitar, fiddle, and above all mandolin players. You will feel right at home, especially with Tony Rice on "Shenandoah" and the Nickel Creek band (with a great fiddle player)on several tunes.


Man Of Constant Sorrow

Im a man of constant sorrow,
Ive seen trouble all my days.
Ill say goodbye to colorado
Where I was born and partly raised.

Your mother says Im a stranger;
My face youll never see no more.
But theres one promise, darling,
Ill see you on gods golden shore.

Through this open world Im a-bound to ramble,
Through ice and snows, sleet and rain,
Im a-bound to ride that mornin railroad,
Perhaps Ill die on that train.

Im going back to colorado,
The place that Ive started from.
If Id knowed how bad youd treat me,
Honey I never would have come.