Maritime Bluegrass: the Local Meaning of a Global Music

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MARITIME BLUEGRASS: THE LOCAL MEANING OF A GLOBAL MUSIC

Daniel J. Andrews

BA, St. Thomas University, 2007

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master's of Interdisciplinary Studies

in the Graduate Academic Unit of School of Graduate Studies

Supervisors: Peter G. Toner (St. Thomas University), PhD, Anthropology Daniel Downes, PhD, Information and Communication Studies

Examining Board: Linda Eyre, PhD, Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies, Chair Peter Toner (St. Thomas University), PhD, Anthropology Daniel Downes, PhD, Information and Communication Studies Neil Rosenberg (Memorial University of Newfoundland), PhD, Folklore

This thesis is accepted by the Dean of Graduate Studies

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

September, 2010

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A thesis examining how it bluegrass-a thoroughly global form of music-is rendered locally meaningful in the Maritime bluegrass festival scene. Inspired by recent experimentations in ethnographic writing, this thesis examines particular aspects of the sociality and musicality of Maritime bluegrass festivals in order to show that these regional manifestations of a global form of music are rendered locally meaningful in two distinct ways: 1) through sustained, positive social interaction that fosters a sense of community, and 2) through the incorporation of elements of non-bluegrass musics that prove personally meaningful to

Maritime festivalgoers. Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Drs. Peter G. Toner and Daniel Downes, both for their guidance throughout the process of researching and writing this thesis and for providing me with engaging employment as a research assistant.

I would also like to thank both the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Council (SSHRC) and the University of New Brunswick for providing the funding that made the project possible to undertake. Last, but not least, I would like to thank the Maritime festivalgoers who participated in the research process and made it such a pleasant and memorable experience.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

1.0 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 CONTEXT. 7 1.2 THEORETICAL ORIENTATION & METHODOLOGY... 21

2.0 AN EVENING ATA MARITIME BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL 48

3.0 ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION 114 3.1 SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS 120 3.2 SOUND RELATIONSHIPS 147 3.3 CONCLUSION 165

4.0 REFERENCES CITED 174

APPENDIX A 178

iv 1.0 -INTRODUCTION

"You can't play that Bill Monroe song; it's not bluegrass!" is something you might have heard if you tried to play 'It's Me Again Lord' at the weekly

Bluegrass Friends jam sessions in New Brunswick's port city of Saint John. If you stepped up to the microphone to play this song with an accordion in hand, you may very well have been ejected from the building. However, the weekly bluegrass jam sessions where you might have experienced this came to an end at the end of the summer in 2008. There is a website and a blog1 published by the jam's coordinator dedicated largely to facilitating communication between jam participants, and much of the controversy that led to the jam's demise is publicly available on its discussion forums2. (At times, access to these online resources has been inconsistent so, as a precautionary measure, I have archived much of their content. Where relevant, some of that content will be made available on an accompanying supplementary disc?.) The premise of these jams was to get together to make traditional bluegrass music; to make what its coordinator and a select few of its participants referred to as real bluegrass music, which I understand to be synonymous with authentic bluegrass music. Ultimately, it seems that a few people striving for authenticity ended up making it difficult for others to participate in more personally

1 Bluegrass Friends website: http://www.bluearassfriends.com Bluegrass Friends blog: http://bluearassfriends.blogspot.com

2 Bluegrass Friends forums: http://bluearassfriends.com/forum

3 My concern with this particular jam and preserving the content of its website is not to criticize its coordinator and committee. Having not been there in person, I feel as though I cannot treat the issue with too heavy a hand; it is simply meant to serve as a rhetorical device to help frame the issues dealt with in this thesis. meaningful ways. One older fellow who is well known in the world of Maritime bluegrass4 said, 'They were trying to hold it to bluegrass. I went down a couple times and I think the third time I was there I was so confused as to what to play that I never got up, because it's hard to know in the traditionalists' mind what is bluegrass and what isn't." Apparently, the jam's strict rules simply proved too intimidating for some of its attendees, especially ones like this fellow, who admits to being delighted when bluegrass musicians play 'outside the box'. To be fair, there is a flip side to this coin. According to posts in the Bluegrass

Friends forums, some people's desire to participate in personally meaningful ways (playing whatever songs they liked) made it difficult for those who wanted to play real bluegrass music to feel as though they were at a real bluegrass jam session. Nonetheless, in the case of Maritime bluegrass, there exists a happy medium between authenticity and hybridity.

The first and most important rule5 of the jam sessions was that only bluegrass music was allowed to be played. The rules clearly stated that people guilty of breaking this rule consistently would simply be skipped over when their turn came to choose a song. However, defining exactly what constitutes 'real bluegrass music' (as the jam's coordinator and other committee members put it) is not an easy task. To this end, the four-person committee took it upon themselves to personally listen to and evaluate a list of over 2,400 popular songs to determine whether or not they constituted examples of traditional

4 Identity omitted at researcher's discretion.

5 Fig. 1.1 on supplementary disc

2 bluegrass music. What is interesting is that the process of evaluation was carried out without any concrete qualitative criteria. Whether or not a song was sufficiently bluegrass or not was almost entirely at the discretion of the committee's members (there were six very general criteria: 1) newgrass is not allowed, 2) set aside personal preferences, 3) no favouring of artists, 4) ignore song titles, 5) evaluate each song on its own merit, and 6) leave the feelings of other people out of the equation6). The guidelines also urge committee members to consider whether the vocal style employed is more country-like than it is bluegrass, implying that a country-like vocal aesthetic compromises the authenticity of the song in question. (This is particularly interesting since this study situates a country-like vocal aesthetic as a prominent feature of the

Maritime bluegrass festival scene and, furthermore, as one that does not compromise the authenticity of the music.) The result of the committee's evaluations of songs was not only a list of acceptable songs7, but also a list of

songs disallowed on the basis of not being sufficiently authentic bluegrass

music?. In other words, people who did not play what a four-person committee considered to be authentic bluegrass would be marginalized in the Bluegrass

Friends jam. Many of the songs listed as non-bluegrass songs straddle the line

between country music and bluegrass music, while many others are a

progressive form of bluegrass known as 'newgrass'. What is most interesting is

the appearance of Bill Monroe's song "It's Me Again Lord" on the list of non-

6 Fig. 1.2 on supplementary disc

7 Fig. 1.3 on supplementary disc

8 Fig. 1.4 on supplementary disc

3 bluegrass songs. Since it was Monroe's use of the term 'bluegrass' to describe his own unique and inherently eclectic style of music that subsequently gave the genre its name in the first place, disallowing any of his songs seems to amount to a claim of being more Catholic than the pope.

The rules of the jam session also state that only traditional bluegrass instruments may be used. The same four-person committee defines traditional bluegrass instrumentation as comprising five-string banjo, acoustic guitar, resophonic guitar (dobro), mandolin, fiddle, and upright bass. The accordion appears on a list of instruments disallowed in these jams, which is curious because of its use on some recordings by Bill Monroe, the individual widely hailed as the father of bluegrass music. The rules concerning instrumentation clearly state that should a person refuse to comply with them they will be asked to leave. However, in the end it was the jam's coordinator who ended up leaving.

The private details remain unknown, but the coordinator of the jams discontinued his involvement and said that the jams were just not working.

Based upon forum posts on this topic and conversations with people who had attended the jams, the reason for the jam's failure seems to be participants' inability to follow the rules or, to put it differently, their reluctance or inability to conform to the coordinator's self-proclaimed 'purist' views of bluegrass tradition.

More specifically, it appears as though repertoire was the crux of the problem more so than instrumentation. While the jam's coordinator may have had too

strict a view on what should be allowed on the 'acceptable music list', there are

4 definitely some songs that have no place in a bluegrass-oriented jam, and it appears as though these types of songs may have been showing up too often.

However, after the demise of the Bluegrass Friends jams, weekly jams were scheduled to take place as they always have, just not under the auspices of the former coordinator and his rules. In theory, people may continue to congregate with the intention to play bluegrass music, but they would no longer have to choose from a list of songs predetermined to be acceptable, nor would their participation restricted to six musical instruments. In short, without having to conform to a purist view of the tradition, individuals have more freedom to participate in bluegrass music making in more personally meaningful ways; they may even play 'It's Me Again Lord' with accordion accompaniment. Whether or not people would actually find the happy medium between authenticity and hybridity in the aftermath of these failed jam sessions is beside the point. The points I ultimately seek to make about these jam sessions are that a happy medium between authenticity and hybridity does, indeed, exist and, moreover, that the musical products of negotiating the tension between the two imbue

Maritime bluegrass with a regional character that renders it meaningful in the region.

5 Through a pointed and somewhat unconventional ethnography of bluegrass festivalgoers9 in the Canadian Maritimes10, this thesis highlights an important aspect of the functioning (and, thus, continuity) of bluegrass tradition in the region: it is not as important for bluegrass tradition to remain unaltered as it is for it to remain meaningful to those who participate in it. Taking meaningful participation as the lifeblood of a tradition11, the aim of this thesis is to show how it is that Maritimers' participation in this now fully globalized form of music is rendered locally meaningful. My contention is that Maritime festivalgoers do so in two distinct ways: 1) through sustained, positive social interaction that fosters a sense of community and 2) through incorporating elements of non-bluegrass musics that prove personally meaningful. The focus of this thesis is part of a larger over-arching concern in ethnomusicology, which is aimed at understanding how regional manifestations of globalized forms of music acquire local meaning. In the conclusion of this study I revisit the failed Bluegrass

Friends jam sessions and, based on information gleaned herein, I suggest how

9 'Festivalgoer' is a catch-all term I use to describe anyone who participates in bluegrass festivals and it includes, but is not limited to: festival patrons, amateur musicians, semi- professional and professional musicians, festival organizers, promoters, emcees, festival volunteers, etc. It is important to note that many Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers occupy a number of these roles simultaneously.

10 The Maritime Provinces of Canada comprise three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.

11 See Trevor-Roper (1983) for a detailed examination of the traditional dress of Highland Scotland; a tradition of dress that, despite the fact that its far-more-recent-than-professed invention and several drastic changes are well documented, is nonetheless participated in meaningfully by its bearers without any sense of inauthenticity. Traditions persist not because they are old and remain unchanged, but simply because they continue to be employed in meaningful ways by the individuals who participate in them.

6 its coordinator might have been able to keep it real bluegrass without interfering with individuals' ability to participate in personally meaningful ways.

1.1 - Context

For well over half a century, ethnomusicologists have been concerned with the role of music in human sociality (see Keil 1979, Feld 1982, Seeger 1987 and

Berliner 1993) and a central concern has been how relatively homogeneous folk groups' musical traditions prove locally meaningful. In investigating these concerns, ethnomusicologists have emphasized musical performances as particularly fruitful sites for interrogating the relationships between music and society and, more specifically, understanding the creation of music that proves meaningful to the particular groups of people who make it. As of late, unique modes of sociality are emerging because of our existence within a thoroughly global system and, as a result, scholars have identified some relatively unconventional objects of study. Ethnomusicology is no longer strictly concerned with a relatively homogeneous folk group's musical tradition and its role in processes such as constructing and expressing social identities and producing meaning for people's lives. No longer necessarily confined to such groups, a musical tradition can exist all over the world and be taken up and made locally meaningful by more heterogeneous, less easily demarcated groups of people. In short, groups of people can take up a now-global musical tradition that has its primary origins elsewhere and render it locally meaningful, thus creating a sense of ownership over a musical tradition that is not strictly

7 theirs (see Meintjes 2003, Samuels 1999, 2004). A prime example is Samuels' work among Apache on the San Carlos reservation. Samuels notes how through repeatedly listening to and performing non-traditional, non-Apache popular music, the Apache infuse well-known rock, country, and reggae songs with a feelingful sense of their history (2004). As time goes on and the songs are heard and performed more and more times they become more intricately woven into

Apache historical consciousness. The long-standing and vibrant bluegrass scene in the Canadian Maritimes represents a perfect example of the type of subject matter to which ethnomusicology has turned in recent years, not only because it is an imported musical form, but also because of the high degree of

Franco-Canadian involvement in what began as an Anglo-American form of music. Because there are not yet any scholarly studies on this rich musical community in the Maritimes, the present study is predominantly ethnographic; it seeks to evoke particular aspects of a musical community that happen to shed some light on present concerns in the discipline of ethnomusicology. However, before going on to discuss the particulars of the Maritime bluegrass scene, it is necessary to give a brief theoretical overview of the concept of 'tradition' and how it is employed in this study. Thereafter, I provide a short history of the development of bluegrass in order to illuminate its curious position as both a traditional music and a fully globalized form taken up and used meaningfully by various ethnic and cultural groups, many of whom are 'outsiders' to both the region and cultural context within which bluegrass originated.

8 Handler and Linnekin have posited that there is a commonsense meaning of tradition: an inherited body of customs and beliefs (1984:273, emphasis mine).

The language used in this definition is very telling because it highlights a presupposition inherent in popular conceptions of traditions: that they are fundamentally entitative things (tradition-as-entity). Within this framework, a tradition is seen as a bounded entity with a definitive essence apart from subjective interpretations of it (Handler and Linnekin 1984:279). Following in this vein, the authenticity of a tradition is equated with the unadulterated transmission through time of its essential elements (Handler 1986; Handler and

Linnekin 1984) or, in other words, a lack of change. This view of tradition is problematic because it consistently objectifies non-objects (Handler and

Linnekin 1984:275). The result is that "tradition" is often employed as an objective, positivist discourse about its inherently diffuse and subjective content, and this reification compels individuals both to view it as static make value judgements about particular manifestations of it (which might even result in lists of songs that are and are not acceptable elements of a particular musical tradition). Although this conventional view of tradition seems to be most popular outside of the academy, it was once a conventional part of various academic discourses. Making value judgments about particular manifestations of tradition is not bad in and of itself, but when those judgments are based upon an entitative conception of tradition they serve to obfuscate how it is that traditions actually function.

9 If we look closely at most traditions, then we see something very different than A. L. Kroeber's 'internal handing on through time' (1948:411). In my previous research (Andrews 2007), I have shown that traditions' mechanism of transmission is better described as an intersubjective creation through time

(tradition-as-process). This is not to suggest that there are not enduring characteristics that get passed along as part of a tradition, it is simply meant to highlight the nature of tradition as fluid, collaborative and, ultimately, a subjective process of interpretation (Small 2004:90, Peterson 2005:1083-1086).

Traditions are ongoing processes of cultural construction that occur everywhere and always have. Despite the fact that some traditions have been around for longer than others, and that some may have changed less drastically than others over time, there remains no means of establishing a measure of objective authenticity; all traditions are traditions-in-progress. We must be critical of claims to objective authenticity for they serve only to hierarchize inherently relative things. The concept of objective authenticity is not fully applicable in the study of traditions because there is no standard of measure. Yet, because authenticity figures prominently in the discourse of individuals involved in musical traditions, its subjective formulations are inherently meaningful and their implications must be taken into consideration. Therefore, we should not be surprised that the coordinator of the failed bluegrass jams in Saint John held such a hard line view of bluegrass tradition, nor could we rightfully say that he

was mistaken in doing so, for everyone is entitled to their subjective conceptions

of the traditions in which they participate. However, there may be grounds to say

10 that he was mistaken to impose his own view of bluegrass tradition on others, as doing so implies a claim to objective authenticity. Thus, despite the fact that the concept of objective authenticity represents an intellectual red herring, interrogating subjective formulations of authenticity may nonetheless illuminate complex social interactions. In this case-according to various sources-the failure of weekly bluegrass jam sessions in Saint John was ultimately due to a disjuncture between theory and practice concerning bluegrass music. The disjuncture, itself, hinges upon subjective formulations of authenticity: what individuals believe they can rightly play under the rubric of bluegrass music proper. Individuals seek to enact bluegrass in practice so that it correlates directly with how they view bluegrass in theory; some of those individuals see the tradition as entitative and static while others see it as collaborative and processual. However, I intend to show herein how the tension created by individuals' differing views of bluegrass tradition can and does serve as a pillar bolstering its continuity in the Maritimes. To be more specific, individuals who hold views that lie near the conservative end of the authenticity spectrum police the tradition, ensuring that manifestations thereof remain recognizable (thereby establishing a sense of continuity with the past). On the other hand, individuals who hold views of tradition that lie closer the progressive end of the authenticity spectrum are constantly re-interpreting tradition, ensuring that contemporary manifestations continue to prove meaningful (thereby saving the tradition from becoming nothing more than a relic). In order to substantiate this claim it is necessary to present the study of Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers and their

11 practices alongside a conventional, entitative understanding of bluegrass tradition as it has been established by the historical record; only then will the productive dialectical tension partially responsible for rendering bluegrass music locally meaningful in this region become explicitly clear. The particulars of my ethnographic study of Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers will also render explicitly clear another pillar bolstering the continuity of bluegrass tradition in the

Maritimes: the highly communal nature of the social interaction experienced at bluegrass festivals.

Bluegrass is a distinct genre of music that came into being between 1939 and 1948 with one particular American 'hillbilly' musical group at the centre of it all: Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. It was at the end of 1938 when Bill

Monroe assembled this group, which he named after his home, the blue grass state of Kentucky (Rosenberg 2005:42). Monroe's music was a fusion of older string band music and then-contemporary popular hillbilly songs; his repertoire included the various types of songs he had learned in western Kentucky as well as his own compositions and covers of popular contemporary hillbilly and gospel quartet songs (ibid.:44-47). Monroe's fusion, however, was a natural one. Posen

(1993:127) states that musical contexts mix all the time and mutually influence one another. Having been exposed to music in numerous contexts, it seems logical that Monroe's own music would traverse the boundaries between those contexts in order to be both personally satisfying and commercially viable.

Although Monroe's music was innovative, it is apparent how its innovative

12 nature was a logical extension of his life; it was a representation of his subjectivity in that time and place.

In 1945, the first ever banjo solo was recorded by Monroe's group

(Rosenberg 2005:62). The recording session also gave rise to an instrumental called "Blue Grass Special" where every musician in the group took a lead break

(ibid.). This turn taking for lead breaks was an innovative feature that would become an enduring aspect of bluegrass performance. At the end of 1945,

Monroe's music changed significantly when he employed guitarist Lester Flatt and banjoist Earl Scruggs. Flatt's guitar playing was smoother and more syncopated (stressing the "off" beats) compared to previous guitarists in the

Blue Grass Boys (ibid.:69). Earl Scruggs was the first banjoist in Monroe's group to play in the three-finger style. By using his thumb, index and middle fingers to pick the strings, Scruggs attained the flexibility required to play faster, clearer melodies (Smith 1965:252). Both Scruggs' banjo style and Flatt's thoroughly syncopated guitar work were new additions to Monroe's sound and remain characteristic of bluegrass music to this day. Like earlier hillbilly music, the instrumentation consisted of all acoustic instruments: the fiddle, mandolin and banjo to play the melodies and the guitar and the string bass for harmonic backing. The singing style was a mix of solo sections and harmony singing that employed up to four parts. Many people feel that the sound of this particular incarnation of the Blue Grass Boys—with Flatt's syncopated guitar rhythms and

Scruggs' virtuosic banjo style—serves as the archetype for bluegrass music.

(When individuals hold purist views of bluegrass, it seems to be this archetype

13 that they have in mind.) Indeed, twenty years later Smith's article entitled "An

Introduction to Bluegrass" (1965) described the music in terms of the musical characteristics exhibited in Monroe's group at this time. In his article, Smith referred to the instrumentation of Monroe's 1946 to 1948 group (which included

Flatt and Scruggs) as 'the usual group' of instruments used to produce bluegrass music (ibid.:246). Moreover, Smith described the playing style for the instruments and it, too, mirrored the 1946 to 1948 Blue Grass Boys. Even though twenty years had passed since Flatt and Scruggs first joined Monroe's

Group, Smith's survey of the abundance of bluegrass music that existed found it to be consistently emulating the sound of Monroe's group from 1946 to 1948.

In 1948, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Monroe's group and formed

"Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys"-a group wherein 4 of the 5 members were once Blue Grass Boys (Rosenberg 2005:80).

Unsurprisingly, this group's sound was very similar to that of Monroe's group.

This same year a group called "The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain

Boys" adapted their sound to closely resemble that of Monroe's group (the version that included Flatt and Scruggs). Other groups were emulating Monroe's sound at this time too (ibid.:85-86). During 1948, the Stanley Brothers recorded a version of a tune they got from Monroe called 'Molly and Tenbrooks'—it was the first recording released to emulate so closely the sound of Monroe's 1946 to

1948 band. The Stanley Brothers' recording and subsequent release of this tune effectively marked the transition of "bluegrass" from being the sound of

14 Monroe's band to a proper genre of music (ibid.:85). Although bluegrass may have become a genre in practice, it had yet to be widely recognized as such.

The instrumentation, repertoire, and performance of bluegrass closely resembled that of country musics and, up until 1957, the music industry considered bluegrass to be just that—country music (ibid.:95). The textual content of bluegrass songs was in line with that of the earlier hillbilly musics that came to be known as 'country music'; they commonly dealt with religious experiences, love, death and tended to yearn for one's rural home or parents

(Smith 1965:249). In addition, like the majority of country music, bluegrass used only acoustic instruments. However, throughout the 1950s bluegrass would become less like contemporary country music without changing whatsoever.

Various print media sources recognized bluegrass as a distinct genre of music from 1957 onward (Rosenberg 2005:111). By this time, a phenomenon known as the "Nashville Sound" had all but taken over country music. Banjos, mandolins, fiddles and dobros were no longer considered part of a marketable country music sound; drums, electric guitars and pianos were taking their place

(ibid. :133). With the dominance of the Nashville sound in country music, anything that did not conform to its criteria now appeared to be old-fashioned

(whereas, before, it had simply been contemporary country music). Bluegrass remained an acoustic music in the face of the dominance of the Nashville sound and, thus, its instruments were no longer strictly of practical use—that is to say, they were no longer necessarily concomitant to being a country music practitioner. Following Hobsbawm (1983:4), the liberation of acoustic stringed

15 instruments from practical use for country music practitioners allowed their use in bluegrass to be infused with potent symbolism that greatly aided in the traditionalizing of the genre. A form of music that was considered innovative country music only a decade earlier suddenly appeared old fashioned in the face of the Nashville sound. If country music now used drums, electric guitars and pianos then the possibility arose to perceive bluegrass as being not country.

An entirely new demographic of people took a great interest in bluegrass around this time because of its ability to be discursively situated as an authentic folk music: folk revivalists.

The bifurcation of bluegrass—its existence as both a country and a folk music—seems to have taken place in 1957 when it was recognized as such in print media for the first time in the liner notes of the album "American Banjo

Scruggs Style." This album was produced by folk music revivalists and represents the first full length LP of bluegrass music. In the context of the country music industry, bluegrass had always been released on records that had only two songs—about six minutes worth of music (Rosenberg 2005:110).

Within the context of folk music, bluegrass was no longer a genre that existed solely on six-minute singles and it would no longer be played principally for rural working class audiences on Sunday afternoons at country music parks. The revivalists responsible for the introduction of bluegrass into the world of folk music downplayed the fact that the music's pioneers were Opry stars (since it was a country music forum) and, instead, emphasized the music's special instrumentation and repertoire (ibid.:110-112). In this way, bluegrass

16 transcended its status as hillbilly music and was touted as modern folk music.

This new perception was relatively easily instilled in folksong consumers because the popularity of the Nashville sound distanced bluegrass from the country music industry and, moreover, bluegrass had always exhibited characteristics of pre-existing folk music traditions anyhow.

Bluegrass music's experience with the folk music industry was similar to its experience with the country music industry; both were a 'mushroom effect' wherein the industries' interest in the music was widespread, but waned as the music's novelty wore off and new, more novel acts emerged. By 1965 the producers of folk music had been experimenting with electric "folk- rock" and, once again, the acoustic nature of bluegrass music caused it to be somewhat forgotten by an industry that once fostered its growth (ibid.:195). As was the case with the country music industry, the folk music industry's cultivation of electrified instrumentation liberated the acoustic instrumentation of bluegrass from practical use, for it was no longer the required instrumentation of a folk music practitioner. The popularity of electrified instruments in both country music and folk music may have served to alienate bluegrass from their respective industries, but it also helped greatly to situate bluegrass music as traditional.

When changes took place in the industries that fostered bluegrass, its practitioners' refusal to follow suit was a choice to adhere to precedent. Given that authenticity of traditions is commonly equated with the transmission through time of their essential elements, bluegrass practitioners' choice to adhere to precedent gave the appearance of enduring essential elements associated with

17 their tradition—namely its rather specific acoustic instrumentation. Despite being alienated once again by an industry that fostered its growth, this time bluegrass music did not need to find a pre-existing niche to bolster it. The music was coming to have an industry and context of its own.

The first bluegrass festival took place in Fincastle, Virginia on September

3rd through 5th, 1965, and was called the "Roanoke Bluegrass Festival." This first festival would serve as the model for nearly all the festivals in the years to follow (ibid. :203). At the festival, it was publicly announced in a story about the genre's origins that bluegrass was defined by its special syncopated rhythm

(ibid.:209,216). At present, the syncopated rhythm of bluegrass remains one of its fundamental defining characteristics and, in the context of the Maritimes, so, too, does the conventional acoustic instrumentation that endured the electrification of the country and folk music industries. What is interesting is that, while the first bluegrass festival was held in Virginia in 1965, by the early 1970s there were festivals being held in Canada, Japan and Australia as well. In addition to continuing to burgeon in these countries in the present, bluegrass also has a presence in various parts of the United Kingdom, France, the Czech

Republic and New Zealand, to name only a few of the countless regions and countries throughout the world that exhibit bluegrass activity. In short, although bluegrass is now a worldwide phenomenon, it was less than sixty years ago that bluegrass was nothing more than the unique sound exhibited by a single musical group in the American South. The marked speed and breadth of the tradition's proliferation begs some questions: How does a musical tradition

18 become a fully globalized form of music and yet retain its status as traditional

(as opposed to being simply a genre of popular music)? If a tradition's continuity is founded on its meaningfulness to those who participate in it, then how do

'outsider' groups such as Canadian Maritimers render it locally meaningful in its new context? This ethnographic study focuses on the sociality and musical practices of bluegrass festivalgoers in the Maritimes to shed some light on the questions I have just raised. However, because the present study is of only one of the countless regions in the world wherein bluegrass music is used meaningfully, the aim is not to provide answers to these questions that hold true cross-culturally but, rather, to understand how one regional manifestation of a global form of music retains its status as traditional and proves meaningful to those involved in its production and consumption.

Maritime artists produced commercial recordings of bluegrass music as early as the 1950s (Isenor 2008, pers. comm.)-around the same time that bluegrass was first widely recognized as distinct genre of music in print media. Therefore, we know that bluegrass music has been a part of the Maritimes' musical landscape for much of its existence as a genre of music. Yet, despite its relatively long-standing and continuing existence as a significant aspect of the region's musical and cultural landscape, there have been no large-scale scholarly studies of bluegrass music and the social context that accompanies it.

This study seeks to begin the advancement of scholarly knowledge about bluegrass music in the Maritime Provinces as it represents a distinct regional manifestation of a thoroughly global form of music. In the region at present,

19 bluegrass music is performed in several contexts, including single-day or evening concerts (often called 'jamborees') and formal jam sessions like the one mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. However, the weekend-long bluegrass festival / campout12 is the context that, for a number of reasons that will be fleshed out in this study, exhibits the most concentrated and meaningful bluegrass activity. In East Coast Breakdown, a documentary film about bluegrass in the Maritimes, one individual says, "In the summertime we try to get ten to twelve festivals. Well, pretty well every weekend we're gone" (Hemmings 2004). Experience has shown that there are countless other individuals in the Maritime region who attend bluegrass festivals with a similar zeal. In reflecting upon his many years of experience attending and performing at festivals in the Maritimes, John Jeffries, a veteran musician in the region's bluegrass scene, is able to provide some insight on the dedication that so many festivalgoers exhibit:

There's a raft of people that sing and play from all over the country and outlying areas, far and wide. The festival was a vehicle where they could get together, meet one another, make friends and acquaintances. It wasn't too long until you really, really looked forward to the summer to get to the festivals again; not just because of the music, but because of people; people that you've met, people

12 Although it is not written in stone, there is a strong tendency in the Maritimes to differentiate between bluegrass 'festivals' and bluegrass 'campouts'. Festivals exhibit stage shows comprising paid acts; if there is any audience participation in providing the entertainment for the stage show at all, it is restricted to an open mic session generally held at the beginning or end of the weekend. Campouts are differentiated from festivals based on the fact that their stage show does not comprise any paid acts. The entertainment on the campout stage consists of impromptu performances by groups comprising amateur enthusiasts who come together as a result of jamming together throughout the weekend; all they need to do to perform on stage is put their names down next to an available time slot on a sign-up sheet. In theory, absolutely anyone can perform on-stage at any point during the weekend at a Maritime bluegrass campout. Other than the difference in the level of audience participation in providing the on-stage entertainment, the general form of the two events are, in essence, one and the same.

20 that you jam with, people that you want to see and hear again (John Jeffries 2008).

Because of many individuals' preference for the unique context afforded by the festival / campout and the fact that the Maritimes plays host to several dozen such events from late May through early September, these events were chosen as the field sites for the collection of ethnographic data.

1.2 - Theoretical Orientation and Methodology

Joseph Gusfield notes that the term 'community' has two meanings: a territorial one wherein a community is a location that exhibits geographical continuity, and a relational one wherein community is a sentiment or characteristic of human relationships based upon bonds of similarity (1975:xv- xvi). Gusfield goes on to posit that a common territory and a homogeneous culture are two preconditions for community (ibid.:31 -33), implying that the two forms he outlines (community-as-territory and community-as-sentiment) are to be found in a fixed locale. The majority of ethnographic research undertaken throughout most of the twentieth century certainly adhered to this idea.

However, only a few decades after Gusfield's work on community it appears as though the fundamental defining characteristic of 'community' could better be described simply as presence of a communal sentiment among a group of individuals. (I follow Lowe (2000:360) and Christenson (1979) in defining communal sentiment as "the subjective measure of positive feelings that group members have for each other and their community.") Gardner (2004:157-158) cites recent studies of computer-mediated discussion groups,

21 cybercommunities, and anti-individualist tribes as proof that an apparent waning of traditional forms of community is not to be equated with a decrease in communal sentiment being shared among individuals. 'Community' is no longer simply a place, it must now be thought of more broadly as an experiential domain. In short, it is through transcending the conventional notion that communities must necessarily be defined by a shared locality and/or a homogeneous culture that opens the door for an ethnographic study of Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers as a proper community. Despite the dispersed and sporadic nature of Maritime bluegrass festival activity, there is no doubt that there is a high degree of communal sentiment among participants therein.

Gardner's (2004) study, 'The Portable Community: Mobility and

Modernization in Bluegrass Festival Life," is based on six years of participation in the Rocky Mountain bluegrass scene. In his study, Gardner posits that individuals who frequent festivals do, indeed, constitute a novel manifestation of community: a portable one. Gardner's treatment of the Rocky Mountain scene as a portable community is in keeping with current scholarship on novel and meaningful cultural groupings. Thomas Turino notes how 'culture' is not a unified entity but rather a realm in which individuals may band together based upon any number of subjective similarities and goes on to cite bikers and bluegrass aficionados as two such possibilities (2008:111-112). Turino refers to these cultural groupings that band together primarily on the basis of shared interests as cultural cohorts (ibid.), and they serve to show that meaningful banding together does not require a shared locality in the strict sense of the

22 term. Gardner notes how conventional understandings of community presuppose spatial definitions that, when measured against emergent forms predicated on personal mobility and transience, simply fail to cover the gamut of contemporary manifestations of community. Gardner posits that portable communities, such as those experienced by regular attendees of bluegrass festivals, are emergent creations of gemeinschaft3 that people create because they perceive there to be too great an emphasis on gesellschaft relations in their everyday lives. Gardner also posits that this perceived emphasis on gesellschaft relations leads to feelings of alienation and isolation, which participation in the bluegrass festival scene mitigates (2004:156), which is the same conclusion that

Turino reached concerning the effect of many individuals' participation in oldtime music and dance cohorts (2008:161). Gardner's findings concerning the portable community of bluegrass festivalgoers are in keeping with Lowe's findings concerning territorially bounded communities: that mutual participation in artistic endeavours is an effective means of fostering communal sentiments

(2000). Concerning portable communities, Gardner says:

They surface in multiple locales but take on a strikingly similar form and logic that is instantly familiar to its members. With relative ease, members can connect and bond with others without having formal contacts or institutional relationships to establish initial entree into the setting (ibid.: 156)

13 Gemeinschaft and gesellschaft are concepts popularized by German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies. Gemeinschaft refers to 'communal society', which is often translated simply as 'community', and gesellschaft refers to 'rational society', which is often translated simply as 'society'. Gemeinschaft relations are characterized as warm and emotional while gesellschaft relations are characterized as cold and rational.

23 Gardner goes on to posit that individuals' participation in the festival circuit offers them a rich history and tradition that, following sustained participation, yields memories they will cherish and talk of fondly. Gardner characterizes these communities as open, diverse, and despite their novel and emergent nature, as possessing many of the standard features of more conventional forms of community such as intimacy, emotional depth, moral commitment, and social cohesion (ibid.:156). John Jeffries account of the bluegrass festival as a vehicle for meaningful social interaction echoes Gardner's fundamental claim that:

Individuals participate in [the bluegrass] community for reasons that transcend the music itself and that encompass the bluegrass festival as an intimate and communal cultural experience. Its members respond to the difficulties of finding community at home by forming networks and bonds that simulate traditional forms of community life. Though temporary and transitory, these communal relations fill a void in their lives (ibid.:157).

It is apparent that studying a community that transcends conventional locality- based conceptions of what a community is calls for a similarly unconventional ethnographic approach.

Conventional ethnographic research involves 'being there'; choosing a community to study and essentially living within it as a member of it. Since the

Maritime bluegrass community crystallizes at the dozens of bluegrass festivals and campouts held throughout the region during the summer months, it occupies various geographical locations for relatively short periods of time, thus making it not only impractical, but impossible to choose a single location as a fieldwork site. Marcus' concept of the multi-sited ethnography is a novel approach to ethnographic research that proves highly useful for interrogating, among other things, emergent manifestations of community that cannot be

24 defined in terms of a single geographic location (1998:79-104). Marcus developed the concept of the multi-sited ethnography to mitigate the ever growing shortcomings of the established anthropological orthodoxy of single- sited ethnography, which can only be referred to as such since Marcus articulated his multi-sited approach.(Previously, single-sited ethnography was simply ethnographic orthodoxy.) However, since the inception of anthropology and its concomitant emphasis on fieldwork, the 'work' has changed little while the 'field' scarcely remains the same. Countless technological advances, especially those in the transportation industry, have yielded a planet that shrinks with each passing day (figuratively speaking, of course). With the advent fibre- optic technology information travels at the speed of light, and so what goes on in one corner of the planet can be made known on a global scale within minutes.

Today's world is one wherein the ease with which people and information travel is, by orders of magnitude, at an unprecedentedly high level. This unprecedented mobility of people and information calls for a re-thinking of ethnographic methods. First, as Gardner (2004) shows in his study of the Rocky

Mountain bluegrass scene as a kind of portable community, despite making good use of unprecedentedly high levels of personal mobility, people can nonetheless engage in and sustain highly communal relations with others while traveling away from home. For festivalgoers in the Rocky Mountain scene, their sense of community can be packed up with their lawn chairs and brought with them from one bluegrass festival to the next. Second, even individuals who do not consistently travel outside of their home locality can participate in novel

25 forms of community. The unprecedented mobility of information has led to countless new possibilities for communities that exist principally in the minds of their members; ones that simply cannot be defined in terms of shared locality.

For example, internet forums allow individuals to engage in and sustain meaningful sociality with others based upon shared interests, regardless of their members' respective geographical locations. The shared interests upon which meaningful interactions and communal sentiments are based could be anything from organic gardening to weight lifting or salmon fishing. In my father's case, after three decades of photography being an all-but-solitary endeavour, he began participating in an online forum for professional photographers. Four years and thousands of posts later, my father considers certain other members of the forum to be friends whose advice and constructive criticism he values highly, all without ever having met them (which is not to say that he has not spent countless hours with them). In short, the high degree of mobility afforded to both people and information in the contemporary world has led to the construction of individuals' social worlds as being now, more so than ever, multiply-situated; it is for this reason that Marcus developed the concept of the multi-sited ethnography.

So how is Marcus' concept of multi-sited ethnography different from conventional ethnographic approaches? In keeping with the postmodern turn in ethnographic writing (which will be dealt with shortly), Marcus provides not a prescriptive body of methods but, rather, a number of examples of how one might go about pursuing a multi-sited ethnography, leaving the approach chosen

26 in each particular case up to the discretion of the ethnographer. In doing so,

Marcus implicitly acknowledges that different subjects or contexts may call for drastically different approaches. Some of the things that Marcus suggests an ethnographer might follow through various sites are: people; things; metaphors; plots, stories, or allegories; lives or biographies; and conflicts (1998:90-95).

Because many Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers are on the move, traveling from one festival to the next throughout the summer, I traveled with them and adhered to Marcus' advice to follow the people (ibid.:90).

As a result, this study is based on eleven bluegrass festivals and campouts that I attended in the Maritimes throughout the summers of 2008 and 2009. In chronological order, the events I attended are as follows: Memramcook Valley

Bluegrass Festival (June 13-15, 2008, Memramcook, NB), Fox Mountain

Bluegrass Festival (June 27-29, 2008, Aylesford, NS), 23rd Annual Prince

Edward Island Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival (July 4-6, 2008, Rollo

Bay, PE), Annual Fredericton Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Association

Campout (July 11-13, 2008, Upper Kingsclear, NB), 37th Annual Nova Scotia

Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Festival (July 24-27, 2008, Stewiacke, NS),

Rogersville Homecoming Bluegrass Festival (August 22-24, 2008, Rogersville

NB), Stewiacke Bluegrass Festival (August 29-31, 2008, Stewiacke, NS), Old

Mill Bluegrass Fall Campout (September 4-7, 2008, Moncton, NB),

Memramcook Valley Bluegrass Festival (June 12-14, 2009, Memramcook, NB),

Rogersville Homecoming Bluegrass Festival (August 28-30, 2009, Rogersville,

27 NB), and the Old Mill Bluegrass Fall Campout (September 10-13, 2009,

Moncton, NB).

Because bluegrass music originated in the context of country music and can to this day be discursively situated as one if its sub styles, I followed

Rosenberg's eight-point methodology for studying country music in the

Maritimes (1976:14-16). A strong emphasis was placed on points one, two, and three, which are, respectively, observation, meeting people, and active participation. In order to fulfill these three points I immersed myself in the community and participated in it fully in order to experience it as its most enthusiastic members do, camping in the midst of the action, meeting new people and socializing with friends I made through my participation in informal jam sessions. Oftentimes I would find a jam wherein I felt comfortable and stay there for the course of the evening after the stage show, but other times I might find myself participating in four or five different jam sessions throughout the course of a full day at an event. While not participating in music making I attempted to make systematic observations of the events: I sketched the layouts of festival grounds, replete with street names where they existed; I documented in photographs various aspects of the events, including stage performances, jam sessions, as well as the spatial organization of various camping and socializing sites; and for many of the stage performances I attended I made set lists of the songs and tunes performed on stage. Lastly, I kept a field journal in which I recorded my observations throughout the course of my fieldwork. In order to fulfill point number four-the collection of printed data-l kept the

28 programs and ad flyers from every event I attended and acquired the ad flyers for most of the other events I was not able to attend. Point number five is the collection of recordings. I acquired only a small number of recordings of local bluegrass groups because of my fundamental concern with the sociality of

Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers. In hindsight, acquiring all of the recordings made available by all of the region's semi-professional bluegrass groups would have surely been a worthwhile investment. However, on a few occasions I brought recording equipment with me to document the on stage performances and, later, I produced a soundscape of an entire bluegrass festival, both of which tend to the sixth point of Rosenberg's technique: the recording of events

(and so, too, did my making of set lists of performances). In addition to emphasizing the first three points of Rosenberg's technique, I also emphasized the seventh: interviewing. Through my active participation and observation within the Maritime bluegrass community, I met and subsequently interviewed a number of key informants who represent bluegrass festivalgoers of all kinds, such as semi-professional musicians who perform regularly, amateur musicians, dedicated festivalgoers, festival organizers, promoters, an emcee, and a luthier; all in an attempt to acquire a more balanced account of the community and its practices. (In my first round of interviews I uncovered a strong tendency for festivalgoers to speak of their association with one another in communal and sometimes familial terms so, following Glaser and Strauss' (1967) concept of grounded theory, I performed subsequent rounds of more pointed interviews in order to more fully interrogate the communal nature of their interactions with one

29 another.) At the end of many of the interviews I asked my informants to perform some of their favourite selections of bluegrass music for me to record. Even though I interviewed a wide variety of festivalgoers, all of my informants were musicians in some capacity and many of them were highly skilled. One retired fellow who has been religiously attending festivals and campouts for over a decade says of community, "Better than fifty-percent play instruments of one kind or another, or sing, and that's what it's about" (Seeley 2009). The post- interview practice of recording interviewees performing songs and tunes fulfilled the eighth and final point of Rosenberg's technique: collecting in the folkloristic sense. In short, though I used all of Rosenberg's points to varying degrees while carrying out this study, I ended up emphasizing observation, meeting people, active participation and interviewing as data collection methods. Finally, though the presentation of my fieldwork comprises an unconventional ethnographic narrative (which will be discussed shortly), aside from the fact that it was carried out in multiple sites, the fieldwork, itself, was carried out according to a well- established and trusted fieldwork methodology.

In the same publication, Rosenberg posits that country music in the Maritimes is a regional variant of country music that reflects Maritime folk culture and presents a 'model' of how this is the case (1976:2). Again, because of the close ties that exist between country music and bluegrass music, I decided to approach my ethnographic study, which seeks to interrogate how bluegrass is rendered locally meaningful in the Maritimes, using Rosenberg's model of how country music is imbued with a regional identity as a guide in both the collection

30 and analysis of my field data. The five components of Rosenberg's model of country music's regional identity in the Maritime Region are: 1) conservatism that demands country repertoire be largely familiar in content, 2) preferences for vocal and instrumental styles that are derived from or influenced by the region's folk performance styles, 3) live country shows that reflect the regional culture and folklore in their content and structure, 4) new elements of style or repertoire introduced into the region by local country music celebrities, and 5) the region's country music not only incorporates local folk repertoire but it also adds to it

(ibid.:2).

The following chapter comprises a somewhat unconventional ethnographic account of Maritime bluegrass in its most potent attendant social context: the bluegrass festival. The ultimate aim of chapter two is to evoke in readers an experience of the structure, content, and sociality of the Maritime bluegrass festival. It is no different than any other ethnographic account in the sense that it attempts to impart to others, through description and analysis, an understanding of a cultural context; how it goes about doing so is what is somewhat unconventional. It is unconventional because its form is inspired by critical discussions of ethnographic writing. Many of the discussions in question are found in a (1986) volume edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus called

Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Writing Culture is a definitive work in what has come to be referred to as 'the reflexive turn' or 'the postmodern turn' that took place in anthropology in the last quarter of the twentieth century The reflexive turn, however, was and remains emergent; it has

31 yet to constitute a complete paradigm shift, nor can we be certain that it ever will. Before going on to discuss the particular form of my unconventional ethnographic account I present the case for constructing the account as I have.

In his classical ethnography Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Bronislaw

Malinowski claimed ethnography needed to be more scientific, stating that students undertaking an ethnographic endeavour must "possess real scientific aims" and "apply a number of special methods of collecting, manipulating and fixing [their] evidence" (1922:2-3,6). It is apparent that Malinowski was calling for a standardization of method which, as hindsight shows, resulted in a standardization of the framing of results. In other words, the long-held modernist view that ethnography was a scientific endeavour led to the establishment of a number of conventions in realist ethnographic writing. As a result of these conventions, Clifford notes that there has been a persistent ideology that holds ethnographic representations to be transparent and allows the immediacy of experience to go unquestioned, but Writing Culture is a collection of essays asserting that this ideology has fallen apart (1986:2). Ethnography was but one of many modernist projects established under the rubric of post-Enlightenment scientific positivism and, as such, there existed a predisposition to view to view its products as objective knowledge obtained through the scientific method.

Taken together, the conventions that arose from this ideology have come to be known as 'ethnographic realism'. Marcus and Cushman note that ethnographic realism is 'a mode of writing that seeks to represent the reality of a whole world or form of life' (1982:29). In other words, many individuals viewed ethnographies

32 as untainted and relatively complete representations of something that existed

'out there' in an objective form-in other words, 'total ethnography'. The discursive authority of realist ethnography is established through a number of writing conventions, one of the most fundamental of which is the narrative structure that gives the 'total ethnography' its appearance of completeness. The typical narrative structure of realist ethnography is apparent in its orthodox table of contents, which both directs readers to authoritative representations of geography, kinship, economics, politics, and religion (ibid.:31), and highlights explicitly and succinctly the grandiose ambitions of this mode of writing. One alternative that Marcus and Cushman propose for the genre of experimental ethnographies is to pose a cultural problem to be addressed through the examination of relevant material (ibid.:31), which is the approach taken in this study. Another fundamental convention in any realist ethnography is to divorce the subjectivity of the author from the objective referent of the text (Clifford

1986:13), which is a rhetorical strategy used to make the account appear completely objective. Marcus and Cushman refer to this rhetorical device as 'the unintrusive presence of the ethnographer in the text' and note that it is achieved through the dominance of objective (omniscient) third-person narration over that of subjective first-person narration (1982:31-32). Subjectivity is further masked in realist ethnography through the use of common denominator people-the marginalizing of individual characters for the sake of scientific objectivity (ibid.:

32). In short, ethnographic realism purports to represent objectively a total reality, but it can never succeed in doing so; it can only appear to do so through

33 the use of various rhetorical devices (for a complete list, see Marcus and

Cushman 1982:31-37).

The conventional ideology concerning ethnography can remain no longer because, as Clifford notes, ethnographies are best viewed as fictions (ibid.:6)- what exists on the pages of an ethnography is, first and foremost, a subjective narrative constructed by a particular individual. Clifford points out, however, that contemporary literary theory no longer necessarily views 'fiction' as carrying a connotation of falsehood or being opposed to the truth (ibid.:6). This idea was echoed by German filmmaker Werner Herzog when he responded to criticisms about fictional elements in his documentaries by stating that sometimes fiction is the best way to get to a 'deeper strata of truth' (Yentob 2008). Even though ethnography-as-fiction may not be opposed to the truth, Clifford does acknowledge that all ethnographic truths are inherently partial (1986:7) and provides a succinct reason for why this is the case:

Cultures do not hold still for their portraits, attempts to make them do so always involve simplification and exclusion, selection and a temporal focus, the construction of a particular self-other relationship, and the imposition or negotiation of a power relationship (ibid.:10).

Both ethnographies' partiality as cultural and historical truths as well as their systematic and exclusive nature lead Clifford to posit that they are best viewed as fiction, but he makes it clear that fiction, in this case, is to be understood in its basic etymological sense as simply being "something made or fashioned" (ibid.:

10). The reaction against ethnographic realism has provided a platform for a whole genre of experimental ethnographies (see Rabinow 1977, Crapanzano

1980, and Faubion 1999). It is interesting to note that the conventional realist

34 ethnographies that have comprised much of twentieth century ethnographic writing may very well be more opposed to the truth than some of the more recent experimentations in anthropological writing. The very reason why conventional realist ethnographies can be viewed as being less truthful than more recent experimentations is because they purport to represent a totality that simply cannot be represented. To varying degrees, recent experimentations in ethnography disregard established writing conventions, but they nonetheless maintain the conventional aim of ethnography: to foster understanding through description and interpretation (Marcus and Cushman 1982:28)-they simply do not purport to be objective and complete.

Implicated in the positioning of ethnography as a scientific endeavour is the idea that its aim, like all other sciences, is to contribute to the aggrandizement and continual refinement of a unified corpus of knowledge. Clifford points out that the problem with such an aim is far more fundamental than the fact that cultures do not hold still for their portraits; he states that there is simply no whole picture to be filled in (ibid. :18), or at least not one that is amenable to phenomenological experience. It seems counterintuitive to have an objective discourse about something that is ostensibly a non-object. However, this is not to say that the object of the discourse does not exist, only that we cannot blindly reify something we can only experience as an abstraction. Furthermore,

accepting ethnography as a scientific mode of knowing invokes the discursive

authority of science, which accords far too much power to ethnographic representations. As Steven Tyler states, "The whole ideology of

35 representational signification is an ideology of power" (1986:131). Tyler is employing a Foucaultian perspective wherein knowledge equals power for some and domination for others. In carrying out a study of Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers there is relatively little danger of producing an account that could later be used against community by either including or omitting culturally sensitive information, but this becomes a much more pressing concern when dealing with disenfranchised groups such as Aboriginal peoples the world over

(see Weiner 1995,1997 and Brunton 1996). The point is, however, that whether or not a particular ethnographic study risks producing knowledge that can be used for oppressive ends, all studies should seek to avoid producing such an account in the first place. This is the main reason that Tyler's essay in Writing

Culture, like others in the volume, insists that ethnography must be stripped of its pretensions to being a scientific mode of knowing: to circumvent the hegemony of representational signification, for it is not necessary for something to be objective and scientific in order to foster understanding. However, implications for oppression aside, Tyler posits that the inability to control ambiguity and subjectivity in ethnography, alone, is more than enough reason to do relegate ethnography to the status of a non-science (Tyler 1986:136). Yet, if we are to circumvent the pitfalls inherent in treating ethnography as a scientific mode of knowing based upon representation, then we must employ an alternative cognitive framework and aim. In the spirit of keeping its criticism constructive, Writing Culture does offer alternatives.

36 What, then, should we employ as an aim and a cognitive framework if our aim is not to aggrandize and refine a corpus of knowledge through producing representations within a modernist framework of scientific positivism? Tyler posits that we should employ a postmodern cognitive framework that acknowledges the ambiguity, subjectivity, partiality and fragmentary nature of ethnographic fieldwork and its subsequent accounts, all while maintaining that the ethnographic project continues to have value. Tyler puts the aim of postmodern ethnography succinctly:

It aims not to foster the growth of knowledge but to restructure experience; not to understand objective reality, for that is already established by common sense, nor to explain how we understand, for that is impossible, but to reassimilate, to reintegrate the self in society and to restructure the conduct of everyday life (ibid.:135).

Tyler posits that the means of achieving this aim is not to represent, but to evoke.

The whole point of "evoking" rather than "representing" is that it frees ethnography from mimesis and the inappropriate mode of scientific rhetoric that entails "objects," "facts," "descriptions," "inductions," "generalizations," "verification," "experiment," "truth," and like concepts that, except as empty invocations, have no parallels either in the experience of ethnographic fieldwork or in the writing of ethnographies (ibid. :130).

The aim of postmodern ethnography is to evoke an understanding through an explicitly subjective experience as opposed to a representing an 'objective' social reality. Unlike the realist ethnographies of the modernist era, which are products in a corpus of knowledge, an ethnographic account produced under the rubric of postmodernism is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end: a transcendental experience that fosters understanding without purporting to

37 represent (Tyler 1986:129). Concerning the nature of postmodern ethnography's transcendence Tyler states

Transcendent then, neither by by theory nor practice, nor by their synthesis, it describes no knowledge and produces no action. It transcends instead by evoking what cannot be known discursively or performed perfectly, though all know it as if discursively and perform it as if perfectly (1986:123, emphasis his).

Although we might expect an outline of a new methodology, or at least the advocation of abandoning the hitherto conventional one, Tyler concludes somewhat paradoxically that there is no such thing as postmodern ethnography

(1986:136). Postmodern ethnography is not a new mode of ethnographic inquiry and writing. Tyler notes that an ethnography may take any number of forms and, by extension, it need not conform to any pre-existing conventions in ethnographic writing. Postmodern ethnography, rather, is a new way to view the ethnographic project: to acknowledge and embrace the ambiguity, subjectivity and partiality involved therein. Tyler states that ethnography is not a record of experience but a means of experience because it evokes what cannot be written: the experience of the reader (1986:138). Paul Rabinow's (1977) book

Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco is a highly-celebrated experimentation in ethnographic writing, though it was not necessarily intended to be. Originally published as a companion to his (1975) book Symbolic Domination: Cultural

Form and Historical Change in Morocco (a conventional ethnography),

Rabinow's Reflections is a highly evocative and personal account of his experiences in Morocco intended to probe the epistemology of fieldwork as a cultural activity. However, in doing so, it became abundantly clear that, despite

38 its breaking with established conventions in ethnographic writing, it was nonetheless highly ethnographic in its descriptive and interpretive nature.

Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco quickly eclipsed Rabinow's conventional ethnography in terms of critical acclaim because of its apparent ability to foster understanding without conforming to well-established conventions. In short, it was Rabinow's emphasis on his own experience rather than 'objective data' that made Reflections stand out as a groundbreaking work in ethnographic writing.

Concerning the evocative and personal style he chose to use in Reflections,

Rabinow says:

At the risk of violating the clan taboos, I argue that all cultural activity is experiential, that fieldwork is a distinctive type of cultural activity, and that it is this activity which defines the discipline. But what should therefore be the very strength of anthropology-its experiential, reflective, and critical activity-has been eliminated as a valid area of inquiry by an attachment to a positivistic view of science, which I find radically inappropriate in a field which claims to study humanity (1977:5).

Not long after the publication of Reflections, Marcus and Cushman noted a trend in very personally written ethnographies and, presumably as a means of accommodating such accounts as legitimate instances of ethnography, have defined the genre broadly as any account resulting from fieldwork (1982:26-27).

Having shown that there exists a precedence for and a receptivity to personally written, evocative ethnographic accounts, I turn now to discuss the particulars of the ethnographic narrative found in the following chapter of this study.

In my ethnographic account I aim not to construct a mimetic narrative about a musical community, for that is the pursuit of realist ethnography. Instead, I aim to evoke in the reader a transcendental experience of a musical community

39 through highlighting some of the mechanics of the artistic tradition upon which its communal sentiments are based. Tyler says, "At best, we make do with a collection of indexical anecdotes or telling particulars with which to portend that larger unity beyond explicit textualization" (Tyler 1986:131), which is what I aim to do with my unconventional ethnographic account of the Maritime bluegrass community in chapter two of this study. Chapter two comprises a 'fictional' narrative describing an evening at a bluegrass festival; one that is interspersed with the voices of real Maritime festivalgoers as a means of allowing the community to speak for itself. The narrative does not describe any one festival in particular but, rather, stands as a composite sketch that draws from all of the festivals and campouts I have attended. The account of my experience seeks not to represent a particular event, nor even an ideal type for that matter.

Rather, the purpose of my account is twofold. Firstly, I seek to evoke in the reader an experience of the sociality encountered with sustained involvement in the Maritime bluegrass community. In doing so, I fulfill my second purpose: to introduce some of particulars that figure prominently in the construction and maintenance of meaning in this regional manifestation of a global form of music

(specific instances of positive sociality that fosters communal sentiment and incorporating elements of non-bluegrass musics). In short, my aim is not 'total ethnography' but, rather, to address the cultural problem of how it is that this global form of music is rendered locally meaningful in the Maritime region. All of the events I describe actually took place, but they did not necessarily happen on the same day, at the same festival, or with the temporal concentration with

40 which they are presented. The events described are not fictional, they simply purposely betray chronology as a means of constructing a particular type of fiction: a polyphonic narrative that privileges indexical anecdotes and telling particulars that 'portend that larger unity beyond explicit textualization'. Less telling but no less real particulars, such as suffering sunstroke after several hours in 35°C (95°F) weather, are left out largely because they are not central to the type of narrative I seek to construct. In short I fully acknowledge the partiality and subjectivity of both my ethnographic account and the fieldwork upon which it is based. Having said that, I maintain that my account, although technically fictional, is much more than simply fiction.

I have to to acknowledge the most fundamental way in which my account is subjective and partial. First and foremost (and like many other Maritime festivalgoers), my interest and participation in Maritime bluegrass festivals often did not revolve around the entertainment presented on stage. At first I was at odds with the idea of not taking in the stage show in its entirety, but shortly thereafter I could not overcome the fact that there other things I preferred to do at that time: namely, socialize and jam with other festivalgoers. So, in an attempt to participate in the Maritime bluegrass community as naturally as possible, I simply participated in the way that I found most meaningful (since that is what all other festivalgoers seem to do). Had I made it my mission to carefully document every single performance at every single festival and campout I attended, my account of the Maritime bluegrass community would still be every bit as partial and subjective as the one I present in this study, albeit in different ways.

41 However, had I taken that approach, my account would have been far less organic because my participation in the community would have been far less natural since I would not have been participating in the way that felt most natural to me).

As a musician, anytime I hear live music that I enjoy it makes me want to engage in music making. For a short time I held on to the idea that, because the majority of the revenue from admission was used to pay the on-stage entertainment, I should focus primarily on this aspect of the bluegrass festival in my fieldwork. People paid good money to come and see the bands featured on stage. Or did they? Before long it became abundantly clear that I was, by far, not the only one who seemed to have little interest in foregrounding the stage show in their festival experience, despite the fact that the money I paid to get in was used largely to finance it. I soon realized that the admission a person pays does not admit them to a stage show, it admits them to a social context of which a stage show is but one part. After making this realization, denying my urge to leave the stage show and find others with whom to jam and socialize became unthinkable. I did attend many on stage performances at bluegrass festivals and campouts, but they were certainly not what I found most meaningful about my participation in the community, and my ethnographic account reflects this subjective position in the particular nature of its partiality. Instead of employing the conventional rhetorical strategy of marginalizing my subjectivity in my ethnographic account to bolster its authority, I break established convention and allow subjectivity to serve as the fulcrum point in my ethnographic account.

42 While subjectivity has always been the fulcrum point in ethnographic fieldwork, it is only recently that it has become acceptable for the resultant ethnographic account to really reflect that reality.

Marcus is quite right when he notes that ethnographic accounts privilege what can be seen at the expense of marginalizing other sensory data (Marcus

1986:11), but there are always exceptions to the rule. Though the use of sound recordings as a means of ethnographic evocation remains unconventional in anthropology, it cannot be said to be new to the discipline. One well-established and highly respected scholar, Steven Feld, has been doing anthropology in sound for as long as he has been doing anthropology. Feld decided to pursue sound recording in anthropological work in the late sixties while pursuing his undergraduate degree. He was studying under Colin Turnbull who, in working with the Mbuti Pygmies of Zaire, made extensive recordings of their music. In thinking about the relationship between Turnbull's recordings of and writings,

Feld says, "I realized how important sound and sound recording was, particularly if you research with people who live in intensely rich aural environments" (2004:461). Feld went on to pursue graduate studies under Alan

P. Merriam who, like Turnbull, had an anthropological concern with sound that was restricted to music proper. In 1972, when Feld was still a graduate student, he wrote a paper called 'The Anthropology of Sound" for Merriam. The paper was a critique of the limitations inherent in restricting one's studies of the sonic world to music, which was the approach taken in Merriam's ardently encyclopedic book Ethnomusicology of the Flathead Indians (1967). (A

43 convention arose wherein even when sound was accorded a more central position in anthropological works the focus was restricted to music, which is how anthropology engendered ethnomusicology). Feld's paper opened with two questions that foreshadowed his entire career: "What about an anthropology of sound? What about ethnographies that are tape recordings?" (2004:463). Ever since writing that paper Feld's career has been largely concerned with interrogating the sonic experience of place. Later, Feld's Ph.D. dissertation on the Kaluli people of the Bosavi Rainforest in Papua New Guinea became his critically acclaimed (1982) book Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression. Whereas most ethnomusicologists would focus primarily on a ethnic group's music as a form of sonic expression, Feld shows, rather brilliantly, how bird calls, weeping, and poetics figure as prominently as music does in the construction and expression of deeply felt sentiments among the Kaluli. Ultimately, Feld's work demonstrates quite clearly just how much socially significant sound is neglected when one adopts a focus on music proper. Feld says, "an ethnography should include what it is that people hear everyday, what I came to call "acoustemology," one's sonic way of knowing and being in the world" (2004:462). While it is clear that I have not set out to pursue an 'acoustemological' study of Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers, one part of this study is inspired by Feld's highly unconventional general approach: doing anthropology in sound. As part of this thesis I include an appendix that draws on

Feld's general approach to help render an evocative ethnographic experience.

44 Perhaps pictures are not the only things that can be worth a thousand words.

In the case of a musical community like Maritime bluegrass festivals, it would surely take far more than a thousand words to describe accurately the densely layered sonic world a person experiences there. If conventional ethnographic accounts privilege the visual, then it seems only logical to begin by de- marginalizing sound in an ethnographic account of a musical community that seeks to break established convention. As a means of incorporating actual aspects of the sonic world of Maritime bluegrass into my ethnographic account, I include as a part of this study an audio disc containing a thirty-minute soundscape produced at one particular bluegrass festival: the thirty-seventh annual Nova Scotia Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Festival. The audio file14 comprises selected recordings I obtained over a twenty-four hour period at the festival, which are condensed into a single thirty-minute track that aims to evoke a partial sonic experience of a day at a bluegrass festival. A brief written description of the sounds and their significance to the soundscape accompanies it and, together, they constitute an appendix to my ethnographic account in chapter two. It is important to note how this aspect of my ethnographic account, too, is subjective and partial: it is based upon my own movement through one particular festival, and I was able to choose what to include and what to discard in producing the soundscape. My editorial choices seek to both reflect the wide gamut of sounds present in the context of a bluegrass festival and evoke an experience of being there. Despite its subjectivity and partiality, I maintain that

14 Fig A.1 on supplementary disc

45 the soundscape stands as a 'telling particular' that speaks to the larger unity that cannot fully be put into words, or, in this case, into sound.

To recap, there are two parts to my ethnographic account: 1) a composite sketch of Maritime bluegrass festival experience interspersed with excerpts of interviews with Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers (chapter two), and 2) the festival soundscape with its accompanying description and analysis (appendix).

These two devices provide a novel and unconventional means of evoking in readers (and listeners) an experience of Maritime bluegrass festival sociality, musical practice, and the sonic world in which they co-exist. I contend that, despite the unconventional nature of the ethnographic account, it nonetheless speaks to the emergent concerns in the discipline of ethnomusicology outlined earlier in this chapter. Moreover, the particularity of its form is intended to divorce the construction of knowledge from the text itself and place it in the hands of the reader. While the reader may very well develop a partial understanding of the Maritime bluegrass scene, they may also learn something about their own lives; what might be lacking in them and how they may rectify those deficiencies. In other words, while this project is not intended to convince the reader to participate in the Maritime bluegrass scene, they may nonetheless be convinced that it is possible to participate in novel forms of community based upon shred interests rather than shared culture or locality. In this sense, the study is as much about Maritime bluegrass as it is intended to be a vehicle for readers to restructure their experience, reintegrate themselves into society, and restructure the conduct of their everyday lives.

46 Chapter three comprises an analysis and a conclusion. The analysis is concerned with aspects of the social relations and sound relations found at festivals in the Maritime scene. The examination of social relations seeks to show how the ideal relations of the bluegrass festival are ones characterized by intimacy and inclusivity. I examine aspects of the spatial organization and code of conduct for social interaction in order to substantiate this claim. I then turn to an examination of sound relations to show how they serve to bolster the stability and certainty of ideal relations while imbuing the Maritime scene with a distinct identity that situates it as a regional manifestation of a global form of music. The overall analysis serves to support the conclusion that Maritimers' participation in this now fully globalized form of music is rendered locally meaningful in two distinct ways: 1) through sustained, positive social interaction that fosters a sense of community and 2) through incorporating elements of non-bluegrass musics that prove personally meaningful.

47 2.0 - An Evening at a Maritime Bluegrass Festival

As I take the necessary exit from the Trans-Canada Highway I am not entirely sure in which direction I should go next. I am hoping that this festival, like all the others I have been to earlier in the summer, has signage guiding you to the festival grounds beginning the moment you leave the highway. As I approach the the end of the off-ramp wondering whether I will need to turn left or right, I pull up right behind a motor-home plastered with various bumper stickers, most of which are bluegrass related. I smile to myself knowing that I need not look for signage any longer, I will simply follow the folks ahead of me.

They turn right and I follow them down a winding rural road through a valley lined with rolling hills and farmhouses. Many of the homes along the road are situated on large lots, cleared and divided up into pastures, but few of them seem to be in active use nowadays. After driving about eight or ten kilometres, the already slowly moving motor-home ahead of me slows down and turns onto a dirt road. Immediately after turning onto this dirt road we turn left into a driveway, pass between a house and a barn, and pull up behind a couple of other vehicles waiting at the gate. We have arrived.

It is around five o'clock in the afternoon on Friday-prime time for people who work during the week to arrive and get set up before the stage show starts for the evening. Festivals generally run from early Friday evening until mid- afternoon on Sunday, but occasionally there are open mic sessions, sometimes on the Thursday night leading up to the weekend or on Sunday afternoon at the close of the festival. However, a large proportion of festival patrons are retired

48 and, thus, have much more open schedules; some of them arrive days before the festival begins and don't leave the grounds until the following Monday or

Tuesday.

JJ: If you're not going to get to the festival until Saturday morning don't be looking for prime parking.

Do most people go on Saturday morning as opposed to Friday night?

JJ: Most people go Wednesday, [laughs] if they've got any clue at all! Some people are there for a week before and, usually, the ones that are are jamming for five or six days before the festival starts [laughs]. You make it yourself what it is (John Jeffries 2008, pers. comm.).

In some cases, the most enthusiastic of bluegrass enthusiasts spend their entire summer traveling from one festival to the next, only to return to their permanent residence for a short time if they happen to pass by it on their way from one festival to another (Murphy 2008, pers. comm.). Some festivals are held at commercial campgrounds that have patrons even when festivals are not happening, while others are held on bluegrass enthusiasts' personal property and, thus, only play host to campers two or three weekends per year at at most.

Oftentimes the latter include all of the amenities of a proper campground, such as dumping stations and electrical hookups for RVs, washroom and shower facilities, a canteen selling various concessions, etc. This particular festival is the latter type-it is held in a "backyard"-but, from what I can see at the gate, it looks just like all of the other festivals I have been to.

49 I sit in my car and wait in the queue to pass through the the gate, my backseat and trunk filled with all the necessities for the weekend: a large cooler packed full of food and a few select ales; my small, two-person tent, sleeping pad, sleeping bag and pillow; a hiking bag filled with all sorts of clothing, toiletries, and various useful camping supplies; my acoustic guitar and my mandolin, both in hard-shell cases; my digital camera, flash, extra memory cards, a plethora of batteries and a field journal to jot down observations and thoughts about the things that I see and hear while I am here. Ahead of me is the motor-home that guided me here and ahead of it is a van towing a collapsible tent trailer. Just ahead of the van is a couple in a large half-ton truck towing an extravagant fifth-wheel trailer from whom the workers at the gate are taking money and administering bracelets for admission. It occurs to me that those of us in the queue to enter the grounds represent the entire gamut of bluegrass festival camping set-ups: tent, tent trailer, fifth-wheel trailer and motor- home (the latter three being, by far, the most common). However, I have met a few people who simply sleep in their vehicles (if they do much sleeping at all).

I spend the next few minutes listening to CBC radio as I wait my turn to pay admission and enter the grounds to set up my temporary home for the weekend. A few minutes pass and the occupants of the motor-home finish paying their admission and are escorted off to find a suitable camping site. I pull up to the gate, which is actually just a small wooden structure on the side of the driveway that resembles a very small canteen, and I am greeted by a young francophone woman in both French and English. I take the opportunity to

50 practice my French and tell her I plan to stay for the entire weekend as there are a number of different rates depending upon how long you plan on staying. She tells me that the cost for the entire weekend is forty dollars and I hand her the money. As she is fitting the neon green theme-park-like bracelet to my wrist she asks me if I am staying in a tent; I tell her I am and ask in which area it would be best to pitch it. She hands me a festival program and tells me to pull up to the fork in the road and someone will come meet me momentarily to show me to an ideal spot. Sure enough, after a minute or so a young man pulls up next to me on a four-wheeler. I tell him that I'm tenting for the weekend and he motions for me to follow him.

As we creep along one of the many intersecting lanes throughout the fields I am reminded of being at a neighborhood block party when I was a child. The

'streets' are alive with music, friendly conversation over games of washer toss and the boisterous laughter of children running about. People are out in the

'yards' of their 'homes' socializing with old friends and meeting new ones. The way we have to inch along, squeeze through the crowds of people and have our progress stayed completely by people going about their business is just like being at the Saturday morning farmer's market in my hometown. After a few minutes of this we reach the end of the field where the lane makes a wide u-turn and heads back in the direction from which it came. At the base of this "u" is what seems like the only place where the spacing between tent trailers, fifth- wheel trailers and motor-homes could be more accurately measured in metres than centimetres. The fellow on the four-wheeler stops and points to the corner

51 of the field where, other than two tents that have already been pitched, there is at least ten metres of open space. It is clear that he is indicating to me this is the area designated for tenting. We wave and nod to one another to signify that all is well before he drives off and I proceed to park my car at the edge of the field to unpack.

After setting up my tent, I sit on my cooler eating a sandwich and perusing the festival program. On the back is a list of the rules enforced at the festival, all of which seem to be standard for the bluegrass festivals I have attended.

Breakable containers and coolers are prohibited in the concert area. Outside of your own personal campsite, alcoholic beverages are to be kept in plastic cups.

Recyclables are to be left next to any of the garbage cans found throughout the grounds. Drugs are not allowed. Smoking in the concert area is not allowed, nor are high-backed chairs. Admission bracelets must be displayed at all times. The organizers reserve the right to refuse admittance at the gate and are not responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged property. Generators are not to be used between the hours of 11 o'clock at night and 8 o'clock in the morning. Loud music, noisy parties and other disturbances will not be tolerated. The organizers reserve the right to evict without a refund or prior notice patrons who deliberately break any of these rules. One rule that is not listed on this program that I have seen elsewhere is one disallowing electric instruments of any kind, but I highly doubt they are any more welcome here than at any other bluegrass festival; this rule usually goes without saying. I immediately recall a story that

Jerry Murphy, a prominent bluegrass emcee and award winning promoter, told

52 me about a group using an electric guitar in their performance on stage at the most recent Eastern Canada Bluegrass Music Awards. Jerry said that had he known of the group's plan he would have 'put the kibosh on it'. He went on to say that many people in the audience were not very happy about the use of an electric instrument in a bluegrass setting and that the group in question was only able to because no one knew of their plan beforehand (2008 pers. comm.).

MF: I don't think the crowd would be too happy.

GF: No, [laughs] you might as well put a gun to your head as take an electric instrument on a bluegrass stand!

MF: At a festival it's just unheard of...

GF: Just unheard of, yeah. Some people may have brought an electric bass sometimes, but even that they kind of frown on. But the professionals, that had CDs out, a lot of them had an electric bass, but they have to travel, so it's hard for them to bring up that big stand-up bass and lug it in the back of-if they're not driving in a van or anything like that it'd be pretty hard to transport it out, so they just use the common [electric] bass (Gerald Fortin and Mark Fisher 2008, pers. comm.).

It is now nearly six o'clock-a half-hour remains until show time. Having finished eating my sandwich and familiarizing myself with the rules of the

festival, I decide this would be an opportune time to check out the festival

grounds before the sun sets. I can take a look around to see if any of the

acquaintances I have made at previous festivals are here and check out where

the jamming will likely be taking place once the show is over-'field picking' is my

favourite part of the festival. I can already hear the fiddle playing and guitar

strumming of some folks who could not wait to get down to business. I always

53 recognize fiddle tunes, but I can rarely put a name to them. However, this time I am positive that I am hearing 'Loggieville Two-Step', a composition by Matilda

Murdoch, a famous oldtime fiddler from Miramichi.

As I begin strolling away I instinctively move in the direction of the music. I head up the lane which, according to the sign posted on the garbage can at the end, is called Mandolin Road. It's not the first bluegrass festival I have been to that has 'street' names to help orient people. One festival I went to earlier in the summer had streets named after accomplished musicians from that area, their family members, friends and one named after Rhonda Vincent, an American bluegrass superstar who has headlined that festival many times. I remember another festival I went to had all of its twenty 'streets' named after various bluegrass superstars from throughout the genre's history, some of whom were

Bill Monroe, Red Smiley, Don Reno, Red Allen, Lester Flatt, Joe Val and Carter

Stanley. I immediately recall one time, while at that particular festival, I walked by a woman whose cell phone began ringing and, after a moment, she told the person on the other end that she was camping in field 'A', about halfway up Bill

Monroe on the right. It struck me as funny that it seemed no different than giving a friend directions to a permanent home on a particular street in any given neighborhood. Subsequent visits to those festivals seems to indicate that the names of the 'streets' remain constant from one year to the next. So, as I continue up Mandolin Road, I make a mental note to keep an eye out for the various street names at this festival as they may come in handy in the future.

54 I continue to stroll up the lane slowly, taking in what has now become an all- too-familiar sight. There are rows upon rows of motor-homes and fifth-wheel trailers parked next to each other, organized just like city blocks. However, because of the relatively small size of the lots therein, these 'blocks' are more oblong-shaped than they are square. What usable space that does exists is concentrated in the area between the sides of dwellings and in the space between their front and the lane (of course, because 'lots' are of relatively equal size, what space there is depends greatly upon the the size of the dwelling resting upon it). In other words, while there may be a modest sized front and side yard, there is generally no backyard to speak of since the space between the backs of dwellings can easily be (and often is) around a metre or less. While these blocks are comparable to those found in many suburban neighborhoods in that they exhibit two rows of adjacent lots with streets separating them from other rows of adjacent lots, they differ from your typical suburban neighborhood blocks in that dwellings do not, as a rule, face outward to the road. Moreover,

'front' and 'back' seem to be moot designations given that vast majority of these dwellings have their entrances located on one of their sides. In some cases, there is surely little rhyme or reason to the way in which owners position their dwellings for the weekend; convenience or pragmatism may very well be paramount in this decision (for example, fifth-wheel trailers must must necessarily be backed into the lot if they are to be easily detached from and re attached the truck towing them). However, in other cases, dwellings are positioned in such a way as to imply a reasoning behind their positioning, and I

55 have just happened upon one such instance not even halfway up Mandolin

Road.

Whether or not a picture is actually worth a thousand words may be subject to debate, but it is undeniable that a single image can convey more than the immediate subject matter contained therein. The image before my eyes is a very common one at bluegrass festivals. There are two dwellings-a motor-home and a fifth-wheel trailer-parked so that their doors face inward to the space between them. Each of the dwellings has a large, collapsible awning open above the door. The dwellings are parked in such a way that, when their awnings are open, their edges meet and form one continuous covered area spanning the space between their respective entrances. Sometimes, when the weather forecast is not as favourable as this weekend's, the rear end of a setup like this one will be blocked off with a large tarp to help keep the elements at bay, but this weekend's forecast is calling for clear skies and warm temperatures. On the grass beneath the awnings is an area rug, upon which there is a large, collapsible picnic table. There are at least five chairs in the covered area, a small table with a propane grill on it, two coolers, two guitar cases, a few lawn ornaments and a sign by each dwelling's door: one says, "The Cormiers" and the other says "The LeBlancs". Neither the Cormiers nor the LeBlancs are anywhere in sight at the moment and, not only is there a good chance that the guitar cases are not empty, but there is also a good chance that the guitars inside are valuable and coveted brands such as Martin, Taylor, or Gibson.

Nonetheless, I am not at all surprised to see instruments left unattended, no

56 matter what their value might be. Although the image I am seeing is simply one of inanimate objects arranged in a particular way, it is quite clear that the trusting owners of these objects took great care to arrange them in such a way as to create a shared space in which they could live and be social together. A retired military officer I befriended over the course of my research, Dennis

Seeley, casually refers to the space between such a setup as the 'family space' (2009, pers. comm.). I continue on down Mandolin Road and, before I reach the end, I see several more examples of people creating 'family space' between their motor-homes and fifth-wheel trailers.

At the end of Mandolin Road I turn onto Fiddle Lane and happen upon the source of the music I could hear in the distance from my campsite. Sitting on lawn chairs next to a tent trailer are two older men, perhaps sixty years of age, both playing guitars. They are just finishing up the Merle Haggard tune 'Mama

Tried' as I walk by and overhear one say to the other, 'That's a great one! You'll have to write the words and the chord changes down for me so I can learn it."

The other man objects in a defensive tone, "No, that's not how it works. You have to listen closely and pay attention, that's the way you learn." Perhaps fearing he had come off as a little bit harsh with his insistence that songs are to be learned by ear, he sheepishly admits that he couldn't provide him with a hard copy even if he wanted to because he is illiterate. They begin the song again so that the fellow who wants to learn it may do so aurally; the same method of transmission that a scholar named Mayne Smith noted to be the norm for bluegrass in 1965. I continue on down the lane between the rows of motor-

57 homes, fifth-wheel trailers arid the odd tent trailer and, before long, I am eavesdropping on another conversation. This time, a man in his forties is telling a woman of about the same age that he is excited for the first act to take the stage because the lead guitar player is particularly good and he loves to watch him perform. The woman responds by telling him that she does not understand what 'lead' means. He makes his best attempt to explain the difference to her without using musical jargon by telling her that rhythm guitar is the 'strumming' and lead guitar constitutes the 'patterns'. Realizing that 'patterns' might be a vague explanation for lead guitar, he refines his explanation using the word

'solos' and mimics the sound of one with his mouth. It is early in the weekend, but the teaching and learning is well under way.

As I turn my attention to continuing down Fiddle Lane I hear a very familiar sound. There is a fiddler accompanied by a single guitarist playing 'St. Anne's

Reel', which is arguably the most popular folk tune in the Maritimes. I cannot even count the number of times I have heard this tune played at bluegrass festivals-both on stage and off- despite the fact that it is a fiddle tune that long predates bluegrass. There is much debate surrounding the origins of 'St.

Anne's', but one thing is clear: like, 'Loggieville Two-Step', it is certainly not a bluegrass tune. Rather than move in the direction of 'St. Anne's', I go back the way I came, veer onto Hillbilly Road and head toward the centre of the festival grounds because I hear emcee Jerry Murphy's distinctly deep voice. Jerry's voice emanating from the stage's PA system can only mean one thing: the stage show is about to begin.

58 I make my way down Hillbilly Road alongside other festival patrons who have heard the beginning of the stage show. As I approach the concert area I notice how similar it looks to all the other festivals and campouts I have been to. The stage looks a lot like a very small house with a large, open front; there is a small backstage area out of sight where acts who are about to take the stage tune their instruments and do some last-minute rehearsing. Above the stage there is a large banner with the festival's name on it attached to the building, which is flanked on either side by a tall stack of speakers wrapped in tarp to protect them from the elements. Just in front of the stage is an open-air seating area that extends back several metres to where the sheltered seating area begins. The sheltered seating area measures approximately ten or twelve metres wide by approximately twenty to twenty-five metres long and is essentially a permanent wooden roof held up by eight-by-eight wooden pillars. Sometimes the sheltered seating area consists not of a permanent fixture but, rather, a very large tent.

Behind the shelter is another open-air seating area that extends back approximately fifteen metres to the rope 'fence' that surrounds the entire concert area. It is inside this rope fence that festivalgoers are not allowed to smoke or have coolers. Alcoholic beverages are generally allowed inside the concert are as long as they are in plastic cups, but at some festivals where drunkenness has caused problems in the past alcoholic beverages are only permitted at campsites and are not allowed to be carried between them.

The seating area in front of, beneath, and behind the shelter is already almost entirely filled with collapsible lawn chairs, but perhaps only half of them

59 are occupied. Many chairs have names written on the back of them for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious reason chairs have names on them is to establish ownership in a sea of lawn chairs wherein many of them are otherwise identical. The second reason chairs have names on them is a more culturally specific reason. Maritime bluegrass festivals are invariably general admission events, so seating is on a first come, first served basis. Festivalgoers usually park their chairs upon arrival and leave them in the same spot for the entire weekend, only to reclaim them once the festival is over or right before they have to leave, whichever comes first. At first glance some people might find this practice to be somewhat selfish because an unoccupied chair still occupies a space that someone else could use, and there are almost always a significant number of empty chairs in the concert area at any given point throughout the weekend. The reasons for chairs remaining empty are numerous and can easily be something as simple as their owners taking a bathroom break or grabbing a quick bite to eat. However, chairs also often remain empty for long periods of time because there are other things going on that interest their owners more so than the on-stage entertainment, namely socializing and jamming. In other words, while festivals are theoretically and quite often spatially centred around the on-stage entertainment, many enthusiasts' phenomenological experiences of them are not; they are often centred around socializing and jamming in the fields surrounding the stage, which, for these enthusiasts, is only peripheral to the stage show in a spatial sense. I have been told a few times by bluegrassers

60 that there is a particular chair etiquette15 at festivals and campouts, and it seems to negate any sense of a chair's owner selfishly hoarding a space they may not use at all throughout the weekend, let alone for the majority of the time there is entertainment on stage. The rules to chair etiquette are quite simple: if the chair is empty you are free to sit in it, if its owners return then you simply relinquish to them their chair; there will surely be another empty one to sit in if you wish to remain seated. This etiquette proves particularly useful for someone like myself, who consistently forgets to bring a lawn chair to festivals (and this particular festival is no exception). I take a seat at a picnic table located at the very back of the concert area just as Jerry Murphy introduces the first act: the

GrassKickers.

The GrassKickers consist of Matt Brun on guitar, Richard Bourque on mandolin, Julie Cormier on bass and Russell Sawler on five-string banjo; the first three of whom are young adults and the latter of which is a middle-aged man. The band's members take the stage in front of four separate microphone stands, each of which has a vocal microphone at the top and an a microphone for their instruments about halfway down. Some time ago, it used to be the norm for bluegrass bands to perform using a single condenser microphone with all of the band members huddled around it. Although the single-mic technique is still used on occasion, having separate microphones for each band member's voice and instrument has become the norm in the Maritime bluegrass scene and, as a result, band members employing this technique present themselves in a line

15 Gardner (2004) notes that this same chair etiquette exists in the Rocky Mountain bluegrass scene.

61 parallel to the front of the stage with an ample amount of room between them.

When the Grasskickers are ready to go, Russell Sawler says half-jokingly into the microphone, "Hi folks, we're the GrassKickers. We're going to start you off with a Buck Owens tune and we want to apologize to Buck for doing it this way- sorry, Buck." The band immediately launches into a high-energy bluegrass cover of 'The Streets of Bakersfield', which was written by Homer Joy but popularized by Owens shortly after Joy penned it. Since the Grasskickers' version in no apparent way deviates from popular conceptions of how bluegrass music sounds, they must be apologizing to Buck Owens simply for making his classic country hit into a bluegrass song. Whether or not individuals who hold purist views of tradition would accept this song in a formal jam session that has strict rules about repertoire, the crowd eats it up and applauds loudly at the beginning and / or end of instrumental breaks and again when the band is finished the song.

Do a country song? Sure, there's no big deal, do a country song. But, do it and blugrassify it if you're going to do a country song; don't do it as a country song. Change the speed, change something in it, don't leave it the way it is (Eddie Poirier 2008 pers. comm.).

It is interesting to note that, like many other genres of music, bluegrass is accompanied by applause after virtuosic instrumental breaks and at the end of songs, but bluegrass differs in that it is also often accompanied by applause at the beginning of instrumental breaks (or is it at the end of a verse or chorus?).

Sometimes it can be difficult to tell exactly what a round of applause is being

62 directed toward. Russell thanks the crowd and says, "Now, here's a bluegrass standard16 for you" and the band promptly launches into another tune that, although I don't fully recognize it, sounds very familiar to me. However, to someone like myself, who is a relative newcomer to the bluegrass scene, it is very easy to mistake one song for another.

A huge number of bluegrass songs and tunes are based on a comparatively small number of chord progressions. Although the melody played by the instruments can sometimes help to differentiate between songs before the words come in, it can just as often fool you in to thinking you are about to hear one of your favourites, only to be greeted by unfamiliar words when the singing begins. The reasons for this ambiguity are both theoretical and stylistic. In terms of music theory, melodic changes are based upon changes in the chord progressions and, when songs exhibit the same chord progressions, the melodies that accompany them are bound to sound similar as well. Songs can also be difficult to differentiate sonically for stylistic reasons. Most bluegrass performers in the Maritimes adhere to the long-standing convention of employing the stylistic feature known as moto perpetuo (constant movement) when they are performing an instrumental break. The end result is that you hear numerous songs employing the same or very similar chord progressions, and the instrumental breaks that are in many ways based upon those chord progressions very often exhibit a common stylistic feature. The untrained ear may have a difficult time picking up on the subtle differences that accomplished

16 A bluegrass standard is a song or tune that exhibits widespread and long-standing popularity in bluegrass tradition.

63 bluegrass musicians hear readily. For a newcomer like myself, the easiest and surest way to differentiate between songs is based upon their textual content, but it appears as though even the most seasoned of bluegrass enthusiasts may have some difficulty differentiating between songs before the lyrics begin. In some cases, the first line of a song is accompanied by applause from the crowd, which appears to be a means of applauding the performers' song choice.

However, because the applause happens when the singing begins and not during short instrumental intro, this seems to indicate that this is the point in the performance where everybody can be certain which song it is that they are hearing. There is another possibility though, and that is that perhaps applause given after the first or second line of a song are in praise of the singing and not the song choice. On the other hand, tunes-instrumental songs without words- tend to exhibit a much stronger and more distinct melodic identity that is repeated several times throughout their performance and, thus, it is much easier to distinguish between one and another. Even a newcomer like myself can identify the classic Stanley Brothers instrumental 'Clinch Mountain Back Step' within the first two or three seconds of the song's beginning. Concerning the

GrassKickers' performance of this particular standard bluegrass song, the crowd offers up the conventional applause at the beginning or end of instrumental breaks before they cheer loudly when it is finished.

After performing a couple of numbers, the band's leader might introduce the members of the group if the emcee has not already done so. This time the emcee has only introduced the band and not its individual members, so Russell

64 Sawler begins introducing The GrassKickers. "I want to introduce to you guys these really talented musicians that I have the good fortune of playing with."

Russell is on the far right of the line-up and motions toward its other end and says, 'This guy all the way down here is a fantastic guitarist. He's been playing country music for years now and has been touring all over with all kinds of famous fiddlers. It's taken me a long time to recruit him to play bluegrass but I finally got him. Give it up for Matt Brun everybody!" The crowd applauds loudly and Russell motions toward Julie Cormier, standing just to the left of him. 'This beautiful woman next to me is one of the best bass players around," says

Russell, "she's even been told that she plays bass like a man. I tell ya, if everyone in this band was as good lookin' as she is we'd hit the big time for sure! Give it up for Julie Cormier!" The crowd laughs and applauds generously.

Russell moves on to introduce Richard Bourque. 'The fella down here with the mandolin is one hot picker17; definitely one of the best around these parts and he's just young yet. Richard Bourque everybody." Again, the crowd applauds.

"Not only is Richard one of the best mandolin pickers around, but he knows how to burn up the frets on a guitar too and, on top of that, he's one heck of a songwriter." Because band introductions generally consist of praise, when bandleaders do the introductions they could not properly introduce themselves without appearing immodest. Since everyone deserves a proper introduction, when a band is introducing itself then introducing the bandleader is the

17 Picker is a general term used to refer to anyone who plays an instrument whose strings are picked with a plectrum of some sort, namely guitar, mandolin, banjo, or dobro. However, it appears as though some people employ 'picker' as a general catch-all term for any bluegrass musician.

65 responsibility of another one of the band's members. In this case Richard

Bourque provides Russell's introduction. Richard begins, "And this old guy here, down on the end, has been in the bluegrass scene a long time, but he's still got some time left yet." The crowd laughs. "He's a fantastic banjo player and we're lucky to have him in the GrassKickers. Russell Sawler everybody." After the crowd finishes their applause Russell introduces the next song.

"I told you guys that Richard was a great songwriter," Russell says, "and now we're going to play one of his songs that made was the number one song of the year on the French country radio station in Moncton last year, it's called 'Dans mes reves'." The band launches into Richard's hit song, a slower paced sentimental bluegrass song about a beautiful woman who keeps appearing in his dreams and how he wouldn't need to dream anymore if he could only meet her in real life. Richard's vocals in the song are slightly restrained, smooth and emotive with only a slight hint of nasalization; a far cry from the high, lonesome sound of traditional bluegrass, yet it is a very common vocal aesthetic in the

Maritime bluegrass scene.

The bluegrass that you hear up here [comes] from a late bunch of comers, so [it] means the country phrasing-vocal phrasing and stuff, words-is more of a country type; they don't phrase their lines the same way. It's the same as playing Scotch tunes and Irish tunes: it's the same tune, but it's phrased different. And you've got to be almost raised with it to have it (Eddie Poirier 2008 pers. comm.).

'Dans me reves' is very popular in the Maritime bluegrass scene, particularly among Francophones (for obvious reasons). There are plenty of Francophones

66 at this festival. There is no real way to gauge the proportion, but this festival, like many others in the region, has a significant number of Francophone patrons; it certainly feels like there is an even split between Francophone and Anglophone patrons (and musicians for that matter). The song receives enthusiastic applause from the crowd. When the applause dies down Russell once again draws upon Buck Owens in the GrassKickers' performance, this time by reciting a 'Bluegrass Oath' that is obviously modeled on Owens' famous 'Pledge to

Country Music'. Russell tells the crowd to repeat after him and begins, "I promise to love bluegrass music." The crowd repeats the line enthusiastically.

Russell then says, "I promise to promote bluegrass music," and once again the crowd echoes his words. "I promise to go to bluegrass festivals forever, no matter how expensive gas gets," Russell says next, and the crowd repeats the line amidst various cheers of approval. The obliging crowd also repeats

Russell's next line, "I promise to support the GrassKickers," with a few chuckles here and there. However, the final line in Russell's oath, "I promise never to repeat things other people say," does not get repeated by the crowd because they are too busy laughing after he says it.

Even today, I think that bands that are more successful are the ones that can entertain as well as play-have some fun up there, get a good rapport going, good communication with the audience (John Jeffries 2008 pers. comm.).

Russell introduces the GrassKickers' next number, a song called "How I'd

Love to Be Alone With You." Russell points out that although Close to Home- another local band on this festival's bill-does the same song, the GrassKickers'

67 version is quite different. I have my field journal and pencil out ready to take notes so I can compare the two versions in the event that Close to Home plays their version of the song. However, just as the GrassKickers begin the song a woman approaches me and says, "What are you doing? Are you writing a book?

I always see you at festivals writing in that brown leather notebook of yours." A bit surprised, I respond, "You have?" She goes on to name three recent festivals at which she has seen me writing in my notebook, one of which-the

Memramcook Valley Bluegrass Festival-she refers to as 'our festival'. Knowing that Francis and Vincent Cormier, two brothers who are in the Bluegrass

Diamonds, run the Memramcook festival I say, "You must be Mrs. Cormier." She says that she is indeed Francis' wife. We chat for a while as I tell her about my research on Maritime bluegrass. I also tell her that she is the third person this summer who, having seen me writing in my notebook at several festivals, has approached me to ask what it is that I am up to. I explain to her that part of my research is concerned with trying to determine to what extent the Maritime bluegrass scene constitutes a community, and I tell her I find it quite encouraging that several people have seen me around enough to ask me what

I'm up to because it means that they, too, must be traveling around to festivals on the weekends. She tells me that a person need not attend too many festivals before they realize that they see a lot of the same faces throughout the summer.

I agree with her, telling her that with each festival I attend I see more and more familiar faces.

68 VC: We're fortunate to be real busy. We play every weekend, like, this weekend here we run a festival [in Memramcook] and next weekend, Thursday night, we're heading for the States. And then the weekend after that it's in Bouctouche, on [Prince Edward] Island, Nova Scotia, constantly on the road.

Do you see the same people at every festival?

VC: In the Maritimes you basically see all the same people... It's like a big family gathering (Vincent Cormier in Hemmings 2004).

Mrs. Cormier and I carry on with small talk for a few more minutes until we are distracted by an extra loud round of applause. I look up to the stage and the

GrassKickers are thanking the audience and removing their instruments; their thirty-five minute set is over. Russell, Julie, Richard and Matt disappear backstage but the crowd keeps on cheering. Jerry Murphy walks on stage and says into the microphone, "What do you say, folks? Do you wanna hear one more?" The crowd continues to cheer and clap their hands until the four members of the GrassKickers' are once again on the stage. Russell addresses the crowd, "Thank you folks, thank you so much. We're going to do a murder ballad for you. Murder ballads are real meat-and-potatoes bluegrass songs. This one's called Miller's Cave." As the GrassKickers begin their encore the crowd begins applauding again, presumably to show their approval of the

GrassKickers' choice of song. I begin thinking about the how conventional an encore is for performances at bluegrass festivals. I do not recall ever seeing a band not do an encore, no matter how good or bad their performance may have been. I am immediately reminded of something Mrs. Cormier's husband,

Francis, said last weekend while performing on stage at a festival with his

69 group, the Bluegrass Diamonds. Francis said, 'This is where we say we have time for one more and then we play it, and then you guys make some noise, and then we play some more." It is interesting to have witnessed tacit cultural knowledge about bluegrass stage performance be verbalized so explicitly.

It is now five past seven and already I cannot shake the feeling that I am missing out on the festival simply by being parked in front of the stage. I am one of the many patrons whose festival experience is often not centred around the on-stage performances; I prefer to spend my time jamming and socializing.

Tonight's entertainment started at six-thirty and ends at twenty-five past ten, which is enough time for six groups to each play a thirty-five minute set with five minutes of changeover time in between. This schedule for evening entertainment is typical of all the festivals I have attended in the Maritimes. The evening show begins after supper, usually between six and six-thirty, and it wraps up around ten o'clock or shortly thereafter. Since I have almost three and a half hours before the end of the stage show I decide to cruise around the grounds to find some familiar faces.

I head down Bass Avenue toward the washrooms knowing that my friend

Dennis was parked in that area last year. On my way, I pass a sizable jam that has already attracted many musicians and listeners. There are a few guitars, a banjo, a fiddle, a mandolin and a stand-up bass; everything a bluegrass band should have. It is obvious that I am not the only one who prefers to spend some of my evening jamming and socializing rather than taking in the entire stage show. I immediately recognize the song being played as George Jones' 'If

70 Drinkin' Don't Kill Me' and stop to listen for a minute to hear the country legend's song bluegrassified. I love the song and wish I had been there with my guitar or mandolin when it started so I could strum or chop18 along. I take note of where the jam is taking place and continue down Bass Avenue to look for Dennis. Sure enough, I find Dennis' camper parked around the side of the washroom facilities

(some festivals' facilities consist only of outhouses, but this festival's facilities are replete with plumbing, both flushing toilets and hot showers). As I round the side of Dennis' camper I see that he is sitting outside by himself, a can of Labatt

Blue in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "Dennis, how are you doing?" I call out to him as I approach. "Hey Danny," Dennis responds, "I'm doing the very best! You want to do a few tunes? Ron's just gone to get his guitar now." I tell

Dennis I would love to and head off to my campsite to get my stuff.

When I return to Dennis' camper, Ron and Dennis are already locked into a jam. Ron is playing some extremely intricate fiddle tune that he worked out for guitar while Dennis provides the rhythmic backing on another guitar. I watch in awe and at the end of the tune I clap and give a little cheer. Ron smiles and says, "I learned thirty new tunes over the winter, all instrumentals." Dennis chuckles and says, 'This guy is something else, isn't he?" I sit down on a free camping chair and pull out my guitar. Dennis says to Ron and I, "See what you guys can do with this one, okay?" and begins playing the song '(Poor) Wayfaring

18 The chop is the colloquial name for the mandolin's rhythmic role in bluegrass: an often semi- muted strumming of chords on the 'off beats' for songs in duple meter, or on the second and third beats for songs in waltz time. Respectively, these mandolin rhythms count out as 1-chop, 2-chop, 3-chop, 4-chop and 1-chop-chop, 2-chop-chop, 3-chop-chop, 4-chop-chop, with the numbers representing rests and the 'chops' representing strumming the instrument.

71 Stranger'. I see that Dennis performs the song is in the key of A-minor, so I start to play around with an A-minor pentatonic scale. Luckily, I quickly find something that fits the mood of this slow, spiritual song. It is no problem for Ron to pick up on absolutely any song within a matter of seconds. Having only heard the song a couple of times before and never actually jammed on it, I am quite happy with my melodic accompaniment. Ron bases his melodic accompaniment off what I am doing; he takes the gaps where my melody pauses to let notes sustain and fils them in with beautiful melodies that compliment my own perfectly. As Dennis sings the lines Ron and I continue to weave our melodies together, and I can't help but smile from ear to ear. Normally when I jam with people at festivals I play it safe and stick to rhythmic accompaniment because I am unfamiliar with a lot of the songs I encounter. Being able to assume a melodic role in this context and play with confidence is a new and very rewarding experience for me. When we finish the song Dennis says, "Jeez, you guys really had some nice stuff going on there!" I think so too. Even though nothing funny happened we are all laughing; it seems to be the only way to express the feelings aroused by making music together and doing it well. The smiles that remain on our faces while we chat is a sure sign that a good jam has a lingering glow.

GF: It just lifts you, it just gives you that drive.

MF: It just makes you feel like life is worth living.

GF: That's exactly right. It makes you feel like, "Hey, life is worth living, this is living, this is life" (Gerald Fortin and Mark Fisher 2008 pers. comm., on jams at Maritime bluegrass festivals).

72 After jamming on a few more songs, all sung by Dennis since Ron and I fancy ourselves instrumentalists more so than vocalists, Ron says he has to take off and meet up with some friends. I start to tell Dennis about needing either extensive fret work done on my guitar or a new guitar altogether. He stops me right there and says, "Come with me Danny. I was just thinking that I need to go see Hubert down the lane and he's got a really nice Blue Ridge for sale." I agree to go even though I am not in a position to buy a new guitar right away. I will meet some new people at the very least. We lay our guitars down in our cases and head off to Hubert's motor-home.

As we stroll on down Bass Avenue toward Hubert's motor-home, I notice that

I still have a high from jamming with Dennis and Ron. Outside of bluegrass festivals, it is quite rare that I am afforded the opportunity to jam with someone whose skills surpass my own to such a great extent. Yet, when Dennis and I jam with Ron there is an overwhelming sense that we are all peers. Bluegrass festival jams are remarkably inclusive, but their inclusiveness is not entirely unconditional. There are certainly ways that people can make themselves unwelcome in jams, but being unwelcome has much more to do with a person's behaviour than it does their musical prowess. I think back to my very first festival and my naivete concerning bluegrass festival jam etiquette. It was the annual

Memramcook Valley Bluegrass Festival and I was one of a dozen or so people watching a jam take place. I engaged in a bit of small talk with the fellow next to me-who just so happened to be Dennis-and he asked me if I played. I told him I

73 did, but that I was not a bluegrass picker. After chatting for a while longer,

Dennis invited me to jam with him and his friend Charlie (Ron's brother), whom he had known for years. I accepted his invitation and the three of us-each born at least a couple of decades apart-ended up jamming in Dennis' motor-home until after three o'clock in the morning. At first I was not exactly sure how to proceed in this new musical context and, given that Dennis and Charlie had a lot of experience with bluegrass festivals and their concomitant jams, I felt like anything but a peer. During that first evening of field picking, however, Charlie provided me with invaluable advice about bluegrass jam etiquette that helped me to adapt quickly; to know how to proceed without compromising the feeling of solidarity afforded by a good jam. For starters, having been used to playing indie-rock music with an electric guitar and a loud tube amplifier, at the beginning of our jam I played my guitar a little more aggressively than was called for. I remember Charlie stopping me and saying, "Don't hammer on your guitar. You don't need to play it that loud, it's not a competition. There's nothing worse than when you can't hear your own guitar because someone else is playing too loud." Playing instruments rather aggressively may be central to the aesthetic of some musical genres, but bluegrass does not appear to be one of them. There is an ideal volume for playing in a bluegrass jam, however, it is not an absolute value. The ideal volume for playing in a bluegrass festival jam is the one at which you can be heard clearly without drowning out anybody else. Since that night, I have been matching the volume of my playing to those around me, which sometimes requires a conscious effort for someone whose volume control

74 has always been a knob on an amplifier. Playing with excessive volume is one way to render yourself unwelcome in a bluegrass festival jam, and it may or may not be symptomatic of another equally effective way to do so: partaking in excessive drinking. Some people drink alcohol at bluegrass festivals while others do not-to each their own- but, it is undeniably bad etiquette to consume far more alcohol than the people you are jamming with. The codes of practice for volume and drinking are similar in that levels exceeding those around you are frowned upon, but they also differ because, unlike volume, it is not always a good idea to match the level of your drinking to the level of those around you.

Making sure not to play too loudly was not the only thing Charlie taught me about bluegrass jams that night. After he showed me a few more chord progressions he asked me if I had anything in particular I wanted to jam on. I told him that I did not really know any of the bluegrass repertoire. "That doesn't matter," Charlie said, "play whatever you want." I showed him a song that I

wrote in the key of E and he quickly produced some fantastic lead guitar for it. At

the end of the song Dennis piped up, "Jeez, that was really great guys. Charlie, you did a great job and you never even heard that song before!" Charlie replied with a chuckle, "Well, I know when a song is in E." I told Charlie I really liked his accompaniment too and he said to me, 'Thanks. I liked your song. Ideally in a

jam you want to play something where we can take turns doing the lead breaks, that's when it's the most fun." Charlie is a very skilled musician who, recognizing immediately that my song was in E, had no problem improvising lead melodic

75 lines over its rhythm. However, since it exhibited an entirely riff-based19 rhythm that did not use any chords at all, let alone standard bluegrass chord progressions, it was not a song that we could trade roles on. While I surely could have tried my hand at improvising some lead breaks, it would only have been possible if Charlie took the time to learn a very specific riff-based rhythm, which would have ruined the flow of the jam. After having participated in a few more jams I could definitely see where Charlie was coming from. After that first evening of jamming there were times when, while observing a jam, a guitar was essentially thrust into my hands and I was told, "here, play this." Being put on the spot like that can certainly be awkward and intimidating but, as I came to find out, jumping into a bluegrass festival jam head first is relatively easy. As long as you know what the most common guitar chord shapes look like, you can simply watch (one of) the rhythm guitarist(s)20 for a few bars and learn the song in a matter of seconds. The relative simplicity of the chord progressions used in bluegrass goes a long way in establishing it as the highly participatory genre that it is. I now understand exactly why Charlie said my song was not an ideal bluegrass festival jam song: it was not one that fostered the equal participation because it was not the sort of thing other people could pick up in a matter of seconds. In teaching me about being mindful of my volume and introducing

19 A riff is a relatively short musical phrase that is usually repeated several times throughout a piece of music.

20 Although bluegrass bands usually have no more than two guitarists, the jams at Maritime festivals can and often do have more. The instrumentation of a jam seems to be less important than its inclusiveness.

76 songs that are easy for others to pick up on, Charlie was essentially telling me that mutual participation is fundamental to a good jam.

I like a song that everybody can kind of join in on and relax and have fun taking the breaks and stuff (Mike Scott 2008, pers. comm.).

Inside Hubert's motor-home Dennis introduces me to Hubert and his friend Rick in the standard manner, "Fellas, this is Dan, he's doing his Master's degree on bluegrass in the Maritimes." After we shake hands and I tell them a little bit about my research, Dennis tells Hubert to show me the guitar he has for sale because I am looking for a new one. Hubert gets up to grab a guitar case and I notice that there must be a dozen of them packed into his motor-home and, presumably, they all have instruments inside of them. I strum the guitar for a minute or so and ask him how much he wants for it. "Four hundred and fifty," he says, "it was around seven hundred new and hasn't really been played to speak of." After another minute or so of trying out Hubert's Blue Ridge guitar, I tell him I am not looking to buy a new one right away, but that I am looking to do so in the near future. "Well, I always have it with me, so stop in anytime you see me at a festival if you want to try it out again," he says. Just then Hubert's friend

Rick pipes up, "Hey, why don't you show him that J-45?" A big smile comes over

Hubert's face as he weaves his way through the narrow spaces of his motor- home. I look at Dennis and he is looking at me, smiling and nodding. "You have to see this one," Hubert says as he sets a guitar case on the bed in his motor- home and flips open the case. He pulls out a guitar with a very tattered looking

77 finish and hands it to me, telling me that It is a 1952 Gibson J-45. "Jeez," I say,

"this thing is older than my dad!" Rick has a huge smile on his face and appears as though he is bubbling over with excitement. 'Try that thing out," he says,

"check out the tone on her!" I grab a pick and proceed to play one of the chord progressions I had played a few minutes earlier on the Blue Ridge. I am no expert on instruments, vintage or otherwise, but I can hear a marked difference in the sound of the fifty-seven year old Gibson as compared to the new Blue

Ridge. The sound of the Gibson is full, rich and warm, with bass that reverberates through the back of the instrument and straight into my internal organs. It is not quite as easy to play as the Blue Ridge, but the sound that is coming out of it is worth whatever extra effort it requires to produce. "Well," Rick asks, still smiling ear-to-ear, "what do you think?" I stop and think for a moment,

"Well, I don't think I've ever heard such deep bass on an acoustic guitar before, nor have I ever heard one whose overall tone is so warm." Rick is nodding excitedly in agreement, "She's something else, isn't she?" He proceeds to tell me the story of how Hubert acquired the guitar while Hubert sits back and beams with pride, only stepping in when it appears as though he feels Rick has not embellished the story quite enough. In my opinion, the instrument is well worth the attention being paid to it.

"Well if you like a guitar with deep bass then you have to see this one,"

Hubert says as he puts away the J-45 and pulls out another one of the many cases strewn about his motor-home. 'Try this one on for size," he says and hands me a mint condition Martin D-28, "it's all rosewood: back, sides, neck and

78 fretboard. A lot of the rosewood in guitars these days is Indian, but this one is all top-notch Brazilian." Hubert does not mention that the guitar has a spruce top, presumably because it is common knowledge that it seems to be the favoured wood for dreadnought21 guitar tops. While spruce is a very common wood for the tops of dreadnought guitars, there is a huge variance in the types of woods used to construct the rest of the instrument; the types chosen greatly influence its tonal characteristics. I cannot say that I am familiar with the difference in tonal qualities when it comes to Indian versus Brazilian rosewood, but I do know that the latter comes at a much higher cost because of its relative scarcity. I fiddle around with the Martin for a moment and then begin playing the song

'Whipping Post' by the Allman Brothers Band, who were pioneers of of the blues-rock jam band sound in the late sixties and early seventies. It is a song I know relatively well so I sing it and play the rhythm and lead guitar parts. Martin guitars have a reputation for being high quality instruments that boast deep bass and are favoured by many serious bluegrass enthusiasts. Hubert is right, the bass on this particular Martin certainly rivals that of the J-45, but it far exceeds the J-45 in payability. I stop after playing half of 'Whipping Post' and Rick smiles

and says with a chuckle, "You're a blues man, eh?" I tell him that I like all sorts

of music but I have a relatively limited repertoire because I like to write my own

stuff. Hubert pipes up eagerly, 'That's a nice guitar, isn't it? It has that great

Martin tone." I agree and tell Hubert truthfully that it is probably the nicest

21 Dreadnought refers to a now-widely copied steel stringed acoustic guitar body shape first developed by guitar manufacturer C.F. Martin & Company; it is the standard type among bluegrass guitarists.

79 acoustic guitar I have ever played, adding that the J-45 may very well be the second nicest. Hubert replies, "Well, you should see the Martin Bill Duplessis has, it's a nineteen eighteen; it's ninety-one years old!" Hubert and Rick have been beaming since the moment Dennis and I arrived. I get the feeling that they could talk about and try out guitars all day long without ever growing tired of it.

My experience attending Maritime bluegrass festivals has made it abundantly clear that instruments are intimately linked to the community's sociality; they are central to much of the social talk and action that takes place at these densely layered social gatherings.

My mind wanders for a moment and I think back to some of the countless times that instruments have been central to social interaction. The very first time

I met Charlie he immediately showed me his pride and joy: a 1936 Martin archtop22 guitar. We effused over the beauty, rarity and uniqueness of his instrument in the customary manner for several minutes, effectively breaking the ice for further interaction. Talking about instruments among bluegrassers is quite like talking about the weather among the general population; it's something that everybody can relate to because it is all around them and, thus, it provides a sure-fire way to initiate conversation. I recall the time when I spotted a fellow with what appeared to be a homemade stand-up bass at last year's annual PEI

Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Festival in Rollo Bay, Prince Edward Island. His name was Larry, he was a grey-haired man in his forties from Charlottetown,

22 An archtop guitar guitar differs from a dreadnought in two distinct ways: 1) it's top is convex or "arched" as opposed to flat and 2) it typically exhibits two f-shaped sound holes like those of a violin rather than a single, round sound hole.

80 and he had constructed his homemade bass over the course of two or three evenings, using only a plastic barrel, some wood and some nylon fishing line. As soon as I saw it I could not help but approach him to ask him about his unique homemade instrument (and I was surely not the first person to do so since he had built it s few years earlier). After chatting about his bass for a few minutes

Larry spontaneously launched into a song: 'Friend of the Devil', an old Grateful

Dead song that happened to be one of my ail time favourites (but, as 'folky' as it is, it is definitely not a bluegrass song). Start to finish, I sang every word of the

song with Larry, just two voices and a homemade stand-up bass. At the end we burst out laughing and shook hands, saying, "Hey, that wasn't too bad!" As my experience trying guitars in Hubert's motor-home has demonstrated, in addition to sharing conversation about instruments, the very instruments themselves are

very often shared, thus adding another level of significance to their role in

festival sociality. Not only are instruments frequently talked about, they are

frequently handed about as well.

I snap out of my daydream when Dennis speaks up and says he thinks he is

going to catch some of the stage show. I say that I am going to as well as I

stand up and hand Hubert his Martin to put back in its case. After a couple more

hand shakes Dennis and I are out the door with Hubert calling behind me,

"Come back anytime you want to try out that Blue Ridge again, I'm usually at

every festival in the area!" I tell Hubert I will keep an eye out for him at festivals

in the future. Despite the fact that the weather is still plenty warm for shorts and

short sleeves, the mosquitoes are out in droves and I need to cover up my skin.

81 I tell Dennis I'm going to change my clothes and that I'll see him later on in the evening. I leave Dennis on Bass Avenue and head toward my campsite at the end of Mandolin Road.

On my way back to my campsite I am deep in thought when I hear someone yelling, "Hey! How are you doing?" I look up and spot a man in his late sixties or

early seventies smiling and waving in my direction. Even when I am not wearing my glasses I can usually recognize someone I know from a distance, but this man is no more than twenty-five or thirty metres away and I am at a loss for who he is. I do not want to embarrass myself by responding to him when he is really addressing someone right behind me. I look over my shoulder and there is no

one behind me, so I respond somewhat awkwardly, "Oh, the very best,

yourself?" While the man starts walking toward me, pointing in my general direction, he turns to a woman sitting in a nearby lawn chair and says, 'That's the fella studying bluegrass." As he reaches for a handshake he says, "I'm

Russell; that's my wife, Linda." I introduce myself to Russell as we shake hands even though he apparently already knows who I am, or what I am up to at least.

When we break our handshake I turn my attention to his wife and say, "Nice to meet you, Linda." She smiles widely beneath her wide-brimmed sun hat, "A pleasure, Daniel." Russell motions for me to follow him. "I want you to meet my

granddaughter," he says. Instantly, I feel shy because I have no idea what

Russell's intentions are. As we round the corner of Russell's fifth-wheel trailer he calls out, "Melanie, come meet the fella that's studying bluegrass." Just then, I

see a young adolescent girl no older than twelve drop a skipping rope and walk

82 toward us, smiling bashfully. At once I feel relieved because I am confident that

Russell was not trying to engage in some sort of match-making as I had initially feared. "Nice to meet you Melanie, I'm Dan," I say to as we shake hands. Her face turns bright red and she manages to stammer out a very small, "Hi."

Apparently I am not the only one who is shy. Russell explains to his granddaughter that I go to university an am doing a project on bluegrass for my degree. As Melanie runs off to resume her skipping, Russell asks me about my research and I fill him in on the gist of it. "My aim is basically to document the

Maritime bluegrass community and, in doing so, show how people make the tradition a meaningful part of their lives." I go on, "Moreover, because bluegrass exists all over the world, I'm interested in how people make it locally meaningful.

Essentially, I'm trying to figure out what is 'Maritime' about bluegrass in the

Maritimes." Russell seems impressed. "Well, as you know," he says, "bluegrass is big here in the Maritimes; it's a hotbed of bluegrass activity, so it's a good thing that you're doing this project." We carry on with some small talk for a couple more minutes before I head back to my campsite. On my way there I think about how I am not surprised that strangers know who I am and what I am up to here. I have already been recognized numerous times at other festivals and I get the feeling that a lot of the people here know one another and, even if they do not, they nonetheless talk to one another.

After changing into a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of pants I sit down with my back against my car, catching a moment of down time in the long, late-evening shade it provides. I always like to have some down-time at bluegrass festivals,

83 even if it is just ten or fifteen minutes here and there. After a few minutes of quiet solitude, a woman in her mid to late-sixties approaches from a nearby fifth- wheel trailer with a smile on her face and a paper plate in her hands. As she draws nearer she speaks to me in Chiac, a dialect of Acadian French that borrows heavily from the English language, "Aimerais-tu du strawberry shortcake?23" I look up and see that she has brought a generous serving of angel food cake topped with fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream. "Ah, oui,24" I reply wide-eyed, "merci beaucoupP5" She hands me the paper plate replete with strawberries, cake, ice cram, and a plastic fork. I thank her again and she replies, "Pas de probleme, si tu besoins n'importe de quoi je suis right there,26" as she points to her fifth-wheel camper. I thank her again for her kindness. It is always good to have someone offer you 'anything you need', because in the past I have definitely forgotten various necessities that I could not get through the weekend without; things like writing implements, eating utensils, and other such items. I notice that she did not mention my research or refer to me as the guy studying bluegrass, so she must be being kind to me simply because she sees that I am here all alone when most people travel with friends or family and that I am roughing it in a tent while most people enjoy the comfort afforded by trailers and motor-homes. I certainly could not have brought any ice cream along with me and have it last for any amount of time. With a

23 "Would you like some strawberry shortcake?"

24 "Oh, yes,"

25 "Thank you very much!"

26 "No problem, if you need anything at all I'm right there,"

84 smile on my face I dig into the most delicious strawberry shortcake I have ever eaten. Random acts of kindness make everything taste better.

Once I am finished with my dessert I load a few more items into my backpack, namely my digital camera, my field journal and a small solid-state digital audio recorder. I check the time-8:10 p.m.-time to head back to the stage show. I have already missed Close to Home and New Ground's set will be ending before long. I put on my backpack and head directly for the stage. I walk hurriedly between some motor-homes to cut across to Hillbilly Road; the stage is about halfway up. As I approach I can hear New Ground's banjo player ending a song with the well known musical phrase 'Shave and a Haircut, Two

Bits27', which is common ending phrase for bluegrass songs. Once the applause dies down, one of New Ground's members says into the microphone, "Thank you so much. Well, there seems to be a lot more old country working its way into bluegrass these days, and that's fine by us; we're going finish up with an old country song for you now." Just as I am finding a suitable place in the crowd to stand and watch the last few numbers in New Ground's set, they launch into an all-acoustic, fully-bluegrass version of Buck Owens' hit song 'Love's Gonna Live

Here', which is met with enthusiastic cheers of approval. Immediately, I think back to a video28 I saw of Owens performing this song on the Jimmy Dean show in 1966. In the video, Owens and his acoustic guitar are accompanied in the

28 http://www. voutube.com/watch ?v=a1 Yam9bvjUE

85 usual way: by the twangy sounds of a Telecaster electric guitar and a pedal steel guitar, as well as an electric bass and a set of drums (all of which are characteristic features of the 'Bakersfield Sound'29 that Owens played a key role in forging and popularizing). The rules at nearly every festival state that electric instruments are not allowed, and any festivals that omit this rule from their list only do so because it is taken as axiomatic. In short, to say that electric instruments are frowned upon at Maritime bluegrass festivals is an understatement for sure. However, performing all-acoustic bluegrass versions of country favourites that were originally (and repeatedly) recorded with electric instruments generally produces nothing but smiles. New Ground's performance of this song shows that, despite the widespread popularity of lamenting the proverbial acoustic epoch in country music, the 'old country' that is showing up more frequently in bluegrass is not necessarily acoustic country.

I think it's because of the people wanting the old country mixed in with the bluegrass. The new country-it's not big with the old people around here. Especially over in New Brunswick, they like the old country, the old George Jones stuff and Merle Haggard stuff; they mix this in with the bluegrass. A lot of people call it the cross 'countrygrass' in a certain sense because of there being a bit of the old country in it. But, it's catchy (Hemmings 2004).

The applause following New Ground's rendition of this classic Buck Owens song is far more enthusiastic than the standard 'polite' applause given after any performance (regardless how unremarkable it may be); this is the applause of a

29 The Bakersfield Sound is an edgy honky-tonk hybrid that emerged in and around Bakersfield, California; it is viewed as an aesthetic reaction to Nashville's highly polished 'Countrypolitan Sound' that came to dominate the country music industry during the 1950s.

86 very happy festival crowd. To be sure, there are probably a few individuals who are not impressed with the choice of song because, having not been long- established as standard bluegrass repertoire, it does not pass their litmus test for 'real bluegrass music'. However, such a purist formulation of authenticity in bluegrass-that it requires and is limited to the faithful reproduction of a quasi- sacred repertoire of songs-is by far the minority among Maritime bluegrass enthusiasts, many of whom exhibit a keen understanding of the inherent dynamism of their tradition. In theory, the only alternative to a dynamic tradition is a static one, and since the functioning of traditions reveals them to be processes more so than things (Trevor-Roper 1983), the concept of a 'static tradition' is a veritable oxymoron.

A lot of the older country-some of the older country material-has been played a little bit in the bluegrass scene, too, I think. And one of the reasons is because there's just no place else to play it, there's no place to play that good old country now except maybe at a festival. If it's done with the bluegrass instruments and it's done with a bluegrass feel to it then... We've all been aware for years that there are people who are more liberal-minded in the bluegrass community than others. Some of them are pretty hardcore and almost fanatical about keeping things traditional and playing the good old bluegrass music. There's not a thing wrong with that, but you also have to open the door a little bit and allow some movement in there because the only way that the bluegrass music is going to stay alive is that if it's played. And the only way it's going to get played is if the young people play it, because those of us who are getting long in the tooth can only play it for so long. On the plus side, there's a lot of young people playing it, a lot of young bands-they're doing great things. Sometimes I hear people badmouthing them because they're not really playing bluegrass or they're not playing traditional bluegrass, they're playing this and then, "That's not bluegrass," or, "that's not a bluegrass tune." Well, as far as I'm concerned, if we expect them to play the traditional music and keep it alive, if we want them to do that, then we better be a little bit receptive to some of the music that they want to play as well. The door swings both ways. I don't want to see the music evolve into something that's not bluegrass but, at the same time, I don't want to see it

87 die because of the blinders. There's a happy medium there (John Jeffries 2008, pers. comm.).

It is important to note, however, that there are entitative features and purist views of authenticity in bluegrass tradition that the majority of Maritime enthusiasts would agree must be respected and maintained. Namely, the distinct rhythm and instrumentation of the music are the elements of the tradition that most enthusiasts would agree do need to be reproduced faithfully. In short, the prevailing view seems to be that it is a bluegrass song if it sounds like a bluegrass song, even if it did not begin its life as one.

FC: Yes, there's been many discussions on, "Oh, that's not allowed, it should not be," and, myself, my opinion is if you have a full set of bluegrass instruments it's a bluegrass song, and that's an opinion.

That's one thing that I found in my research that I've been doing; that its more so the instrumentation than what's said in the songs-what the songs are about. The lyrical subject matter seems to be less important than how the music sounds.

FC- Yes, its how it's put together, and the arrangements, and the harmonies- harmonies, for me, is a big part [of] bluegrass music (Francis Cormier 2006, pers. comm.).

Thus, instrumentation and style tend to prove more important than repertoire in providing a good stage performance at a Maritime bluegrass festival. The crowd's extremely positive reception of New Ground's bluegrassified Buck

Owens song lends credence to this idea and so, too, does the positive response to their next number. Without waiting for the applause to die down, New

88 Ground's singer thanks the audience and motions to his band mates to being the next number, which turns out to be a medley of three reels30. Two of the reels I recognize, but cannot remember their names. The other, unsurprisingly, is 'St. Anne's Reel'. Again, while these tunes are certainly not a part of a purist formulation of traditional bluegrass repertoire, they are nonetheless familiar to and well received by the vast majority of the audience.

I like them because one, I grew up listening to this stuff on the little five-tube radio. And the other thing; Saturday night, that's what they played at the legion hall for square dancing. I mean, that was it, there was no other...[trails off], mostly square dancing. So, I grew up with all that stuff, it's in my head, it's part of me (Dennis Seeley 2009, pers. comm.).

At the end of New Ground's reel medley the audience resumes their enthusiastic applause. New Ground's lead singer thanks the crowd and the band leaves the stage as the boisterous bunch carries on. Jerry Murphy quickly takes control of the microphone and says in his characteristically deep voice,

"What do you say, folks? Give it up for New Ground!" The already enthusiastic applause get a little bit louder still. Jerry continues, "Do you guys want to hear another one?" This question is not always met with boisterous cheering, but it

30 A reel is a folk dance tune form characterized most commonly by its duple meter and AABB form. A reel is differentiated from a hornpipe, which also commonly employs duple meter and an AABB form, by its consistent even rhythm that stresses the first and third beats in a measure; the latter more frequently employs uneven, dotted rhythms.

89 does always result in an encore for, as Francis Cormier once pointed out in one of the Bluegrass Diamonds' stage performances, an encore is a conventional part of bluegrass festival stage performance in the Maritimes. In this case, however, the crowd's delight in hearing New Ground perform both a bluegrass version of a classic Buck Owens song and a medley of reels yields an enthusiastic affirmative response to Jerry's question. As is nearly always the case, it takes only a few seconds for the band's members to resume their respective positions on stage, for they knew this was coming. New Ground's singer quickly thanks the crowd again and the band launches into one of the best known fiddle tunes of the twentieth century: Orange Blossom Special.

Although it began its life as an old time fiddle tune, Orange Blossom Special soon became one of the best known bluegrass standards; further proof that a piece of music that did not originate as bluegrass can easily become bluegrass.

After New Ground has left the stage for a second time, I turn to the middle- aged woman next to me and say, "I missed Close to Home's set, how was it?" I can be quite shy sometimes, but I find it much easier to engage in conversation with strangers in the context of a bluegrass festival. Before she responds I add,

"Did they play anything interesting?" She pauses a moment to think and says excitedly, "Oh yes, they did a Pasty Cline song!" She immediately begins singing the chorus of Cline's 'Back In Baby's Arms', "I'm back in baby's arms; how I missed those loving arms. I'm back where I belong, back in baby's arms." She begins laughing and asks me if I know the song. I tell her I do, but that I only know it because I have heard Close to Home Perform it before. I tell her that I

90 am not very familiar with Patsy Cline's repertoire, but that I have read about her

and how she was a huge country music star who had crossed over into the pop music market before her untimely death cut her career short. We commiserate

for a moment over the loss of a star before I ask her if Close to Home played

any other songs that weren't strictly bluegrass. "Oh, well, they played 'Red

Rubber Ball', you know that one?" she asked. "Oh yes," I respond, "I've heard

them do that one too, it's a good one." 'Red Rubber Ball' was co-written by Paul

Simon and was featured on a Simon and Garfunkel album. When I heard Close

To Home introduce 'Red Rubber Ball' on stage at a festival earlier this summer they referred to it as a newgrass31 song, and playfully acknowledged that newgrass is a dirty word. Close to Home's singer, Kevin Baker, was right to refer to it as a newgrass song though because, while it was done with bluegrass instrumentation, it did not employ the special rhythm characteristic of bluegrass music proper (the rhythm of the music that purists refer to as 'real bluegrass music'). I say to her, "When I heard them play it they apologized to the crowd before playing it because they said it was a newgrass song, but everybody seemed to like it just the same." Oh yes," she responds, "not very many people will get bent out of shape over that; they weren't using electric guitars or anything!" We chuckle for a moment until she stops abruptly, having obviously remembered something. "Oh,: she says, "and they did an Irish one, or one about an Irish girl anyway; 'Colleen Malone' it was called. I don't know who wrote it though." I tell her I know exactly the one she is referring to. The last time

31 Newgrass is a subjective term employed to denote music that is a lot like bluegrass in various ways, but too progressive in its musical features to rightly be called bluegrass music proper.

91 I saw Close to Home perform they did that one too. I tell her it was written by an

American named Pete Goble who is a relatively well-known songwriter in the bluegrass world. We discuss the lyrical content of the song-a man sets sail from

Ireland and returns only to find that his love, Colleen Malone, has died-and how it is a fitting song for the Maritimes given the huge influx of Irish Immigrants in the region during the nineteenth century. "Well yes," she agrees, "the fellow that sings in the band asked if anybody was of Irish descent before they did the song and a bunch people in the crowd cheered." We are distracted from our conversation by Jerry Murphy's booming voice coming from the stage; he is introducing the next band, The Bluegrass Diamonds. The woman with whom I was speaking and I exchange a quick, "Nice talking to you," and once again turn our attention toward the stage.

Francis Cormier, the Diamonds' frontman, approaches the mic and begins speaking. "You know, we've had many opportunities to have excellent banjo players in this band, but we've decided to stick with Roger and there's a reason for that: when we're traveling around to do shows we only need to give him about half a hamburger every two days and he's good to go!" The crowd laughs heartily and even Roger, himself, is sporting a wide smile. He is used to these playful insults. For some reason banjo players are often the butt of jokes and I do not think this phenomenon is restricted to the bluegrass scene in the

Maritimes. Roger, on top of being the Diamonds' banjo player, is a fairly short man, and this figures prominently in Francis' repertoire of jokes he tells to entertain the crowd.

92 "We're going to start with a song that's one of our favourites," Francis continues as the crowds laughter subsides, "it's on our CD Some Of Our

Favourites, Hopefully Yours; it's called 'You Go To Your Church and I'll Go To

Mine' and it goes like this..." Francis nods to Roger, who plays the short banjo lick that begins the song, and a second later the rest of the band joins in right on cue. I think about how the song would be a fitting anthem for bluegrass festival sociality. The lyrics bespeak a fundamental camaraderie that calls for not only tolerance but, moreover, friendship in the face of social differences: 'You go to your church and I'll go to mine, but let's walk along together / Our fathers built them side by side, so let's walk along together / The road is rough and the way is long, but we'll help each other over / You go to your church and I'll go to mine, but let's walk along together'.

To my surprise, the Diamonds' next number is a hornpipe-it's the first time

I've heard a hornpipe played in the context of a bluegrass festival, either on stage or off. I have heard reels frequently enough to be unsurprised when they show up as part of the stage show, but I have been to several festivals over the past couple of years and this is a first for I have never even heard a hornpipe in a jam, where the rules of musical conduct are more lax. Perhaps hornpipes are simply less common in the maritime region's folk music repertoire in general.

Francis announced that they were going to play a hornpipe, but he did not give its name. I would like to think that I would have picked up on the fact that they were playing a hornpipe had it not been stated, for they are generally played more slowly than reels and usually exhibit a dotted rhythm (as opposed to the

93 characteristically faster and more even rhythm of a reel). However, I cannot say for sure that I would have noticed. What I can say for sure is that, despite the apparent infrequency with which hornpipes are played in Maritime bluegrass, this one is received just as enthusiastically as any reel I have heard played at a bluegrass festival. Then again, I am not surprised. While hornpipes may not be all that common in the repertoire of bluegrass bands the world over, they are definitely familiar to oldtime music enthusiasts in the Maritimes. While bluegrass festivals in the Maritimes surely do exhibit a lot of enthusiasm for bluegrass music they are, more generally, a site for participating in overlapping spheres of different but related musics (although their relatedness may be figured in any number of ways: musically, socio-culturally, geographically, etc.).

As I stand waiting for the Diamonds to start their next number, Francis

Cormier's voice fades into the background as a different form of sensory input grabs my attention: a slight breeze has come up and blown the smell of the nearby canteen my way. I realize I have not eaten in a few hours and the sandwich I had when I arrived is no longer cutting it. I start making my way toward the canteen, which is just a small, older fifth wheel trailer with a fast food kitchen set up on the inside. As I approach, the smell of greasy food gets stronger and so, too, does my hunger. I do not even have to look at the menu because I know what I want before I even arrive at the order window. Normally I like to eat healthy foods as much as possible, but it is nearly impossible to let a festival go by without getting an order of the most famous French Canadian

dish: the poutine. It is a good thing that festivals only take place on the

94 weekends during the summer months too, because eating a mountain of french fries smothered in cheese curds and gravy once a week is probably too often.

Sure, poutines are available in other contexts too, but they have come to be my favourite bluegrass festival treat.

I sit at one of the four picnic tables in front of the canteen to eat my poutine.

All around me is the buzzing of people carrying on with one another; kids of all ages running about and playing, oblivious to the musical performances happening on the stage; an older couple chatting at the canteen window as they wait for their food; a family seated at the picnic table next to me discussing their game plan for the rest of the weekend in between mouthfuls of hot dogs and hamburgers. Coming from the stage's PA system I can hear the Bluegrass

Diamonds performing one of their French songs, 'Femme aux yeux bleu' ('Blue-

Eyed Woman'). When the song is finished the crowd cheers loudly; there are a lot of francophones here. I look around and see that there are a number of people walking up and down the lanes with instruments in hand, surely heading out to join a jam somewhere on the festival grounds. One woman passes by with her upright bass in tow, wheeling it along on a slightly modified cart originally designed for a golf bag. I try to block out the abundance of stimuli and concentrate enjoying the rest of my poutine.

It is pretty well dusk now. While there is often a jam to be found at any given time of the day, once the sun sets it seems to pick up a lot, reaching full-force shortly after the end of the stage show. It is common to have a half-dozen sizable, relatively fixed jams to choose from at a festival in the Maritimes, but

95 the largest of them they may boast jams too numerous (and transient) to keep track of. At the larger festivals, which are said to attract upwards of two or three thousand patrons (Poirier 2008, pers. comm., MacDonald 2008, pers. comm.), there are often a few campsites where music is played consistently from the early evening until the wee hours of the morning. Such campsites draw a lot of spectators. While this is by far not the largest of the festivals in the Maritimes, its grounds are pretty well full and it is known to have a high degree of field picking and general post-show socializing so long as the weather is not foul. Right now I am certain there are far more people out in the fields than there are sitting in front of the stage and I feel compelled to join the action.

As I make my way in the direction of Dennis' campsite to fetch my guitar, I can hear that the Diamonds' are performing Lucille Starr's 1964 hit 'The French

Song', the lyrics of which are actually in both French and English. Of course, the

Diamonds have bluegrassified their version of 'The French Song'. One side of my family-the big side-is French and many of my friends come from

Francophone families as well, so I know 'The French Song' is a very nostalgic song that is particularly cherished among many older Francophones in the

Maritime region. The sound of the stage grows more muffled as I walk down

Hillbilly Road toward Dennis' campsite, but I can still hear well enough to know that the Diamonds have chosen to follow 'The French Song' with 'Orange

Blossom Special'. This tune, like St. Anne's Reel, is heard very frequently in the

Maritime festival circuit. However, this is the first time I have heard the

Diamonds perform 'Orange Blossom Special' and something about their

96 rendition makes me stop dead in my tracks on Hillbilly Road. I stand there with my head down, listening intently-p/zz/'cafo32. Matt Hayes, the Diamonds' teenaged fiddler, is playing an entire repetition of the melody in 'Orange

Blossom Special' pizzicato; a playing technique that is, as far as I know, not at all a part of conventional bluegrass fiddling style. The crowd applauds loudly at the end of the pizzicato repetition of the tune's melody, signaling that despite the obvious break from traditional bluegrass fiddling style, the crowd welcomes

Hayes' use of pizzicato on 'Orange Blossom Special' as a novel take on an old familiar tune.

Moments after I begin on my way again I take note of a promising jam I hear going on nearby. Naturally, I alter my course momentarily to check it out. I turn a corner and head in the opposite direction of Dennis' campsite and walk down the lane thirty or forty metres. There, nestled between a camper van and a modest sized fifth-wheel trailer, I find the source of the sounds: it is Charlie, his twelve year old son, his brother, Ron, and three other fellows. One of the three other fellows is around my age while the other two are in their forties or early fifties. I recognize the younger fellow to be Alan, the son of a well know bluegrass picker in the Maritimes, but I have yet to be formally introduced to him. Charlie looks up from his guitar playing and gives me a nod and a smile, so

I stick around to listen for a bit to listen. I really do not feel like I am intruding in

32 Pizzicato is an Italian term for a stringed-instrument playing technique that involves plucking an instrument's strings in order to make it sound. Other than plucking, there are two other common methods for sounding stringed instruments: bowing and striking. While many stringed instruments are plucked, the term pizzicato is usually reserved for the plucking of strings on an instrument that is normally bowed (with the exception of the double bass, which is just as frequently plucked as it is bowed depending on what style of music is being played).

97 any way; strangers stop in and listen to jams for as long as they please before moving on to another campsite. If that stranger happens to be a musician with instrument-in-hand then, in all likelihood, they will be invited to join the jam with a question like, "You want to pick out a few tunes?" Just then, Charlie wraps up singing a verse and Alan bursts into a lead break on his guitar, commanding my attention with his virtuosity. Though he is only in his mid-twenties, it is evident that Alan has already developed lead guitar skills on par with those of the most seasoned veterans I have ever seen in Maritime bluegrass. As Alan enters the final bar of his lead break he nods to the banjo player, signaling to him that it is his turn for a break. Alan plays the last few notes of his lead break and, seamlessly, the banjo comes in. I am quite impressed with the banjo player's abilities too, he also seems to be as good as any of the banjo pickers I have heard on stage. After his break Charlie sings the chorus of the song one last time before the banjo player seals the deal with the 'Shave and a Haircut, Two

Bits' ending.

"Hey, Dan!" Charlie says in his raspy voice, "you found us!" I tell Charlie I got antsy at the stage and needed to find a jam and socialize with some people.

Knowing that I only know half of the group, Charlie addresses the guys I do not know in a half-boastful tone of voice, "Guys, this is Dan. He studies bluegrass in university!" I get introduced to Alan, the phenomenal guitarist; Laurie, one of the middle-aged fellows, who was also playing mandolin; and Tim, the highly skilled banjo player who was the other fellow I did not recognize. I answer the standard set of questions I get about my research and pull out some pamphlets from my

98 backpack and pass them out for the guys to refer to later on. "Hey," I say, "you guys sounded awesome and I've been looking to record a jam at a festival. Do you guys mind if I set up a small audio recorder to record you guys playing?"

The group looks at one another and, shrugging their shoulders, all agree with seeming indifference-all but Tim anyhow. Tim speaks up and says, 'To be honest, I'd probably rather you didn't..." He begins to explain in an apologetic tone of voice when I tell him there's no need to be sorry; the very reason I ask for permission is to give him an opportunity to decline. It is obvious though that he does not want to come off as a spoilsport or offend me in any way and feels the need to explain, so I let him. "I just love jamming with these guys," he begins, "I've been jamming with Charlie and Ron for fifteen years now-and you know, not once in those fifteen years did they ever say we should start a band.

For me, it's all about playing music in the moment, and that's why I don't play in a band or record-as soon as that red light comes on it's a whole different story."

Tim emphasizes the fleeting nature of the music as being central to why jamming is his preferred means of bluegrass music-making. Tim goes on to openly admit that, should I record their jam, he would become hyper-conscious of his playing in the same manner he would if he were in a recording studio. Tim does not say it outright, but he implies that recording would ruin the fun of the jam. "If you can record me without me knowing that would be fine," Tim says with a chuckle. I have a laugh with him and tell him I wish that I could because their jam sounded awesome but, ultimately, I could never do that because recording people without their knowledge is contrary to good research ethics. I

99 assure Tim that I completely understand and empathize with his reason for not wanting me to record the jam and that, should the roles be reversed, I would likely feel the same way. Charlie pipes up and changes the subject, "Where's your guitar anyway?" I tell him that I was actually just on my way to get it from

Dennis' campsite. "All right," he says, "stop in to pick out a few tunes later on, there, we'll be here all night!" I tell Charlie I would not miss it for the world. I gather up my stuff and, just before heading out, I tell the guys that it was great to meet them and that I will probably see them later.

Things are quiet at Dennis' campsite. He must be either off jamming somewhere or at the stage checking out the second-to-last band on tonight's bill, The Spinney Brothers. I am a bit conflicted about missing The Spinney

Brothers' set because I love their bluegrassified version of George Jones' 1980 hit, 'He Stopped Loving Her Today', which both revived Jones' waning career and was eventually voted the greatest country music song of all time (Erlewine

2010). However, nothing says the band will even perform that song tonight anyhow, I have seen them plenty of times and only heard it twice. (It seems that most bands have a fairly large repertoire, so if you really want to hear them play a particular song your best bet is to request it from one of the band members ahead of time.) I pick up my guitar and pause for a moment, contemplating my next move. I decide that I am going to put away my guitar and pull out my mandolin, despite the fact I am not quite as familiar with it as I am the guitar. I figure there is no better way to learn than by jumping right in. However, 'jumping right in' is not to be equated with recklessness, for there is a particular form a

100 person should employ. Rather, 'jumping right in' means to participate to the best of your abilities and, likewise, to be aware of their extent.

You walk into a jam session with your guitar and you're all drunked up, beating and thrashing all out of whack and stuff, naturally, some people is going to give you a cold shoulder. If we're going to talk about the jamming and stuff like that I'm going to give you my input on the jamming, what I think happens sometimes. Most of the time it's pretty decent, but you're always going to get that spare tire guy coming around, and he ruins-they're called 'jam wreckers'-that does happen. You're sitting around, everybody's having a good time at a jam or something like that and somebody stumbles in there, every once in a while, and maybe drinking too much and taking his guitar and just beating it as hard as-if you want to jam with somebody, if you want respect from jamming, you go in there with not too many drinks in you-you drink a little bit-but, I mean, don't be drunk, nobody wants you falling all over them. And they're sitting around, you take your guitar or your mandolin, you just tinkle along really quietly until you think you got what they're doing, then when you got it then you can get a little louder when you're more sure. Just don't go in there and play a tune with them and-real loud, all over the place-and drown them all out playing all the wrong chords. They won't like you at that jam. I don't care how they talk about how fun jams are, but people don't like people like that, and there's a lot of people still doing that, and there'll always be people doing that-going around and just making the music sound terribly bad, only because they're drunk or maybe the band that they're playing with is playing songs that they're not familiar with. And that's okay, because if you don't know the tune you can do things. I'm going to tell you something that you can do in a jam session [picks up banjo]. Because, let's face it, there's jam sessions, yes, but these are good musicians too, I mean, they don't want you in there [strums banjo extremely loudly] you know what I mean, just beating and thrashing and [you] can't hear nobody singing. And I'm telling you, it happens. Say you're going to play a tune [starts strumming chords on the banjo] and you're playing chords, say it goes to a C- chord, you heard that change, eh? Say you don't know chords to a song. Well, you can always look like you're not just a bump on a log, you can still play along and not disrupt that band. They're called clicks, but they're not really [strums muted chords on banjo]. If I push down I got a chord, so if [you] just take your hand, but don't push it all the way down. You can move it around. It sounds like you're changing chords, but these chords will fit any chord because you're not actually playing the notes. You can do it on any instrument (Don Cormier 2008, pers. comm.).

101 I head toward my campsite thinking about how I should find a jam other than

Charlie and Ron's because, firstly, they are quite skilled and I should play guitar if I want to jam with them and, secondly, they already have two people playing the mandolin (Laurie and Charlie's son). It is not so much that you cannot have three mandolins in a jam, but since mandolin pickers seem to be more scarce than guitar pickers at any given festival it only makes sense to spread them around. Just as I am approaching my car to switch instruments and grab a few things, a voice calls out enthusiastically, "Hey buddy, come play us a tune!" The request is coming from a group or five people in their forties and fifties that are camped four sites away from me. Being a good neighbour, I decide to oblige them before heading out. I see that they have a guitar leaning against a vehicle, so perhaps we can pick out a few tunes.

As soon as I sit down I can tell that these folks have been drinking quite heavily; their slurred speech, boisterous voices, and raucous laughter are clear indicators. Immediately, I am offered a beer that I seem to have no choice in accepting; it is thrust into my hand before I have a chance to even think about it.

I accept the beer graciously and cheers my neighbours. The group, which consists of four men and a woman, begin coaxing me to play them a song.

Given that my repertoire of bluegrass songs is quite limited, I opt to play an old folk ballad called 'Jack-a-roe' that, when slight variations in the story are taken into account, has been around for a couple hundred years. I warn my neighbours, "Well, I honestly don't know too many bluegrass tunes, but I can play you an old traditional folk tune I know." One of my neighbours says

102 enthusiastically, "Alright, it doesn't have to be bluegrass, let's hear it!" I do not normally sing-l usually leave that to people with better voices and larger repertoires-but I decided I might as well sing for these folks. I begin fingerpicking the chord progression as I usually start the song this way, then, mid-way through, I usually change over to strumming and substituting some chord voicings on to add some variety. Trying to set my self-consciousness aside I begin the lyrics after getting through the chord progression once without them, 'There was a wealthy merchant, in London he did dwell / He had a beautiful daughter, the truth to you I'll tell / Oh, the truth to you I'll tell / She had sweethearts aplenty and men of high degree / None but Jack the sailor her true love ever be / Oh, her true love ever be..." When I play music, and especially when I sing at the same time, it requires a great deal of concentration, to the point that, sometimes I am oblivious to what is going on around me; I refer to this as 'being in the zone'. However, this time, something is breaking my concentration. Just as I am beginning the third verse, which could be no more than thirty or forty seconds into the song, something else forces its way into my

consciousness: "...shut UP, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up!" I stop, stunned like a deer in headlights, not believing my ears. I look to my left and the man who had just told me repeatedly to 'shut the fuck up' says, "Here, let me see that," and grabs my guitar out of my lap. I sit there, stunned, while his friends laugh and shrug off their friend's poor manners by saying, "Oh, don't mind him, he's just drunk." I keep quiet while the impolite fellow begins his song, but I think to myself that I certainly do mind him and, now, I do not really want to

103 stick around any longer than I absolutely have to. I figure I might as well lead by example and try to be as polite as possible, so I decide it would be best to stay long enough to finish the beer I was given and then make my exit.

I sit and watch the impolite fellow as he stumbles all over Merle Haggard's

'Mama Tried'. It is evident that he has had too much alcohol to be playing music; he has no sense of rhythm and he keeps repeating lines that I know are not supposed to be repeated. When he pauses between verses in an attempt to try to remember the next one his friends try to prompt him with its first line, but they soon begin quibbling over which line or verse comes next. I know the song well-

I know its words and music by heart-and had this experience not turned sour for me so quickly I might have been inclined to humour the fellow and help him out singing the song. I could have even played it for them if they had asked me, but

I have already decided that this campsite is not one where I want to spend any significant amount of time.

One of the other men picks up the guitar leaned against a vehicle and tries to accompany his friend, but it is quite obvious that the instrument is severely out of tune and, even in his drunken stupor, the impolite man's friend has enough wherewithal to either hear that the instrument sounds terrible or realize that he is too drunk to play (perhaps both). The impolite man, however, is playing an instrument that is tuned perfectly and he can neither make it sound good nor realize that he is unable to do so, and so he carries on. I think that every verse in the song is repeated two or three times, and never with its lines in the right order. The impolite man takes Haggard's song, which was originally just over

104 two minutes long, and stretches it out into an epic, seven-minute song slaughter.

The butchering seems to last forever but, on the bright side, it provides me with an opportunity to finish the beer I was given. When the impolite man finally finishes destroying a perfectly good song he hands me my guitar and says something like, 'Thanks, buddy." I think to myself that it is time to get out of here. Just as I begin to stand up the impolite man pipes up with a hand reaching toward me, saying, "Here, let me see that thing again..." Without skipping a beat

I turn toward my guitar case and say, "Actually, I was just on my way over to jam with some friends in the next field; they're expecting me and I'm a little bit late.

But, thank you for the beer, I appreciate it, and I hope you guys have a great evening, it was nice meeting you." I kneel over to put my guitar in the case as the impolite man's friends say, "All right, see you later." I am certain that they know I was put off by their friend's behaviour, and I could tell that even they thought it was inappropriate, so I think they understand why I would rather be elsewhere. "See you," I say as I leave to walk to my campsite thinking that, although that was not really a jam, I just had my first run-in with a jam wrecker.

At my campsite I put two cans of beer into my backpack to bring with me on my journey. I open a third can to drink while I sit on my cooler tuning my mandolin, which can be a cantankerous and time consuming instrument to tune

(especially when you insist on having a perfectly tuned instrument as I do).

When people are trying to tune an instrument but cannot get it quite right the will often give up and use the old saying, "Well, it's close enough for folk music," to invoke the supposed informality of the context in which they are playing.

105 Whether the context is informal or not, I am not willing to be 'that guy'-the one whose instrument ruins the sound of an otherwise potentially harmonious jam.

As I finish tuning the last string I look up and an elderly man passing by smiles at me and says, 'This is the way to do it, isn't it?" I smile back and reply, "It sure is!" The elderly man continues on his way, not knowing how he had just single- handedly turned my mood around after my first negative social interaction at a bluegrass festival. I turn my attention to the matter of finding a suitable jam to join in on. I have never really taken the initiative to start a jam of my own and I decide that it might not be a bad idea to try it out, I am just not entirely sure how to go about doing so. I think to myself, "If you play, they will come," and so I sit on my cooler with my mandolin in hand, figuring if I just sit and play for a little bit then my instrument would be somewhat akin to an animal call used by a hunter.

Sure enough, after less than ten minutes of lonely picking, a guitar player and a banjo player approach me saying they would like to start a jam and that they have a bass player waiting nearby. I tell them I would love to jam with them and

I accompany them to a nearby campsite where the jam will take place.

Along the way we introduce ourselves. Charles, the guitar player, looks like he is in his early to mid-thirties and Daniel, the banjo player, mentions that he just graduated from high school in June, so he must be around eighteen years old. When we arrive at the campsite I see that it is set up quite nicely for a jam: there is a large rug that covers all of the ground beneath the fifth-wheel trailer's sizable awning and a couple of nice lamps that provide adequate lighting now that the sun is almost completely gone. There are plenty of chairs nearby, but

106 the jamming area-the rug-is wide open. Charles introduces me to Murray and

Renee, the owners of the trailer and our hosts for the evening. Both Murray and

Renee are soft-spoken individuals in their late sixties or early seventies that I assume are husband and wife based on the way they interact. The two of them seem to be extremely happy to be hosting a jam at their trailer and Renee constantly checks to see that her guests' needs are being met: "Would you like a beer? Do you want a chair to sit on while you play? We have more of them if you decide you want one. How about you Charles, do you want a chair? There is plenty of room in our coolers if any of you guys want to keep your drinks cold"

Renee carries on making her guests feel at home as Murray gets his bass out and ready to play.

"So you found someone else, eh guys?" Murray asks Charles and Daniel rhetorically as he gets prepared, "while you were gone I was talking to Jim and he said he'd be over in a few minutes too." Murray turns to me and says, "Jim plays guitar too; he and Charles are both pretty good-and Jim knows a lot of songs so he's good to have around. We might even have a friend of ours who plays fiddle stop over too." I tell Murray that it is always nice to have a singer

with a good repertoire around because, personally, all I can do is follow along.

Charles and Daniel have their instruments out and are warming up. I can tell that they know how to play their instruments quite competently, but not so well that I will feel out of place in the jam.

"So, what do you guys want to play?" Charles asks. Daniel speaks up eagerly, "How about 'Blackberry Blossom'?" Charles asks me if I know that tune

107 and I tell him I have heard it but never jammed on it before, but that as long as I can see what he is playing on the guitar I will be able to pick it up easily and chop along. "All right," Charles says and nods in Daniel's direction, who immediately delivers the song's four or five note banjo intro. The moment those few notes are over and Daniel enters the first measure of this well-known instrumental tune Charles and Murray are right there with him, without even missing a beat. I sit without playing for about twenty seconds, watching Charles play the tune's chord progression on the guitar. I see that the tune is in the key of G-major, and that the chord progression for the first part uses G-major, C- major, D-major, and A-major, while the second part employs two additional chords: E-minor and B-seven. I do not think I know a B-seven on the mandolin yet, but that will not be a problem. When Daniel comes around to start the first part again I begin chopping along right on time (well, syncopated time).33 When we enter into the second part of the tune I know from watching Charles that the first two chords are E-minor and B-seven, the latter of which I do not know yet. I hit the E-minor on the first off-beat as I am supposed to and, rather than play the wrong chord in place of the B-seven or break up the rhythm I am providing by playing nothing at all, I simply mute all of the strings on my mandolin and play an entirely percussive chop in place of the B-seven chop, just as Don Cormier

33 This rhythmic counting of this tune in duple metre would be: "1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and." The numbers one, two, three and four represent the beats in the measure. Because the mandolin's rhythmic role calls for syncopation, I do not strum on the beat, I strum the chords in the tune's progression on the "and" part of the rhythmic counting; on the offbeat. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and (rhythm) 1 strum 2 strum 3 strum 4 strum (when to strum) (rest) Gmaj (rest) Dmaj (rest) Cmaj (rest) Gmaj (what to strum)

108 suggested I do if I am not familiar with the chord. By doing this I am neither ruining the sound of the song by playing the wrong notes nor messing up its rhythm by playing nothing. On faster songs and tunes a chop can be so short lived that it is difficult to hear its tonality anyhow, so muting the mandolin's strings to play an entirely percussive chop in place of an unfamiliar chord can easily go unnoticed (provided that there are not too many unfamiliar chords).

During the final moments of completing a second run through the tune's melody

Daniel nods to Charles, and when come back to the top they instantly switch roles: Charles plays the tune's melody on the guitar and Daniel joins me in providing the rhythmic backing. I cannot watch Charles' chording hand for guidance any longer because he is no longer playing chords. However, I feel confident that, after watching the tune be played through once and joining in the second time through, I have it down. I take my eyes off of Charles and chop along to the tunes chord progression. The chords I do know I know well enough that I do not need to look at my instrument while I am playing it, so I glance over in Murray's direction. As soon as I see him a huge smile comes over my face; his somewhat frail body hugs the comparatively sturdy body of the stand up bass he is playing to the point that it almost looks as though he is using it for support. Nonetheless, his head is bobbing, his foot is tapping, and he sports a huge, permanent smile that is highly contagious. Charles nods to Daniel after he has had a turn at playing the tune's melody and, once again, they switch roles at the head of the tune so that Daniel is playing the melody again. At the beginning of the second part of the tune we all share a look that indicates this will be the

109 final time we play the tune. When we reach the end of the second part Daniel finishes it off with the 'Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits' ending. We are all smiling widely now. "Hey guys," says Renee in her raspy voice, which is muffled by holding a cigarette in her lips as she uses her hands to clap, "that sounded great!"

Just then, out of the darkness exacerbated by the lights in our jam space, steps a man with his guitar's strap over his shoulder, ready to play. He reaches over his instrument and extends his hand to Murray, "Hi, Murray, hi, Renee, how are you doing? It's good to see you guys again!" Murray smiles, "It's always a pleasure, Jim." Jim looks to be in his late forties or early fifties. Murray motions toward me, "Jim, we've got another Daniel with us here tonight." I introduce myself to Jim and we shake hands. Jim looks over his shoulder and says, "Oh, good, here comes Ernie now." As Ernie steps into the light under the trailer's awning I see that he, like Murray and Renee, has to be at least in his late sixties. In one hand Ernie carries his fiddle and, in the other, his bow. Rather than continue the small talk Ernie simply smiles and rests his fiddle on his shoulder beneath his chin, signaling that he is ready to play. From the other side of our circle, Ernie does offer me a friendly nod to acknowledge my presence in a group of people he already knows, but we save the introductions and chit-chat for later. Although jamming might be light on conversation at times, it is nonetheless a highly social activity in which connections are made by other means. Without any further ado Jim asks, "Do you guys know 'Little Cabin

Home on the Hill'? I do it in the key of C." Charles and Daniel both nod their

110 heads. Jim turns to me and I shrug my shoulders and say, "I don't really know any tunes that well, but I can follow along with most of them." Jim nods at

Daniel, who provides a few notes on the banjo as an intro, and we are off to the races. Well, they are anyhow, I am doing muted, atonal chops while I watch

Jim's chording hand in order to learn the chord progression. Again, after once through the verse and the chorus I am able to join in with relative confidence just as Daniel is taking a lead break on his banjo. At the end of Daniel's lead break, Jim's deep booming voice returns for the second verse and chorus and, when he is almost done the chorus, he nods in my direction, indicating that it is my turn to take a lead break. I had already established with Charles, Daniel and

Murray that I am not a lead man on the mandolin yet, but Jim did not know this.

Rather than attempt a lead break I surely would messed up badly, I quickly shake my head to indicate that I am not ready. Jim knows exactly what I mean and quickly looks at Charles and nods in his direction to pass off the lead break to him instead. Charles picks up on the change of plan just in time to start a lead break at the appropriate time.

While it is true that you learn best by doing something, I feel that a jam is probably not the best place to practice things that I am really not yet able to do. I am certain that no one would say anything to me after failing to produce anything that resembled a lead break but, because I am happy to play rhythm the entire time, I feel it is best to preserve the unity and flow of the jam by opting out of taking a turn at one. However, following Charlie's advice on what constitutes a good song to jam on, I would wager there are some people that

111 would argue for equal turn-taking as being more important than the erudition of a picker's performance. I simply choose to participate in the way that I feel most comfortable with and I am positive that no one would criticize me for that. My sense is that the people I am jamming with would prefer to have a mandolin in their jam over not having one at all, even if it is only chopping along. It is like when Charlie told me that, ideally, a good bluegrass guitarist will add rhythmic and melodic nuances to their strumming by picking out individual notes and playing runs34 on the bass strings of their guitar while doing it. This, too, is something that I can not do very well but, then again, no one expects every picker to be an 'ideal bluegrass guitarist', so it is not a big deal if I cannot add these nuances to my strumming yet; plenty of folks just strum away without any concern for picking out notes and runs. The point is that, no matter how developed or undeveloped your skills may be, you surely be able to find a jam where you feel like you fit in. While there are surely jams where a good deal of skill is expected of its participants, they are certainly the minority and this is definitely not one of them. I feel right at home jamming with Charles, Daniel,

Jim, Ernie and Murray.

Jim chooses the songs for one simple reason: he is the one doing the majority of the singing, so he gets to choose songs from his repertoire.

However, Jim does not dictate what songs we play, he simply nominates one as a possibility and informs us which key he normally does it in. If some of us are unfamiliar with his choice of song then he nominates another one, and if we are

34 A 'run' is a short riff at the end of a measure. It differs from a riff in that it is more of an ornamentation than a central part of the song or tune's melodic identity.

112 accustomed to doing it in a different key then he will either do it the key everyone is most familiar with (provided he is able to sing it in that key) or choose a different song. If one of us has a song in mind that we would like to do, we can speak up to nominate it as one to jam on and see if Jim knows it, and if he does not, then we are free to have a go at singing if we like. Although Jim is taking a leadership role in this jam, everybody gets to have a say in how it unfolds. It is not Jim's jam anymore than it is anyone else's; it is our jam. The six of us, whose ages span at least a half-century, jam together for well over two hours and have heaps of fun doing it; nothing but laughter and smiles all around. Good times in the Maritimes, as they say.

Every year you go there and you meet a lot of your same friends that you play, you jam with or whatever, you look forward to hooking up with them again for the jam session-the all-night one of course. And you meet new people, there's new friends, and the thing I like about festivals and playing like that is that there's no age limit. Whether they're 14 years old playing or whether they're 80 years old playing, you still get in the middle of a jam session with them and it's all fun (Mike Scott 2008, pers. comm.).

113 3.0 - Analysis and Conclusion

The cultural problem posed in this unconventional ethnographic study is a well-known concern in the discipline of ethnomusicology: how is it that regional manifestations of global forms of music acquire local meaning? I contend that, in the case of the Maritime bluegrass festival scene, this process is at once both social and musical. To be more specific, I contend that Maritime festivalgoers render their participation in the scene meaningful through positive social interaction that engenders a sense of community and through incorporating elements of non-bluegrass musics that prove personally meaningful to them.

These focus on these features was woven into the preceding ethnographic narrative, but will be dealt with below in more concrete terms.

In order to substantiate my answer to the cultural problem posed at the outset of this study, I interrogate two distinct features of festivalgoers' social interaction that help provide a solid basis for positive social interaction: the use and manipulation of events' spatial organization as well as the adherence to a partly explicit, partly tacit code of conduct. The analysis of these features will reveal them to foster the intimacy and inclusivity upon which Maritime festivalgoers' sense of community is largely predicated. To further support the thesis statement I examine three aspects of Maritime bluegrass festival musicality: the particularities and nuances of its conservative nature, the prevalence of a vocal aesthetic that is more characteristically 'country' than it is

'bluegrass', and the incorporation of elements of popular musics that existed in the region prior to bluegrass (namely country music and folk tunes). The

114 analysis of these three features serves to show both how they bolster the stability of of the positive social relations characteristic of the Maritime scene, as well as how they imbue it with a distinct identity that situates it as a discrete regional manifestation of of a global form of music.

"What is really going on here?" This is the fundamental question concerning musical performances that Christopher Small addresses in his book Musicking:

The Meaning of Performing and Listening (1998). Small expands upon what he means by posing this question when he states that we must shift our focus from the established convention of studying musical works in and of themselves to studying what it means when they performed in a particular time and place with the involvement of particular individuals (ibid.:10). In other words, the academic study of music should be rooted in the broader context of its performance. It is

Small's position that music's fundamental meanings are not individual but rather social (ibid.:8). Contrary to conventional thought on the subject, musical meaning is not found in the careful examination of scores or sound waves, it is found in examining the relationships enacted during musical performances. In short, it is not so much the non-entity known as 'music' that carries meaning as it is the inherently social act of musicking. By 'musicking' Small simply means taking part in a musical performance in any capacity and posits:

The act of musicking establishes in the place where it is happening a set of relationships, and it is in these relationships that the meaning of the act lies. It is to be found not only between those organized sounds which are conveniently thought of as being the stuff of musical meaning, but also between the people who are taking part, in whatever capacity, in the performance; and they model or stand as a metaphor for ideal relationships as the participants in the performance imagine them to be: relationships between person and person,

115 between individual and society, between humanity and the natural world (ibid.: 13).

Small's description of musicking highlights two broad categories of relationships to examine in order to interrogate the meaning of musical performance: 1) sound relationships, and 2) social relationships (ibid. :184). The following chapter seeks to examine aspects of musical and social relationships enacted in the

Maritime bluegrass festival scene (hereafter simply 'the Maritime scene') in order to provide insight on the local meaning of participation in the scene.

As Small's words indicate, sound relationships and social relationships within a musical performance are not the only relationships that determine its meaning.

Equally relevant are participants' relationships with the world outside of the performance context. These higher order relationships may be harder to discern among groups of individuals who do not share a common ethnicity or cultural background (which is not to say they are easy to discern among relatively homogenous groups of people). The Maritime scene's community is one such group for it exhibits a relatively high level of heterogeneity based upon-if nothing else-the high degree of Francophone involvement. In addition to the fact that there are many Franco-Canadians participating in what began as an

Anglo-American form of music, there are several ways that the Francophones in the Maritimes may be subdivided. Many Francophone enthusiasts self-identify as Acadians, but there are other ethnic identities for Francophones in the

Maritimes such as Brayonf35, Quebecois, and those who simply self-identify as

35 Brayon refers to a Francophone ethnic identity that exists principally in the Madawaska County area of New Brunswick. Brayon ethnicity is distinct from that of both Acadian and Quebecois Francophones.

116 being of French ancestry. Moreover, each group has had different experiences with colonialism in the New World. Like the Francophones, Anglophones often express nuanced identities that invoke their Irish, Scottish or British ancestry, all of which come replete with their own unique historical context. Apart from ethnicity there are countless social, cultural, and economic disparities among

Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers. Because of these multifaceted subject positions co-existing in the context of the Maritime bluegrass festival community, it can prove difficult to discern with any confidence a holistic relationship to the outside world. Nevertheless, though Small admits the relationships that exist in the context of musical performance are too complex to express in words, he maintains that the act of musicking furnishes participants with both a means of understanding and articulating them and the ability to understand and articulate the relationships of their own lives (ibid,:13-14). Discussing aspects of festivals' spatial organization and the code of conduct that exists therein provides an excellent starting point for examining festivalgoers relations with one another and their relations to the world at large.

Before moving on to analyses of social relationships and sound relationships in the Maritime scene, it will prove useful to preface them with some of Small's more general theories about musicking. First, I provide a more pointed definition of musicking that serves as general answer to the question, "What is really going on here?" that, when paired with some insights from Gardner's work on bluegrass festivals as portable communities (2004), will help to unpack the content of social relationships among Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers.

117 Thereafter, I discuss Small's theory of musical performance as ritual context as it provides a solid base for understanding how it is that sound relationships are intimately linked with the sociality of festivalgoers in the Maritime scene.

Moreover, understanding how musical performances operate as ritual contexts aids greatly in understanding how to figure authenticity in the context of the

Maritime scene (and the formulation that reveals itself is quite different from the one employed by the coordinator of the failed jam session discussed at the beginning of the first chapter). Finally, treating festivals in the Maritime scene as ritual contexts emphasizes the events and the sociality that takes place therein as gestural metaphors, for metaphor is not simply a figure of speech but a way of knowing the world (Small 2004:102,106).

...musicking is an activity by means of which we bring into existence a set of relationships that model the relationships of our world, not as they are but as we would wish them to be, and if through musicking we learn about and explore these relationships, we affirm them to ourselves and to anyone else who may be paying attention, and we celebrate them, then musicking is in fact a way of knowing our world-not that pre-given physical world, divorced from human experience, that modern science claims to know but the experiential world of relationships in all its complexity-and in knowing it, we learn to live well in it (Small 2004:50).

Small's conception of musical performances holds them to be ritualistic ceremonies comprising patterns of gesture for the affirmation, exploration and celebration of shared values; participants' feelings about 'right and proper relationships' (ibid.:95, 185). "During the enactment of the ritual," Small says,

"time is concentrated in a heightened intensity of experience" (ibid.:96). The relationships participants enact therein-their patterns of gesture-stand as metaphors for their shared values and, thus, the ritual context allows them to

118 both learn about them and experience them (ibid.). Small says, "They explore the relationships, they affirm and they celebrate them, without having to articulate them in words; indeed, no words can adequately express the relationships as they are felt at that time" (ibid.). Small notes that there is a drastic difference between the ritual context of folk music festivals and that of other performances of popular music such as rock concerts and symphony concerts. Though all may seek to affirm, explore, and celebrate communal ideals, folk music festivals (and even more so bluegrass festivals) do so in the most coherent way: through an all-encompassing avoidance of glamour that manifests as modest stages, discreet amplification, and modest performers that not only do not dominate the audience, but actively engage in socializing with them when not performing on stage (ibid.:48-49). Despite the fact that he is speaking about all performance contexts, it will become apparent in this chapter how Small's characterization of musical performance as ritual context could not be better suited to the Maritime scene.

Small contends that participants in the ritual seek to enact stability and certainty through summoning 'dead culture heroes' to reassure one another that the ideal relationships of yore still exist and, furthermore, that they will endure

(ibid.:90). Small posits that the ever-increasing rate of change in the modern world has engendered the coveting of authenticity in these ritual contexts as a means of bolstering this reassurance (ibid.). In other words, musical change is discouraged because it is easily perceived as compromising authenticity and, thus, threatening to the ideal social order of the ritual context. Likewise,

119 reproducing in the ritual context that which is musically familiar (summoning dead culture heroes) provides reassurance that the ideal social order remains and will endure. In discussing a ritual in his hometown in Catalonia (a ritual that is widely professed to be much older than it really is), Small makes an observation about how the content and function of rituals, though they invoke the past, are ultimately about the present. (Small's observation is equally applicable to bluegrass festivals in the Maritime scene.) "It is not, however, a nostalgic celebration of a past order but a thoroughly contemporary affirmation of the community's present-day relationships rooted in its sense of its own history" (ibid.:96). What is important to bear in mind is that the community's sense of its own history need not be factual; as long as it is believed to be true or even wished to be true then the ritual will retain its power (ibid.). In other words, the authenticity of a ritual is not rooted in the historical record but rather in being genuinely useful and meaningful to a community in the present-day. In the case of the Maritime scene, examining musical relationships will show that we need to conceive of authenticity less as 'reproducing that which is musically familiar' (the summoning of dead culture heroes) and more as 'reproducing the feeling of familiarity through music' (evoking feelings in participants that reaffirm the stability of the social order in the ritual context).

3.1 - Social Relationships

In his study of the Rocky Mountain bluegrass festival scene, Gardner makes note of three tropes that proved pivotal in people's accounts of the meaning of

120 their participation therein: intimacy, inclusion, and simplicity (2004:164-173).

Gardner's interviewees noted that the sense of intimacy that pervades festivals is largely predicated on camping together-that the shared social space of the campground takes on a liberating and communal nature (ibid. :165). Within the shared social space of the campground exists an overriding sense of inclusion predicated on a particular code of conduct and participatory music-making (ibid.:

167, 169). The simplicity Gardner's interviewees spoke of was in reference to experiencing the bluegrass festival as a temporary respite from the hustle and bustle of urban life; they found it was much easier to experience the warmth of intimate relations with others in this setting than that of their home neighbourhoods (ibid.:171). My own research has shown not only that intimacy and inclusion are equally important to Maritime festivalgoers but also that they are often inseparable; they go hand in hand and, thus, I characterize festival sociality in the Maritime scene as one predicated on intimate inclusivity. Though it is definitely the case that countless festivalgoers in the Maritime scene feel it is easier to engage in intimate inclusivity with others at festivals than it is in their home communities, it has yet to become apparent that these individuals view the festival as a temporary return to a simpler way of life that acts as a respite from the demands of urban life. I suspect that that this may be the case because, compared to the Rocky Mountain scene, the Maritime scene is, on the whole, situated in a much more rural region. The urban centres that do exist in the Maritime region simply do not compare in size to those in the Rocky

Mountain region and there are far fewer of them. As such, many festivalgoers'

121 home places are decidedly rural anyhow. To be sure, there are cases where

Maritime festivalgoers actually travel to a more densely populated area to attend a festival. Nonetheless, the simplicity of engaging in intimate inclusivity is a prominent feature of the Maritime scene. Following Gardner's lead, I examine

social relationships in the Maritime scene by focusing on individuals' intimate

experiences with one another in the shared social space of the campground. I

pay particular attention to how these intimate experiences are fostered both by

participating in jamming with one another and a code of conduct that governs

those jams (in addition to other aspects of festival sociality).

Small contends that musicking establishes a set of idealized relationships in

the ritual context of musical performance, and I plan to show herein how, in the

context of the Maritime scene, those relationships seek to maximize intimate

relations that foster communal sentiment. Small notes that we must

acknowledge that those taking part in different types of performances are

seeking to establish different types of relationships and, though, they may all be

seeking to establish, affirm, and celebrate relationships they consider to be

ideal, the content of those ideal relationships necessarily differ from one context

to the next (ibid.:49). He goes on to state that the symphony concert exists to

reassure a group of people-the industrial middle and upper classes-and to

allow them to present to themselves and reaffirm their values and conceptions

of ideal relationships (ibid. :193). Small goes on to note about the symphony

concert that the spatial organization of the venue and the total form of the event

embody the group's ideals (ibid.) Anyone who has ever attended such an event

122 can attest to the fact that the organization and structure of the symphony concert cannot be said to be seeking to establish, above all other things, intimate relations. If anything, the nature of the symphony concert implies ideals of refinement, high culture, distance and reservation. So, as pleasant as intimate relations and communal sentiments sound and as enjoyable as they are to experience, not all musical performances seek to establish, affirm, and celebrate them, and even fewer still seek to do so with a zeal on par with individuals in the Maritime scene. As John Jeffries notes, 'There's no strangers in bluegrass, just friends you haven't met yet" (2008, pers. comm.).

Most festivalgoers in the Maritime scene will characterize the social context afforded by the festival as something unique and special based on the dramatic increase in friendliness they experience once they pass through its entrance. As

Bill Duplessis noted:

Everybody's so friendly, you know, like everybody is so friendly. "How you doing?" And as soon as they hear you play music a little bit, "Oh jeez, you're a good player," you know. "How did you learn this? How long have you been playing?" and they start talking to you and first thing you're great friends. So, the next time you go to another festival well then you meet them again, and you keep meeting them all the time. So it's always new friends all the time, and they come in with new friends and you meet them again. So, you always meet new friends, you're always going to meet new people, always, always, always (2009, pers. comm.).

When Dennis Seeley discussed the friendliness of the festival crowd, he implied that the only requirement for meeting new people and making new friends is being there and the rest will take care of itself because of the uncanny friendliness the exists within the festival grounds.

It's just as easy as falling off a log. You just wander around like I do in the morning. I get up early, wander around with a cup of tea. Everybody says, "Hi,"

123 so you stop and have a chat; talk about the weather to get it started; find out if if the guy plays an instrument or not-or his wife. It's too easy to get acquainted (2009, pers. comm.).

Furthermore, there is no element of needing to be part of an 'in crowd' to experience this type of friendliness at a festival. Dennis Seeley provided a story about how the friendliness of the festival provided a serendipitous experience for an out-of-town traveler, so much so that she altered her plans to stay for the whole festival.

[An] Oriental lady from Montreal showed up here [at the Old Mill festival] a couple of years ago. She was just looking for a campground to stay overnight because she was on a holiday in the Maritimes, but apparently she had some experience singing karaoke in a bar-country stuff. She liked it. She wound up jamming with us all night and stayed all weekend! [laughs]. Lovely girl-good singer too (ibid.).

Bill Duplessis recounted a similar experience where travelers just-so-happened upon a festival and experienced the uncanny friendliness that exists within the festival grounds.

We were parked there and the first thing we seen another camper come in and park alongside of us. So, we looked out the windows to see who they were and my wife says, "I think they're Scandinavian." They were kind of a blondish people. So, anyway, the fella went outside and we went outside and started talking to him and, sure enough, they were German, from Germany. This young girl form Quebec had gone to Germany to teach school. Their son had married that girl, so he came back to Quebec and his parents wanted to come to Canada to see what Canada was. So they rented a motor-home, took a tour around Quebec. So they ended up, they seen that sign-the big festival-they said, "well, we'll go check it out.' And, sure enough, they ended up with us that night, jamming away, and they were singing in German. I don't know what the hell they were singing, but it sounded good. And we were singing and playing and they enjoyed themselves so much. As a matter of fact, they gave us their name, their address, they took our pictures, they sent us their pictures and they want us to go down to Germany to visit them. So, music is a universal language; it's all over the world. You can break the ice with anybody with music. That's just an example. We didn't know them from Adam or Eve, but they joined us. "Come on, come in, we're having a party here, we're having a jam," and they enjoyed themselves (2009, pers. comm., emphasis his).

124 It is evident that even strangers to bluegrass festival culture can immediately immerse themselves in this unique social context with relative ease; these are prime examples of the simplicity of engaging in intimate inclusivity. Both Seeley and Duplessis' stories highlight the fact that a shared interest in music certainly serves as a precursor to positive social interaction, but it is certainly not the only aspect of the bluegrass festival that fosters such experiences. As fundamental to the festival's unique mode of sociality as music is, equally important is the total formal organization of the event. Referring back to Gardner, festivalgoers in the Rocky Mountain scene cite the opportunity to camp together as a major factor in fostering intimacy (2004:165). Thus, it is important to examine how it is that the arrangement in and manipulation of physical surroundings affects how individuals engage with one another. Drawing on Small's theories, how various individuals manipulate aspects of spatial organization constitute patterns of gesture (that, in turn, facilitate subsequent patterns of gesture) that metaphorically model the idealized relations that imbue the ritual with its meaning.

One obvious formal characteristic of the festival that facilitates intimacy is sharing a common space with other individuals. There are some very clear-cut instances of people manipulating spatial organization in order to foster such relations. From chapter two's description of the way campers are arranged it is quite clear that Maritime bluegrass festivalgoers are sharing space with one another just as neighbours in a rural or suburban community would, only in much closer proximity. While this organization certainly exists for pragmatic

125 reasons, there is no doubt that the sheer density of the spatial organization of domiciles leads to a similar density of social interaction. (This is not to say that temporarily occupying a densely populated area necessarily leads to increased social interaction-a weekend in Toronto may very well prove otherwise). Though it may be pragmatism that leads to people residing so closely to one another, bluegrass festivalgoers nonetheless make clear choices that lead to a marked increase in the density and quality of their social interaction with one another.

Gardner notes that in the Rocky Mountain bluegrass scene people often set up their temporary domiciles in the same spot and with the same people each time they attended a festival (2004:164), and this trend definitely exists in the

Maritime bluegrass scene as well. As noted, people camp in close quarters because it is an efficient use of space but, within the confines of pragmatism, festivalgoers are able to make clear choices about how domiciles are arranged; choices that exercise their agency in facilitating intimate relations, especially those characterized as family-like.

Perhaps the most common clear sign of intimately shared space at Maritime festivals is when two domiciles are parked so that the edges of their open awnings meet to provide shelter and create what Dennis Seeley refers to as the

'family space' in between; there are countless such instances of creating 'family space' at every festival and they have a long history in the region. John Jeffries recalls that in the 1970s, when large fifth-wheel trailers and motor-homes were rare at Maritime festivals, creating 'family space' with friends was already a

126 common feature of festival sociality. Jeffries also indicated that music-making figured prominently in their festival experiences.

Friends of ours from Nova Scotia-we both had young families and we both liked the music and we would go and rent a couple of those Budget vans, throw the mattresses off the bed into the vans, along with all the camping gear, take a great big tarp, park the vans so the sliding doors were across from each other, put the tarp between them for shade, and that's where we were for the weekend. Boys, there was a lot of good music played under those old tarps, rain or shine (John Jeffries 2008, pers. comm.).

For Jeffries, creating 'family space' with his friends while attending the first festivals in the region was quite literally a family affair. However, the current demographic of the Maritime scene comprises mostly individuals at or near retirement age (Duplessis 2009, pers. comm.), many of whom frequent festivals without their children. Thus, the 'family space' shared by many individuals takes on a more metaphorical meaning; it stands more as a model of how spatial organization can be manipulated to render more simple engaging in intimate and inclusive sociality than a literal description of who socializes therein. One thing that has not changed, though, is the fact that music-making figures prominently in festivalgoers' sociality. Because the only people who might be able to get away with using an electric bass are big name acts who simply cannot transport an upright bass all over the continent, there are reasons to create 'family space' with people you like other than simply because you like them. Consider Bill Duplessis' reasoning for who chooses for neighbours at a festival:

We're all friends, that's the first thing. And we're old friends. And we have to try to get together. [We're] all musicians, so when one gets out there with guitar, well the other fellow can get out of the other [camper] with a banjo or a mandolin or something, and [we] start playing-practice a little bit. Then, the first thing,

127 everybody hears that and then they join in. A lot of people like to camp together like that, so they don't have to travel that far to play with their friends-they're right there (Bill Duplessis 2009, pers. comm.).

Normally what we do is try to camp close together so we don't have to travel too far, you know, with your instruments. Sometimes you have the big bass or something like that, you have to travel, drag that around, which is kind of a big instrument to have hanging around. So we try to camp as close as we can (ibid.).

Duplessis' words highlight the fact that, yes, people chose to camp close to their friends because they like them, but it also makes engaging in their preferred activity (music-making) that much easier. It is evident that Duplessis and his friends also seek to render more simple engaging in intimate and inclusive sociality with one another. It is not only festivalgoers who exercise agency in facilitating intimate and inclusive relations of a communal nature, however, festival workers can do so as well.

In some cases, festivals organizers allow people attending their festival to reserve their camping sites for the following year. Being able to pick a spot for the following year means that friends can and do pick adjacent sites that have yet to be reserved. Where there are no reservations, which appears to be the case at most festivals, festivalgoers are escorted to an available camping site by someone working at the festival. While this may certainly lead to serendipitous social interactions with friends you have not met yet, it also means that you might not be parked next to your longtime friends if you do not arrive at the same time-unless, of course, the people working at the festival are looking out for you. Consider Dennis Seeley's account of his experiences at the now- defunct Memramcook Valley Bluegrass Festival, which was not one of the few

128 festivals to have a formal reservation system in place. Seeley, who usually travels to festivals by himself, said, "It seems the Cormiers, you know, there's no reservations down there, but, they always tuck me in that corner and the same people seem to be next to me every year; it's almost like there was a reservation system" (2009, pers. comm.). Seeley also provided an account of what can happen when festival organizers make a conscious effort to remember who has been camping where.

Memramcook [Valley Bluegrass Festival], last weekend, [my] sixty-fifth birthday on Sunday. I partied pretty heavy on Friday night and didn't get much sleep, so I'm kinda rolling into the bunk after getting something to eat about eight o'clock Saturday night, and there's these guys messing around with my windshield. So-"what the hell is going..."-I get up, go out, and they're sticking up this sign that says 'Happy Birthday Dennis'; neighbours I've been parked to the [last] couple of years. Hey, that's the start of the story. So I said, "all right guys, I'm going to bed." I get up the next morning, they come around the corner with a birthday card for me and a dozen beer-my birthday present. And these are just the people I happened to camp next to and play a few tunes with. That's the kind of people you meet here (ibid.).

Seeley went on to say:

If you want a perfect example of the family feeling it's these guys doing my birthday thing down in Memramcook. I mean, they're just casual acquaintances that were parked next to me two or three years in a row and bang, they're giving me a birthday present and card and all this stuff. I thought that was great (ibid.).

Seeley's account suggests that consistently sharing space with others gives rise to a 'family feeling'. Because Seeley is not related to his festival neighbours, the family feeling he experienced is a metaphor for the intimate and inclusive relations he experienced with them for, in theory, families represent one of the most tightly knit and intimate social groups. Seeley's invocation of family is not an isolated incidence. Family is a very common metaphor that festivalgoers in the Maritime scene use when describing their sociality. Seeley's account also

129 goes to show that it is not only festivalgoers who take measures to facilitate intimate relations with one another; even festival organizers are working hard to bolster that 'family feeling' Seeley speaks of.

Another Maritime trend that is consistent with Gardner's observations of the

Rocky Mountain scene is that some of the larger groups of people who camp together overtly display festive themes that often paid homage to their places of origin (2004:164). In the Maritimes, this generally occurs at larger sites boasting three or more domiciles parked in such a way as to create an even larger shared space. These festive sites could also could also be found in a very large tent like those used for special events, or simply in a large conglomeration of smaller domiciles. These larger setups exhibit a common area that transcends the status of 'family space' and could more aptly be referred to as 'communal space' because they attract many friends who the domiciles' owners have not met yet (especially if the site is boasting a jam). I experienced one such setup at a festival in Stewiacke, Nova Scotia, where three motor-homes were parked in a

U-shape open to the lane. At the entrance of the communal space was a sign that read: 'Shooterville'. Naturally, my interest was piqued by any space that carried a festive theme and Shooterville was a festive place indeed. Inside the relatively large area sheltered by awnings, tarps, and a large tent open on all sides. Inside the communal space I was chording along in one of the two jams within a few minutes. There was a makeshift bar next to one of the RVs, behind which countless bottles of spirits were lined up. Alcohol was certainly not forced upon anyone but, if you happened to be socializing or jamming in Shooterville,

130 chances were that you were eventually going to be offered a shooter or two (if it were night time that is). During the day there were no shooters, but there was scarcely a minute where people were not engaged in music-making within that shared space. The sign posted near the lane that identified the shared space as

Shooterville essentially acted as an invitation to come in and check out what was going on, no matter what time of the day it was. I experienced another instance of festive, communal space at the Rogersville Homecoming Bluegrass

Festival, where there was a large, square tent open to the lane but closed on the remaining three sides to provide shelter. (Sources tell me this tent is usually set up in the same spot from one year to the next.) The tent boasts a large

Acadian flag with the place name 'Neguac' written on it, which is a very small coastal New Brunswick francophone community that, comparatively speaking, played a very big part in providing communal space for social interaction at this particular festival. What is important to note about both the Neguac tent and

Shooterville is that they are set up so that their entrances face the areas where traffic passes within a few feet of them, thus standing as gestural metaphors for the openness of the communal space. There were easily thirty or forty people filling the tent at any given point throughout the evening. Furthermore, it boasted two separate jams that seemed to carry on all night and attracted upwards of several dozen onlookers standing outside the tent at any given point. I did not participate in the already crowded jams inside the tent, rather, I spent most of the evening chatting and jamming with the 'onlookers' outside of it. In short, for many people, myself included, the Neguac tent and the area surrounding it was

131 both the focal point and highlight of their experience at the Rogersville festival.

Finally, the annual Prince Edward Island festival in Rollo Bay always includes a small tent city located at the furthest end of one of the fields. There are even signs guiding you to this tent city, which is known as 'Shanty Town'. Shanty

Town has existed for many years at this particular festival and it even has a mayor: a rather wild middle-aged banjo picker from Florida who makes the trip up every year that he is able to. Upon arriving at the festival people are warned that Shanty Town is loud, as in 'four and five o'clock in the morning type of loud', so that they may choose to camp either directly in it or as far away from it as possible. I camped in Shanty Town and particularly enjoyed it because it was a crowd of younger pickers-the most young people I ever saw at a festival actually-and they were very talented. We conversed and played music all night long, and spoke proudly of our citizenship in Shanty Town. In fact, I spent the majority of the weekend in Shanty Town. The thing that all of these larger, festive communal spaces have in common is that they are designed to maximize fun; to provide others with an excellent time and fond memories. The very nature of these larger, festive sites' organization attracts people into them, and all people who act appropriately are always more than welcome. But, how exactly does one act appropriately? The answer to that question relies upon understanding a particular code of conduct that exists at festivals, part of which is explicitly stated at every festival, and part of which is simply tacit cultural knowledge.

132 The intimate relations and communal sentiments experienced at bluegrass festivals are predicated on what members of the Rocky Mountain scene refer to as the 'festivarian code', which holds that one person's fun should not infringe upon another's (Gardner 2004:167). Though I have never once heard anyone in the Maritime scene explicitly refer such a code, there nonetheless exists in the region a code of conduct that fosters inclusion by ensuring a safe, courteous and ultimately inclusive environment for all festivalgoers. Many aspects of the code are explicitly stated in the rules written on each festival's program, which remain remarkably consistent from one festival to the next. All rules are generally in place for reasons of safety and courtesy. For example, breakable containers, coolers, and smoking are prohibited in the stage area so that no one will have to leave the area because they have been injured or smoked out.

High-backed chairs, dancing, spoon-playing and loud talking are not allowed in the stage area because they can hinder festivalgoers' visual and aural experience of the show. Dogs are usually not allowed in the stage area because they can make a mess, cause allergic reactions and even frighten some people

(and no matter where you are in the campground they need be on a leash at all times for the same reasons). Outside of your own personal campsite alcoholic beverages are to be kept in plastic cups because breakable containers are no more welcome throughout the fields than they are in the stage area.

Furthermore, some festivalgoers do not approve of alcohol consumption, so the ambiguity afforded by a plastic cup means that it is not being flaunted. Drugs of any kind are not allowed because of their illegality and association with deviant

133 behaviour. However, some festivalgoers (and band members for that matter) seem to feel that marijuana use is acceptable, but all would agree that even more so than alcohol, its consumption is not to be flaunted. Other rules obviously predicated on courtesy are the disallowing of: using generators during the overnight hours (except for emergency or medical reasons), engaging in loud partying or other disturbances at any time of day, and using electric instruments (while the latter is surely considered a disturbance, I will show later how it is also a fundamental disturbance to the ritual context itself). Not all aspects of the Maritime scene's code of conduct are explicitly stated by festival organizers in the rules section of programs, especially in the case of the jams that tend to be the crux of many festivalgoers social interaction.

For experienced festivalgoers, the code of conduct (which includes jam etiquette) is simply tacit cultural knowledge that need not be explicitly stated.

However, if need be, they are able to verbalize it to hasten newcomers' acculturation to the festival's unique mode of sociality. Thus, experienced festivalgoers facilitate the inclusion of newcomers every bit as much as do the official rules written in the festival's program, perhaps even more so. For example, in my very first experience jamming at a festival, Charlie provided me with invaluable advice to help make my subsequent experiences in keeping with the code of conduct that fosters inclusion and, ultimately, intimate relations.

According to Charlie, playing too loudly and introducing songs that are difficult for others to pick up on are two ways to quickly alienate other festivalgoers for they are gestures that do not foster intimate inclusivity; rather than render such

134 relations simple to experience, these gestures make it more difficult. Don

Cormier noted that drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and attempting to play your instrument beyond your skill level are two other surefire ways to alienate others (2008, pers. comm.); the former may lead to all sorts of inappropriate gestures while the latter compromises the harmonious sound of a good jam that stands as a metaphor for the harmonious togetherness of festival sociality.

However, since more experienced festivalgoers will likely just carry on in their normal manner without you, perhaps it is better to say that these are surefire ways to alienate yourself from other festivalgoers. Elmo MacDonald stated that if people in a jam do not like what you are doing they will likely leave and go elsewhere without saying much (2008, pers. comm.) However, Don Cormier witnessed one particularly obnoxious jam wrecker be told to put his instrument away or have it jammed down his throat (2008, pers. comm.). The bottom line is that doing anything to compromise other festivalgoers' jamming experience will render you unwelcome, and it seems the severity of your transgressions will determine how you are dealt with. That being said, the flip side of the same coin is that, in keeping with the overarching code of conduct, a good jam is one wherein everybody participates equally without hindering anyone else. In other words, jams are, by there vary nature, supposed to be as inclusive as possible.

Referring back to my one and only experience with a jam wrecker, what could have been a serendipitous exchange with strangers that lead to new friendships turned out otherwise because of rude behaviour that compromised the intimate inclusivity of the ritual context. Rather than telling me to shut up and grabbing

135 my guitar from me, the jam wrecker could have picked up the guitar that was not in use and and suggest that we do a song together. Had he done so, I would have gladly stopped the song I was doing and do one with him without being offended whatsoever. Thus, the general code of conduct is that whether you are sitting in front of the stage or jamming at the furthest reaches of the camping area, your having fun is not to infringe upon anyone else's fun. Compromising the inherently inclusive nature of participating in a bluegrass festival certainly does not bode well for experiencing the intimate relations that the event seeks to establish, affirm, and celebrate, for in this ritual context intimacy and inclusivity go hand in hand.

In the introductory chapter I noted how I, like many other festivalgoers in the

Maritimes, did not prioritize spending my time in front of the stage. Gardner, too, notes that for many festivalgoers in the Rocky Mountain scene the intimate social relations taking place in the camping area of the festival grounds proved more alluring than did the stage show (2004:164). This is not to say that the intimate inclusivity of the festival is not apparent in the stage show as well-it is- it is simply not as pronounced as it is in and around the jams happening in the fields. When performers on the stage interact with the crowd they do so in a particularly friendly and joking manner; there is an air of humbleness and equality to their stage presence. People will often call out requests, or simply comment on a song after after it has been performed and the the performers respond in kind. Oftentimes the interaction between the performers on stage and the audience takes on a conversational nature, albeit for a a short period of

136 time before moving on to the next number. Even while songs are being performed, the audience reacts in ways that are not common to many other genres of musical performance, particularly by applauding frequently for various reasons. It would not be surprising to hear applause upwards of four or five times during the two-and-a-half or three minutes it takes a band to perform a song. Even when the communication is not verbal, as is the case with festivalgoers' penchant for applauding, there remains a sustained interaction between the performers on stage and the audience that is in keeping with the overall intimate and inclusive nature of the ritual context. That being said, there remains little doubt that the fields are where the intimate inclusivity of the ritual context is at its strongest. When I spoke with Gerald Fortin and Mark Fisher,

Fortin's opinion was that jamming and meeting new people are the thing at bluegrass festivals in the Maritimes (2008, pers. comm., emphasis his). Both

Fortin and Fisher offered insight as to why the stage show can play second fiddle to the campground when they said that it gives you 'a life that you never had in your life' and a 'drive' that makes you feel as though life is really worth living (ibid.). Fortin and Fisher highlighted participatory music making as the the most potent source of enjoyment at festivals, and rightly so, for there is no clearer manifestation of the intimate inclusivity of the ritual context.

The things that you remember about the festivals-yeah, the music was great, the performances were great, but the best memories were memories about the people and the things you did with them. The friends you meet, the great jams you had, and all the funny things that took place (John Jeffries 2008, pers. comm.).

137 Jeffries' emphasis on social interaction as being the best part of the festival makes perfectly clear why he observes that some people could not care less about the stage show and take in very little of it, if any at all (ibid.). Dennis

Seeley's stated plainly why jamming is his preferred way to spend his time at bluegrass festivals when he said, "I like playing an instrument, myself, and I get more enjoyment out of sitting around jamming with people than I do actually going up and listening to the bands on the stage" (2009, pers. comm.). It is becoming apparent why Gardner notes that the reason people attend festivals is not strictly because they like the music, but because it is an 'intimate and communal cultural experience' (2004:157). The nature of this cultural experience proves particularly appealing because many individuals do not experience such high degrees of intimacy and communal sentiment in their everyday lives. Bill Duplessis said, "I've been in this neighbourhood for over twenty-five years and I only know a few of my neighbours, but if I go to a festival, jeez, I know everybody, or everybody knows me" (2009, pers. comm.).

For Duplessis, it is simple to experience intimate inclusivity at festivals.

Duplessis says he grew up in a small village where everybody knew everybody else and goes on to note how the sociality he experienced there is a lot like the sociality he experiences at bluegrass festivals in the Maritimes.

It's pretty well the same thing. It's just like a community. You get there and you see how the people are all parked, it's just like a little village, so you're in a village more or less. We make our own village with mobile homes and campers, and you get along with your neighbours the very best. As soon as you see a person, "Oh, come on in buddy, come on, have a beer here or something, or come on have a drink (ibid.).

138 While Duplessis characterizes the festival's sociality as being like a village, Eddie Poirier situates it as being family-like but, because the intimate relations experienced are often with relative strangers, he attaches an otherworldly quality to it.

It's like me going to your house and [visiting] your family, in comparison to just walking down the street and meeting someone you've never seen before. I mean, we don't know everybody by name, but we've seen them; we know who they are in some ways. Some of them play, some of them they'll come talk to you-l have no idea who they are-they call me by name but I have no idea who they are; that's okay with me if they can accept that. I don't have to know their name [chuckles], as long as the face is there that's good enough for me. It's a warm, warm thing, you know; it's like all being in heaven together (Poirier 2009, pers. comm.).

Poirier's words imply that strangers who interact at a festival will experience relations that are more akin to a family visit than passing a someone on the street. Poirier also indicates that he need not know somebody by name to engage in this type of sociality with them, so it seems to be an apt description when he likens festival sociality to 'being in heaven together'. In both cases, simply being there implies being deserving of good treatment and, ultimately, happiness based on the warmth of intimate relations with others. The festival's code of conduct and aspects of its spatial organization, alone, encourage ideals of safety, respect, courtesy and, ultimately, having as much fun as possible with infringing upon anyone else's. In other words, following Small, the Maritime bluegrass festival presents a communal context for the affirmation, exploration, and celebration of intimate and inclusive relations that give rise to feelings that some people refer to as being family like, while others call it heavenly. Intimate relations are affirmed when performers on the stage say to the crowd, "This is

139 just like one big family, isn't it?" and they are reaffirmed when the crowd cheers loudly in agreement. Intimate relations are explored when a newcomer wanders into festive communal spaces like Shooterville, the Neguac tent at the

Rogersville festival, or Shanty Town, and they are celebrated when that newcomer stays to converse and jam until the sun comes up. Festivalgoers' penchant for using metaphor to act out and describe their intimate relations with one another is is not a coincidence, and it has much to do with how they relate to the world at large.

"A musical performance, while it lasts, brings into existence relationships that model in metaphoric form those which [participants] would like to see in the

wider society of their everyday lives" (Small 1998:46). To recap quickly, Bill

Duplessis noted that he knows very few of his neighbours in his neighbourhood, but that he seems to know everybody at the festivals he attends and likens the context to the small community he grew up in. Gerald Fortin's story about filling in for another band's guitarist was told in order to provide an example of why he described festivalgoers in the Maritime scene as a family. Eddie Poirier noted that meeting strangers in the context of the bluegrass festival is far different that meeting strangers in the world outside it; he, too, described the encounters as family-like. Not only did Poirier tell me that the intimate relations of festivals were 'like all being in heaven together', but he also likened participation in the scene to a religion; that it is essentially an attempt to 'salvage life' (Hemmings

2004). Dennis Seeley also touched on the theme of family when he offered his

140 opinion as to why bluegrass festivals are such a big part of many Maritimers' lives

It's a participation thing. We're more 'family' I guess, if you like, in the Maritimes than 'urban', more rural than urban and the family thing counts a lot more. We haven't given up the older traditions where you get together and do a song and stuff like that. It's a traditional thing (2009, pers. comm.).

Seeley also provided some insight on his own reasons for participating in the

Maritime scene:

I grew up in a community-pre-TV-until I was about ten or twelve years old. Before TV, you got together and played music and did stuff like that, you know. You weren't just a passive watcher, you were a doer (ibid., emphases his).

[The bluegrass festival] is really something that belongs to another era-like before television-where people actually got together and played music and stuff like that. Now they sit and watch it on the blue screen. People have become passive, they're not participants anymore, they're passive watchers (ibid., emphases his).

Seeley's description of why he participates exhibits a clear nostalgia for times when when people were 'doers' rather than 'watchers'; when people who were in close proximity of one another engaged in participatory activities. Referring back to Small, though festivalgoers often invoke the past in their qualitative descriptions of the festival, the festival is not a nostalgic celebration thereof; it is a thoroughly contemporary celebration of the present-day relations they experience therein (2004:96). It is clear that Seeley values highly the intimate inclusivity of the Maritime scene. Seeley is, by far, not the only one who recognizes that the festival's uniquely intimate social context is largely predicated on the its highly participatory and ultimately inclusive nature. Frank

Doody and Vincent Cormier, both veteran musicians in the Maritime scene, also described the festival as being like a big family gathering (Hemmings 2004).

141 That the spatial organization of and code of conduct for festivals in the Maritime scene is geared toward fostering intimate relations and participation is telling not only of festivalgoers' relationships with one another, but also of their personal relationships to the outside world.

Following Small's theories about musicking, when festivalgoers consistently describe the intimate relations they experience with one another as familial and communal they are not simply providing a qualitative description of those relationships. Through the use of metaphor, festivalgoers are simultaneously describing what they perceive to be lacking in their own personal lives outside of the ritual context of the festival. Metaphor exists not only in festivalgoers' speech but also in other areas of discourse, namely the explicitly stated rules and tacitly known jam etiquette that comprises the festival's general code of conduct. Furthermore, metaphoric models of ideal relations also exist in festivalgoers' actions. Whenever someone gives a stranger strawberry shortcake; whenever someone celebrates their festival neighbour's birthday with a sign, a card, and a case of beer; and whenever someone hands you an unconscionably expensive vintage instrument to try out they are, without speaking a word, articulating their ideas a bout right and proper relations. In a jam, whenever someone asks you to play your instrument more quietly and whenever someone nods at you to take a lead break, they are doing so in order to foster the intimate inclusivity that characterizes the ideal relations of the ritual context. Whenever you find yourself jamming in a group of people whose ages span more than five decades you are experiencing the fundamentally inclusive

142 nature of social relations in the Maritime scene. Many festivalgoers see intimate inclusivity as ideal; they wish it were more common in the world outside the bluegrass festival. Seeley made it abundantly clear that participation in the

Maritime scene satisfies his longing for the inherently participatory sociality that

existed in the days before television, and it is but one of many instances where

Maritimers cite participation in the scene as the antidote to the community

decline they experience in their everyday lives. Gardner's conclusions about

participation in the portable community of the Rocky Mountain bluegrass scene

conform also to Small's theories about musicking as well (and, as such, are

directly in line with my own findings about participation in the Maritime scene).

Gardner concludes that Rocky Mountain festivalgoers consciously cultivate

values they believe are lacking in modern society, (namely intimacy, inclusion,

and simplicity) as a means of mitigating the community decline they experience

in their home neighbourhoods (2004:173). Festivalgoers in the Rocky Mountain

scene find themselves participating in the portable community of bluegrass

festivals because it promotes 'norms of equality, reciprocity, authenticity, and

self-expression' (ibid.). If festivalgoers perceive community to be on the decline

in their home neighborhoods, then the phenomenon of their feeding their desire

for it through participation in a bluegrass scene begs a question: do dedicated

festivalgoers in a bluegrass scene constitute a proper community, or does

attending festivals simply act as a temporary respite from modern society's

growing emphasis on gesellschaft relations? Gardner's conclusions about the

143 Rocky Mountain scene argue for the former, while Small's discussion of the nature of folk festivals seems to imply the latter.

Though Small admits that, of all musical performances, folk festivals attempt to establish communal ideals in the most coherent way, a divide exists because musicians nonetheless remain 'stars' and the public has to pay to get in

(1998:48-49). Small's position appears to be that because money changes hands there is an element of inauthenticity to the communal relations shared between participants. Indeed, Small goes on to say, 'That the experience is more of the desire for than the actuality of community is part of my point; the relationships created during a musical performance of any kind are more the ideal, as imagined by the participants, than the present reality" (ibid.:49). Earlier

I noted that the relationships created in the Maritime scene were ideal in the eyes of festivalgoers; ideal in that they are right and proper. Here Small is positing that they are ideal in another sense; that they exist more so in the minds of participants than they do in the phenomenological reality of the performance context. Small suggests that perhaps all participants-musicians, audience members, and event organizers alike-are all involved in a set of

'carefully orchestrated theatrical tricks' to create the illusion of community (ibid.).

He then goes on to concede that, even if this is the case, no one can blame participants for wanting what he calls 'counterfeit community' over none at all

(ibid.). Thus, Small's answer to the question I posed earlier is not entirely cut and dried, but his theories appear to suggest that the commercial nature of the bluegrass festival prevents it from being community proper. As stated earlier,

144 Small's theories remain general because when he talks about musicking, he means musicking in any and every performance context; again, general theories do not always fit specific instances, and bluegrass festival circuits represent a unique case indeed. It is understandable why Small might find it difficult to accord an event the status of a proper community, particularly because of its temporary nature, but being able to do so depends on the particular conception of community that a person holds.

In Gardner's study of the Rocky Mountain scene, he notes that traditional, place-based conceptions of community are inadequate and says, 'They do not adequately account for forms of community that individuals cultivate in response to the residential transience and geographic mobility that has made it difficult to sustain stable, rooted membership" (2004:155). Gardner also notes that the landscape is quite literally changing; the sprawling spatial organization of modern neighbourhoods and towns makes intimate relations more difficult to engage in than they were on the traditional village main street (ibid.). Yet, even as society changes shape, individuals still seek out the same level of intimacy in their relations with others, it is simply less and less frequently playing out on a traditional village main street. Gardner posits, "Increasing geographic mobility and transience is leading individuals to build and sustain modes of community that defy tradition, enduring place-based forms" (ibid.:173). In essence, though many festivalgoers cite modernity as the cause of community decline in their home neighbourhoods, they nonetheless take advantage of aspects of it- namely mobility and transience-to create a community they can find

145 manifestations of while traveling away from home (ibid.:174). Gardner concludes that festivalgoers in the Rocky Mountain scene experience community as an emergent phenomenon and says

They engage in sustained and repeated interaction and establish stable yet situationally flexible practices from site to site. They enter a reliable social world of their own making and encounter a familiar cast of personalities along the festival circuit. In doing so, [Rocky Mountain bluegrass scene] participants challenge traditional notions of geographically rooted community and illustrate that "community" is defined and constructed in and through sustained and recurring social interaction and that a rooted locale is not a necessary condition for community participation. By establishing consistent sets of rituals and norms across the mobile festival circuit, participants cultivate the vital ingredients for a stable, enduring community to flourish (ibid.:175).

Gardner's description suits the Maritime scene just as well as it does the Rocky

Mountain scene. Not only do Maritime festivalgoers engage in sustained and repeated interaction that establishes sets of rituals and norms across the various sites where the community manifests, but they do so through engaging in the same rituals governed by the same norms. However, because members from the Rocky Mountain scene and the Maritime scene likely do not interact with one another to any significant extent, the scenes represent discrete regional manifestations of a global form of music. In other words, though members from each scene may enter the other's social world with relative ease, their existence of those scenes within a particular region means that, though the may both be portable communities of the same type, they nonetheless remain distinct from one another. Ultimately, though, Small would likely agree that the

Maritime scene constitutes a novel form of community proper for he acknowledges that there remains pockets in society where musicking is an intimately shared experience (2004:40). Though the sociality of the two scenes

146 may be very similar, I contend that the Maritime scene is rendered discrete and imbued with its own unique identity and regional character not only through the personally meaningful content of the positive social interactions that take place

therein but also, and perhaps even to a greater extent, through music. The

Maritime bluegrass scene is rendered locally meaningful through musical

practice in large part by incorporating non-bluegrass repertoire that is

nonetheless personally meaningful for festivalgoers. In other words, a good deal

of the local meaning of participating in the now-global tradition of bluegrass

music comes from how aspects of 'outside' musics are used meaningfully in the

Maritime scene.

3.2 - Sound Relationships

As stated in the first chapter, Rosenberg's model of how country music in the

Maritimes represents a regional variant of the broader genre provides an

excellent starting point for analyzing sound relationships in the context of the

Maritime bluegrass scene. To varying degrees, all five points could be used to

show how Maritime bluegrass is imbued with a regional identity that renders it

locally meaningful, so the same model will be used as a tool for analyzing sound

relationships in the Maritime scene. However, I focus on only three of the five

points as they do the best job framing the following discussion. Rosenberg's

third point in his model-live shows that reflect the region's folklore in structure

and content (1976:2)-is not concerned so much with sound relationships.

(Because much of my research happened in the fields as opposed to in front of

147 the stage I encountered few instances of this anyhow, but it certainly represents an area for further inquiry.) The fourth point-new elements of style or repertoire introduced into the region by local celebrities (ibid.)-cannot be adequately discussed because of the relatively short time frame that this study covers.

Furthermore, even in a study that covered a much longer window of time, it would prove rather difficult to ascertain whether new elements of style and repertoire entered the Maritime scene via the stage show or the jams in the field. However, I wager that no matter how they enter the scene, new elements of style and repertoire would indeed be rendered legitimate largely by local celebrities. Thus, I focus on the first, second and fifth points of Rosenberg's model to frame my examination of sound relations.

Before moving on to the first point, which concerns conservatism, it is necessary to say a few words about the subject. Conservatism in the Maritime scene is about maintaining the familiarity of the music and, because it is difficult to perceive something unfamiliar as an authentic manifestation of tradition, conservatism is more fundamentally about authenticity. Authenticity writ large is not easy to achieve, and perhaps not even possible to achieve-certainly not to every individual's satisfaction anyhow-because there is no single way to figure it. According to Small, the movement toward authenticity in music that has taken place in recent decades is engendered by a rapidly changing world; one wherein the authentic serves as reassurance that some aspects remain stable and certain (2004:90) but, again, there are differing views on what constitutes authenticity. In the discourse of the mid-twentieth century North American

148 folksong revival, authenticity was figured in terms of the historical continuity and organic purity of the musical tradition in question (Livingston 1999:74), which had every bit as much to do with the tradition's practitioners as it did the music they played. For example, while studying folklore in graduate school, Neil

Rosenberg accepted his teachers' view that, regardless of his proficiency in a musical tradition, the authenticity of the music he played would be compromised if it had not been inherited (1995:278). Rosenberg was but one of many folk revivalists who were continually reminded that, no matter how well they played or sang, they would remain nothing more than imitators of the authentic (Mitchell

2006:609). The fundamentally entitative view that authenticity is figured in terms of historical continuity and organic purity remains conventional in popular thought to this day. Indeed, this view of authenticity goes hand in hand with what

Handler and Linnekin have posited to be the commonsense view of tradition: an inherited body of customs and beliefs (1984:273). Thus, musical conservatism often manifests as insistence on the faithful reproduction of music and and the disparaging of any elements perceived to be from outside the tradition in question. The problem with such a view is that it is predicated on seeing traditions as inherently entitative which, in turn, leads to defining them in terms of essential elements accorded to them or, in other words, objectifying non- objects (Handler and Linnekin 1984:275). What is the major problem with such an approach? "It is very easy to come to think of the abstraction as more real than the reality it represents," Small says (2004:2). Small contends that even though the authenticity movement thrives to this day, stasis has yet to be

149 achieved (and never will be for that matter) because each generation of participants in a musical tradition necessarily interprets it in ways that support and sustain their own values (ibid.:90). Peterson, too, contends that authenticity is a continual process of negotiation (2005:1083-1086). Thus, perhaps one is justified in deeming someone an inauthentic imitator if they simply reproduce faithfully old musical works, for that is not how traditions function. Turino holds the view that merely imitating something from the past is inauthentic and, furthermore, that the authentic version arises from the present; from subjective experiences and habits (2008:162). Thus, it is possible to conceive of authenticity as being when a manifestation of tradition accurately reflects its being situated in the subjectivity of the present, which is the view I subscribe to and employ herein. Admittedly, not all such manifestations of tradition will be accepted as authentic by even the most liberal-minded of individuals. However, the analysis that follows is not concerned with such extreme cases, it is concerned with the countless instances of subjective interpretations of tradition that are accepted as authentic by all but a very small minority of individuals in the Maritime scene-individuals who seemingly cannot help but treat an abstraction as more real than the reality it represents. (However, this is not to say that hyper-conservative individuals do not play an important role in the functioning of tradition.) Small contends that the movement toward authenticity is employed as a means of providing reassurance that the relationships affirmed, explored, and celebrated in the ritual context are stable and will endure

(2004:90), which holds true even when we view tradition and authenticity as

150 inherently constructed, processus!, and contingent upon reflecting present-day subjectivities. Individuals who view tradition and authenticity in this way seek to bolster the tradition's vitality by re-interpreting it in meaningful ways. Even so, there nonetheless remain historically-situated and enduring material elements of the tradition that continue to be used meaningfully in the ritual context.

Therefore, the flip side of this coin is that conservatism is not about denying the processual and historically contingent nature of tradition and authenticity, it is about holding on to the things that make manifestations of tradition immediately recognizable. Small contends that the inventedness of a ritual is of little importance so long as one believes the story (ibid.:96). As I will show, conservatism in the Maritime scene is less about denying that tradition is re made in meaningful ways by each new generation and more about ensuring that those re-interpretations remain believable. Ultimately, the tension that exists between conservative and progressive views of tradition and authenticity is natural and productive; one that allows new, meaningful elements of 'outside' musics to be brought in to revitalize the tradition without compromising the integrity of the ritual context.

The first point, that there exists a conservatism that demands repertoire be largely familiar in content (ibid.) is definitive of the Maritime scene. The account

of the failed jam sessions at the beginning of the first chapter highlights the

existence of such a conservatism, and these 'purist' views of tradition are not uncommon in the scene (though they are rarely exercised to such an extent).

Elmo MacDonald notes that he feels ideas about authenticity are more strict in

151 the Maritime scene than what he encountered in his experiences attending festivals in Ontario and New England (2008, pers. comm.). Even festivalgoers who take a more progressive stance on what music is acceptable to play know better than to go too far. Consider Dennis Seeley's account of deciding what to play on stage at bluegrass campouts and during open mic sessions at festivals:

I've been up [on] open mic and I tend to pick up my stuff off groups like the Country Gentleman, who do a wide variety, and Seldom Scene, who also do a wide variety-probably wider than Country Gentleman. And I learn these things because I like them, but I know better than to get up and do nothing but that on the stage on open mic. You're looking out [at] the audience, you'll lose them real quick if you don't put some traditional stuff in there. That's the point I was going to get around to. Remember the average age of the crowd... You have to remember. If I'm going to fill a half an hour up there, at least half of it will be songs they recognize because you'll lose their attention right away (2009, pers. comm.).

Concerning the other half of the selections he plays on stage Seeley says,

'That's the stuff I want to do because I like it" (ibid.). Seeley's account highlights two important factors in the Maritime scene: 1) that there exists a conservatism that demands repertoire be largely familiar in content, and 2) it is important that participation in the ritual context remains personally meaningful to participants; they must do it because they like it. There is a caveat, however, and it relates directly to both points that Seeley's account highlight: just because repertoire needs to be largely familiar in content does not necessarily mean that is has to be traditional bluegrass repertoire. In other words, the dead culture heroes summoned to evoke in Maritime festivalgoers feelings of stability and certainty need not necessarily be dead nor even from the realm of bluegrass. I discuss this caveat more later on as it is central to this thesis.

152 The conservatism that places restrictions on repertoire manifests in other aspects of the musicality of the Maritime scene as well, most notably in the area of instrumentation (particularly in the stage show). It is explicitly stated in the rules of most festival programs that electric instruments are not allowed, despite the fact that this is taken to be axiomatic by the vast majority of festivalgoers.

Most festivalgoers in the Maritime scene cite the usual group of instruments- guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle-as being necessary for the bands on stage. (However, several bands in the Maritime scene do not have fiddle players, and this seems to be perfectly acceptable, whereas lacking any of the other instruments seems as though it would seriously compromise a bluegrass band's credibility). The usual group of instruments is ideal in a jam setting, but it is not always feasible, so whatever is around will do (so long as they are a part of the usual group). Both the conservatism of repertoire and instrumentation are easily understood when we return to Small's view of the musical performance as a ceremony taking place in a ritual context; one aimed at affirming, exploring and celebrating shared norms and values concerning right and proper relations.

Small claims that musical performances are ritual contexts that enact stability and certainty through the summoning of 'dead culture heroes' and provide reassurance that ideal relations still exist and will endure. The reason repertoire must be largely familiar in content and instruments must be acoustic and, more specifically, of the usual group is because these features are symbolic of the continuing existence of the Maritime scene's ideal relations outlined earlier. In other words, musical change (drastically unfamiliar repertoire and / or

153 instruments of the wrong type) can be perceived as threats to the stability of the ritual context; as harbingers of change that is unwelcome by the festivalgoers who like their community just fine the way it is. Thus, it is understandable why there needs to be some individuals who "police" the tradition, for the content of the ritual context is symbolic of the relations that exist therein. Concerning his observation that ideas about authenticity with regard to bluegrass in the

Maritime scene are more strict than those he has experienced elsewhere, Elmo

MacDonald says

I understand them. You know, it's like the French-English situation. They've got that music and they'd hate to lose it, so they're afraid if too much infiltrates it [they'll] lose it. The French-English situation is not a problem here, but I know up in the north of [New Brunswick], if you're in a French town and you don't want the English taking away your French, and if you're in an English town you don't want the French knocking your English. Losing your heritage, I think it's the same thing with bluegrass (2008, pers. comm.).

MacDonald's analysis, that conservatism in the Maritime scene is meant to bolster the tradition and ensure that a meaningful heritage is not lost is in keeping with Small's theories about musicking. The familiarity of repertoire and instrumentation is a means of establishing the authenticity that evokes feelings of stability and certainty in the ritual context. That a festivalgoer intuitively knows

Small's theories simply through participating in the Maritime scene certainly lends them credence.

Rosenberg's second point in his model of how maritime country represents a regional variant is that there are preferences for vocal and instrumental styles predicated on the region's folk music (1976:2). While the scene's conservatism seems to foster preferences for traditional bluegrass instrumental styles, this is

154 certainly the case for bluegrass vocals, especially if we include country music as part of the region's folk music. Although Rosenberg already implies a close relationship between country music and folk musics, I will highlight some reasons why this is the case. First of all, according to everyone I have talked to, musical conservatism has always been a feature of the Maritime scene. Fred

Isenor who, with Rosenberg's help, started the first bluegrass festival in Nova

Scotia (and one of the earliest in Canada), noted that his group, the Nova Scotia

Ramblers, were often criticized because their singers were not bluegrass (2009, pers. comm.). This was because they did not employ the 'high, lonesome sound' characteristic of the genre and, instead, used more low-key country-like vocal techniques. Isenor self-identifies as a country music fan first and foremost and notes that he got involved in bluegrass because country music ceased to exist; it became 'third rate rock music' (ibid.). It is unsurprising that Isenor and his fellow band mates, having come to bluegrass from a long-standing love affair with country music, would employ some of country's stylistic features. Eddie

Poirier explained it perfectly when he noted that everyone involved in the

Maritime scene were late-comers who came from country music and, as such, were more familiar with and adept at country vocal techniques (2008, pers. comm.). Isenor's group may have been criticized decades ago, but the more low-key country vocal aesthetic appears to be well accepted in the Maritime scene now. I have not once heard anyone complain about a group's vocals in my travels throughout the Maritime circuit. Richard Bourque, formerly of the

Bluegrass Diamonds and now with the GrassKickers, plays in both country and

155 bluegrass contexts and employs a country vocal aesthetic in both. Not only do the bluegrassers accept his vocal stylings but he is generally considered to be one of the more talented vocalists in the Maritime scene. There is a definite acceptance and high degree of use of country vocal stylings in the Maritime scene, but if there is a preference for instrumental styles predicated on the country or folk musics of the region then it is one that escaped me entirely.

However, because rhythm and instrumentation are paramount in the presentation of music in the Maritime scene, I suspect that this part of

Rosenberg's model is not applicable in the context of this study. On the other hand, I have been told numerous times of the influence of bluegrass on the region's country and folk performance styles, particularly its spawning the use of five-string banjo in Acadian folk music (Richard Bourque 2006, pers. comm.,

Francis Cormier 2010, pers. comm.). In short, though the conservatism that led to Isenor's band's vocalists being criticized for their more country stylings still exists, it no longer seems to be directed toward such matters because country and, more generally, folk musics appear to have a growing presence in the

Maritime scene. This brings us to the fifth point of Rosenberg's model: that country music incorporates local folk repertoire and, in addition, adds to it

(1976:2).

Due to the fact that the influence of bluegrass on other folk musics in the region does little to imbue bluegrass with a more distinct identity, I discuss only how bluegrass successfully incorporates local folk music (and country music) into its repertoire. There are numerous instances of folk tunes being played in

156 the Maritime scene outlined in chapter two, and the crowd's consistently positive reactions are all one needs to gauge how well accepted they are. The now- defunct bluegrass group, Goldrush, was highly successful and regularly included fiddle tunes in their stage performances-particularly Down East tunes.

John Jeffries said

We had Goldrush Bluegrass Band for fifteen years or so and Norm Welling was our fiddler, and he was a terrific oldtime fiddle player. We would feature him on some of those oldtime fast fiddle tunes, and waltzes, too; jigs and reels. [You] can certainly include that (2008, pers. comm.).

However, it seems that anytime a band includes that sort of thing, they would be wise to dress it up properly or risk being perceived as inauthentic; something that compromises the stability and certainty sought in the ritual context. One of

Jeffries' band mates, Gerald Fortin, discusses how Goldrush dressed up such tunes for performance in the Maritime scene.

John [Jeffries] and Norman played twin fiddles and they used to take Down East stuff and uptempo it again. And everybody liked it because John would do harmonies on the fiddle. Just doing that, alone, would change the whole tune around. It was actually Down East tunes, but it was fit with bluegrass because you had the rhythm and you had a banjo or dobro behind it and a stand-up bass and it was just giving out that bluegrass taste. It didn't have to be the bluegrass style, but it had that bluegrass taste; the drive (2008, pers. comm.).

Fortin's account of Goldrush's penchant for playing Down East tunes highlights the fact that rhythm and instrumentation go a long way in dressing up musical selections from outside bluegrass tradition for performance in the Maritime scene. (It is becoming apparent why I stated that a repertoire that needs to be largely familiar in content does not necessarily need to be traditional bluegrass repertoire: not only is bluegrass not the only genre of music that Maritime festivalgoers are familiar with but, in many cases, it is not even the genre they

157 are most familiar with. Many festivalgoers have a much longer-standing familiarity with folk and country music than they do bluegrass.) This feature- the proper orchestration or 'dressing up' of folk tunes entering the scene-is also what allows so many country tunes to be played in the context of the Maritime scene.

Bill Duplessis provides an account of why he likes hearing country in the context of the Maritime scene that resonates with countless other festivalgoers' feelings on the subject. Like Fred Isenor, Duplessis got on to bluegrass because of his disillusionment with country music, and his account illustrates why doing nothing more than summoning 'dead culture heroes' is not an effective way to bolster the tradition and the unique mode of sociality that exists in its concomitant ritual context.

I love country music. I was a country music fan all my life. But I like bluegrass now, because there's no country music. Sometimes you can get too much of bluegrass. You've got to have a little bit of variety in there, and then that kinda changes the mood. You know, "Okay, jeez, I've got something new in there- we've got something new here" (2009, pers. comm.).

Duplessis went on to say, "If you put a little bit of country music in there then, jeez, that makes a little difference; it kind of breaks the monotony. That's what I like about it" (ibid.). However, like the inclusion of folk tunes in the Maritime scene, country tunes, too, must be dressed up properly. Earlier Eddie Poirier noted that it was fine to include country songs so long as they were not performed the same way as the original. He suggested bluegrassifying country songs and speeding them up, and that is exactly what stage performers do.

158 Duplessis offers more insight as to why country is accepted in the Maritime scene and, in doing so, describes how it is dressed up properly for the context.

I'll tell you one thing about the bluegrass festival, it's all older people. You seldom see teenagers in there, but you do. You do because they like the music. Some of them like the music-it depends what kind of music you like. But, you seldom see too many teenagers in there at all. It's all people from their forties up. See, it's all people that grew up with country music-before rock and roll came over and all that kind of stuff-it was all good country music. Then rock and roll came in, but country music was still going at the time. But then, after awhile, it came to be country-rock. Then, there's no more country music. So, bluegrass was going, bluegrass music was going-started then. So, everybody switched from country music to bluegrass music, which is just a faster version of the country music. [They're] the same country songs that they were singing before, they just put a little bit of upbeat to it-put a banjo in it and a mandolin and a fiddle or something like that and you've got bluegrass-but it's the same song that they were singing in country music (ibid.).

Duplessis goes on to say that you can take old, slow Hank Williams songs and

'put a little bit of upbeat to it' with a mandolin or banjo and you have a bluegrass song (ibid.), and Gerald Fortin provides an account of when he and Goldrush did exactly that.

I did a Hank Williams song-Hank Williams was way back, like when I was a kid— and I did a Hank Williams song with the banjo and the dobro behind it, it just made that song. One time we did a show in Black Rock, Nova Scotia, and we got an encore to come back out and do another song because we was the last band on the and they wanted an encore. Normally you just come out and you do a song, so this night I said, "Okay, what would yous like for me to do?" And you wouldn't believe the people that hollered the Hank Williams song, to do it because we put that bluegrass taste in it. And when I did it they were just hollering, they were just hooping. It was probably twenty-five hundred to three thousand people there (Fortin and Fisher 2008, pers. comm.).

Not only are country songs acceptable when they are done with that 'bluegrass taste', but apparently they even get people whooping and hollering with excitement. Fortin also describes how bluegrassifying country songs helped to

159 forge a unique sound for Goldrush, so much so that other groups would follow suit.

We had a style of our own, a real style of our own. We didn't copy off of nobody. Matter of fact, there was times we did songs and then, all of a sudden, maybe some guy on the third or fourth set would be doing one of our songs that we had just done, because of the way we've arranged them. Like, I took a Buck Owens song-Buck Owens was a country singer. I got eight-tracks here, I got about two- hundred eight-tracks in there and I got an eight-track machine just like brand new right there, works just like a charm. One night, Mark and I was sitting right here like this and I had that tape in and I said to Mark, "Guess what? There's our new bluegrass song." And I sat here, Mark and I, and I worked it out to bluegrass, from country to bluegrass. And when I was done I even changed different chords in it-different patterns in it-and when we done it we just raunched it, it was just a hundred miles an hour compared to what Buck Owens was doing, and that's what we did. That Saturday night that we played in Woolastook I did 'The Old Man From the Mountain's Coming Home', one of Merle Haggard's songs and that Sunday afternoon guys from Moncton got on stage and they did it. They heard us doing it and they did it, and they did it pretty well the same way we did it-kind of raunched it and did it bluegrass style.

Many festivalgoers in the Maritimes scene cite the waning of 'good country music' as the reason for their involvement in bluegrass, while others came to bluegrass through relatively closely related folk musics. So, though there exists a conservatism that demands repertoire be largely familiar in content, it is clear that through employing the right rhythm, speed, and instrumentation, country songs and folk tunes that are familiar to festivalgoers (but not a part of bluegrass tradition) can be performed in the context of the Maritime scene without presenting themselves as threatening to the ritual context; their being

'dressed up properly' allows them to be widely-perceived as authentic manifestations of tradition. Up until now the discussion of incorporating non- bluegrass musical elements into the Maritime scene has been largely concerned

160 with how this is achieved, and only now are we getting to why those particular elements chosen. David Samuels is able to provide much insight on this matter.

David Samuels' 2004 book Putting a Song on Top of It: Expression and

Identity on the San Carlos Apache Reservation is concerned with how popular music is part of the architecture of social memory. Therein, Samuels uncovers how continued exposure to and performance of popular musics such as classic rock, country, and reggae allows these non-traditional, non-Apache songs to evoke in Apache listeners feelings for the their Apache past and identity.

Conventional ethnomusicological research would have focused on the role of the Apache's own music in doing so, but Samuels quickly realized that non-

Apache popular music played an equally important role, if not a greater one.

The theories and analyses that Samuels puts forth in Putting a Song on Top of It obviously explain how it is that music from outside of Apache tradition performs such an important social function, but they also explain just as well why music from outside bluegrass tradition does so in the Maritime scene.

According to Samuels, it is not so important for particular arrangements of melodies and words to endure unchanged through time; what is important is that whatever music is played now continues to evoke the same feelings that the music from back then did, even if that means partial (or complete) breaks with the material continuity of culture or tradition (2004:11). Samuels says grounding cultural expressions within tradition-authenticating them-is ultimately a process

of negotiation and compromise (ibid.); it is not a process of comparing present expression to those from the past to ensure that they have not changed.

161 Samuels takes a progressive stance on history when he says, "History isn't about chronology. It's about feeling-the feeling of belonging to a place, of knowing that your presence in a place is justified" (ibid.:47). In the case of the

Apache, Samuels posits that any song that allows someone to imagine the way things used to be is a good one, and that the song in question could just as easily be a country song as it could be a traditional Apache song (ibid.:138).

Samuels goes on to say that anytime a song is played on a jukebox or boom box, by a band at a party or in any other situation, it allows the song to accumulate meaning for those who hear it; the song comes to have layers of experiences and feelings associated with it (ibid.:139). Thus, when the song is heard subsequent times, it retains those pre-existing layers that allow feelings of the past to be felt in the present (ibid.). In this way, the song in question comes to represent a form of historical consciousness for a group, though it does not trigger memories of the past so much as it stimulates the imagination about it with the mood it creates (ibid.). It is through this process that music from outside particular traditions can come to have a justifiable place within them.

When you apply Samuels' theories to the context of the Maritime scene, it becomes abundantly clear that, although the country songs, country vocal aesthetics, and folk tunes that festivalgoers include in the scene are from outside the musical tradition, they are nonetheless from within the meaningful experiences of their own lives-past and present. Thus, when dressed up properly (even though they may be outside elements), they nonetheless fulfill the criteria for being authentic manifestations of tradition because they

162 accurately represent the present-day subjectivities of so many festivalgoers. In other words, when these elements are dressed-up properly, not only do they sound like bluegrass but they really feel like it too, for they do as good a job of evoking feelings of stability and certainty as any old bluegrass standard can.

Countless festivalgoers cite their involvement in the Maritime scene as having come about as a result of their disillusionment with country music and, therefore, what they consider to be good country songs have certainly built up layers upon layers of experiences and feelings. The same goes for festivalgoers who like folk musics. When asked why he liked it when fiddle tunes were played in the context of the Maritime scene, Seeley's response was that he grew up with it; that it is in his head and it is a part of him (2009, pers. comm.). Moreover,

Seeley noted that he used to hear those songs on a little five-tube radio and that they were played at the square dances he used to frequent at the local legion hall on Saturday nights (ibid.). Not only is it evident that those songs have built up layers of meaning for Seeley, but he even described two of those layers: a little five-tube radio and square dances at the local legion hall. Though the content of the musical selection is not something that comes from within bluegrass tradition, it nonetheless evokes feelings of the past in Seeley, and these feelings go a long way in providing festivalgoers with the reassurance that the relationships the consider to be ideal do, indeed, exist and endure in the ritual context of the bluegrass festival. That these musical selections are presented with the 'taste' and 'drive' of bluegrass music prevents them from being perceived as drastic musical changes that threaten the stability of the

163 ritual context. 'The past is recoverable," Samuels says, "and its recoverability is mediated through the affective response to expressive forms" (ibid.:138). Thus, to restrict the recoverability of the past to one single expressive form for mediation (e.g. old bluegrass standards) narrows the scope of possibility for feelingful engagement with the past; to loosen the constraints on mediation essentially renders the past (and its concomitant ideal social relations) more accessible and, by extension, allows the present to be all the more meaningful.

As Eddie Poirier noted, most of the festivalgoers in the Maritime scene are late comers (2008, pers. comm.), so they may have relatively little experience with old bluegrass standards apart from their involvement in the Maritime scene.

Therefore, disallowing all musical aspects that do not conform to a hard line purist view of the tradition, even though it would be done in the name of authenticity, might actually render participation therein far less meaningful for many individuals. Authenticity should not be thought of in terms of material copying but rather evoking the right feelings and reflecting present-day subjectivities. In other words, we should think of authentic manifestations of tradition are those that evoke in participants feelings they associate idealized relations of the ritual context while accurately reflecting their contingency on present-day subjectivities. After all, this is exactly how Maritime festivalgoers appear to be intuitively figuring authenticity. Thus, I contend that it is far more important for participation in Maritime scene to remain personally meaningful to festivalgoers than it is for the tradition to remain unchanged, for there would be

164 no surer path to rendering bluegrass a relic in the Maritimes' musical history than to insist upon authenticity through stasis.

3.3 - Conclusion

"Familiarity breeds affection," Mark Fisher said concerning the acceptability of incorporating non-bluegrass elements into the Maritime scene (Fortin and

Fisher 2008, pers. comm.). "If [people are] familiar with the song-even if you do it in a bluegrass style-it's still the song that they've heard a long time; maybe it's even better done bluegrass style sometimes" (ibid.). Fisher's words seem to imply an intuitive understanding of how songs build up layers upon layers of meanings over time. For people who like bluegrass, hearing a non-bluegrass song they have been familiar with for a long time done in bluegrass style can certainly evoke a feelingful engagement with the past. Despite being a song from outside the tradition, its being done in bluegrass style allows it to provide reassurance about the stability and certainty of the ritual context's ideal relations. If we return for a moment to the failed Bluegrass Friends jam sessions held in Saint John (where the crux of the jam's problems appears to have been repertoire), then the preceding discussion of sound relationships in the Maritime scene suggests that the jam's coordinator could have taken an alternate approach to figuring 'real' bluegrass music; one that did not involve making a list of songs deemed acceptable and another of songs deemed unacceptable.

Though making a list of acceptable songs would surely been a difficult and time- consuming endeavour, comparatively, the list of unacceptable songs seems all-

165 but impossible to complete. Where does one draw the line? At what point is the idea of including a particular song in a bluegrass performance so absurd that that not even the most careful arrangement and meticulous reproduction of the bluegrass instrumentation, playing style, and singing style could convince anyone to conceive of its inclusion as anything other than absurd? Constructing an acceptable music list and an unacceptable music list leaves no doubt that the committee responsible for establishing the jam's guidelines was employing an entitative view of tradition and authenticity (one that stresses material continuity through faithful reproduction). The jam's failure highlights the pitfall inherent in doing so: treating an essentialized abstraction as more real than the reality it represents (Small 2004:2). Based on the insights gleaned from my participation in the Maritime scene, I propose that perhaps the goal of keeping the jam 'real' bluegrass music could be easier to achieve if the music's realness was figured not in terms of its conforming to an essentialized abstraction based on the past, but rather in terms of its remaining true to the reality of its present-day use in the region. This could be achieved by relaxing the restrictions on repertoire, but maintaining the insistence upon standard bluegrass rhythm and instrumentation.

Essentially, the jam's coordinator could have stipulated that non-bluegrass songs could be played as long as they were bluegrassified. After all, many of the songs in Bill Monroe's repertoire were songs from other genres adapted to his group's unique style. As Mark Fisher noted, a familiar non-bluegrass song might be even better when it is done in bluegrass style, and this study provides insight as to why this may be the case. Again, it is entirely possible that, even with jam

166 guidelines predicated upon the way that bluegrass tradition is employed in the

Maritime scene, the jam's participants could have consistently disregarded them. I am not proposing that the view of how bluegrass is used in the Maritime scene presented this study could have saved the Bluegrass Friends jam sessions from failing. Rather, as stated previously, the failed jam sessions are used as a rhetorical device to frame the discussion of how bluegrass is rendered locally meaningful in the Maritimes. As Small notes, those taking part in different types of performances are seeking to establish different types of relationships and, though, they may all be seeking to establish, affirm, and celebrate relationships they consider to be ideal, the content of those ideal relationships necessarily differ from one context to the next (ibid.:49). In short, the way bluegrass is employed in the Maritime festival scene may differ markedly from its use in more formal jam sessions like the now-defunct

Bluegrass Friends sessions in Saint John. Ultimately, being sensitive to Small's cautioning to not impose the ideals of one context onto another, I cannot say anything definitive about the failed Bluegrass Friends jam sessions other than the fact that a broader study of bluegrass in the Maritime region should incorporate the use of bluegrass in other contexts. Applying Small's theories about musicking in an examination of jam sessions (both formal and informal) and jamborees would allow for comparison across different contexts; the present study is concerned only with the Maritime festival scene.

I chose to study the Maritime bluegrass festival scene because it represents a prime example of the type of subject matter with which ethnomusicologists

167 currently concern themselves: a relatively heterogeneous and novel form of community whose sociality centres largely around a genre of music that has its primary origins elsewhere. The Maritime scene represents a distinct regional manifestation of a form of music that exists in various pockets around the world.

Though Maritime festivalgoers do not permanently occupy a shared geographic location that is more specific than the Maritime region, both Gardner's work on the Rocky Mountain scene and my own account of the Maritime scene provide a substantial basis for treating the Maritime scene as an emergent and novel form of community. However, this study is not so much about whether or not Maritime festivalgoers can be treated as a community as it is about how it is that participation in this distinct regional manifestation of a global form of music is rendered locally meaningful. In order to interrogate this process it was necessary to employ a somewhat novel form of ethnographic research: multi- sited ethnography. While many (if not all) of the features of the scene described in this study exist any given festival, it was necessary to attend multiple festivals throughout the region in order to discern which features remain consistent from one site to the next. As a result of my travels in the Maritime scene, I posited that there are two distinct ways that Maritime festivalgoers render their participation in bluegrass meaningful in the Maritime region: 1) through sustained, positive social interaction that fosters a sense of community and 2) through incorporating elements of non-bluegrass musics that prove personally meaningful. I went on to provide an unconventional ethnographic account of the scene that was sensitive to postmodern critiques of ethnographic writing. My

168 ethnographic account sought to evoke an understanding of what sustained participation in the scene is like as well of some of the particularities that render participation therein meaningful (indexical anecdotes and telling particulars aimed at substantiating how Maritime bluegrass is rendered meaningful both socially and musically). Thus, the aim of my ethnographic narrative was not to represent one event nor to provide an enduring representation of the Maritime scene as a whole but to evoke an experience of musicking therein. Following

Small, it is in the act of musicking that meaning of musical performance lies, and that meaning is accessible through the interrogation of two broad categories: social relationships and sound relationships.

The examination of social relations among festivalgoers in the Maritime scene reveals a penchant for intimate and inclusive sociality. The ritual context of the bluegrass festival is replete with verbal and gestural metaphors to this effect. Verbal metaphors exist in the widespread tendency festivalgoers to refer to their sociality as being family-like and their participation in the scene as being akin to a religion, both of which bespeak the intimate inclusivity they seek to foster in the ritual context. The spatial organization of the the ritual context consists of many gestural metaphors that affirm and allow for the exploration and celebration of intimate and inclusive relations, most notably in the construction of family spaces and communal spaces therein. The sociality, too, consists of gestural metaphors that affirm, explore, and celebrate intimate and inclusive relations; sharing things such as beer and strawberry shortcake; the insistence on allowing others to try nice instruments; the tendency of veterans to

169 aid in newcomers' acculturation to the ritual context's unique mode of sociality; and the ideal of mutual participation in jams are but a few of them. As stated earlier, metaphor is not simply a figure of speech but a way of knowing the world

(ibid.:102, 106), so these metaphors represent festivalgoers' affirmation, exploration, and celebration of ideas concerning right and proper relations.

Indeed, as my interviewees' accounts indicate, the positive sociality they experience at the festival represents a large part of the reason they continue their involvement in the scene and prioritize socializing with others over taking in the stage show. If we return to Small's question, "What is really going on here?" then a partial answer is simply that Maritime festivalgoers are using the ritual context of bluegrass tradition as a vehicle for engaging in positive social interaction that fosters a sense of community and, in doing so, supplement their lives with relations they perceive to be lacking in wider society. The intimate and inclusive relations that festivalgoers perceive to be lacking in wider society are the ideal relations in the ritual context. In short, bluegrass music is rendered locally meaningful in the Maritime region by serving as a vehicle for participants to supplement their lives with relations characterized by intimacy and inclusivity; relations that ultimately serve to foster communal sentiment among those who have sustained involvement in the scene. Small's question about what is really going on needs to be applied to the examination of sound relationships in order to show how they, too, serve to bolster the ideal relations of the ritual context.

There exists in the Maritime scene a penchant for including oldtime country / folk songs and tunes in the ritual context and this serves to render Maritime

170 bluegrass locally meaningful in two ways. Firstly, the incorporation of 'outside' musics imbues the region's manifestation with a distinct character in terms of repertoire. Secondly, and more importantly, the particularity of that repertoire serves to bolster the stability and certainty of ideal relations established in the ritual context. Festivalgoers are incorporating non-bluegrass selections that are well-suited for inclusion in the Maritime scene; they are well-suited in that they are meaningful to many festivalgoers and they are well-suited in that they are dressed up properly (bluegrassified). Regarding the former, many country and folk songs and tunes have been accumulating layers upon layers of meaning for

Maritime festivalgoers for decades now, so their inclusion in the Maritime scene evokes a feelingful engagement with the past that establishes a sense of continuity with the present. Regarding the latter, though the tradition is inherently processual and subject to re-interpretation, there nonetheless exist material elements that serve to establish a more concrete sense of continuity with the past: namely rhythm and instrumentation. It seems that both of these conditions for being well-suited for inclusion must be met in order to establish a sense of authenticity based on the accurate reflection of present-day subjectivities in the ritual context. A song by contemporary Icelandic electro-pop artist Bjork arranged perfectly in bluegrass style will likely fail to evoke a feelingful engagement with the past for festivalgoers in the Maritime scene-the vast majority of them would likely be hearing the song for the first time in their lives. Likewise, playing a bluegrass standard without the usual bluegrass rhythm and instrumentation would surely fail to be sufficiently symbolic of the stability

171 and certainty of the ideal relations of the ritual context. It is in this way that we can come to conceive of authenticity not in terms of reproducing the musically familiar but, instead, as evoking the feeling of familiarity through music. New elements can be added as long as they do not interfere with festivalgoers' ability to say to themselves, 'This is the ritual context I know and love." Thus, to return to Small's question about what is really going on, it appears as though Maritime festivalgoers incorporate 'outside' musics that nonetheless serve to bolster feelings of stability and certainty concerning the ritual context's ideal relations; they do so by exhibiting authenticity based upon evoking the right feelings and accurately reflecting the present-subjectivity of countless festivalgoers in the

Maritime scene. Unique particularities in repertoire notwithstanding, the present- day use of bluegrass music in the Maritime region is in many ways in line with an historically-based, entitative view of tradition. Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass

Boys' music was, from the very outset, a fusion music combining elements of pre-existing musics. The fusion reflected Monroe's subjectivity in time and space; he combined elements of musics that he knew from having grown up with them in the American South. Furthermore, bluegrass was closely associated with both the country music industry and the folk music industry before coming to have an industry of its own so, not only was the genre predicated on fusion, but its association with country and folk musics is a natural one. At present, in the Maritime scene, people are following Monroe's lead by combining elements of pre-existing music they have grown up with, and they do so employing the special rhythm and instrumentation that has come to be

172 definitive of bluegrass music in so many people's minds. If, as Small contends, the meaning of a musical performance lies in the relationships it establishes

(ibid.:13), then it is abundantly clear that festivalgoers in the Maritime scene seek to breed affection through familiarity, both in social relations and sound relations.

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177 Appendix: A Day at the 37th Annual Nova Scotia Bluegrass and Oldtime

Music Festival in Thirty Minutes of Sound

Note: An ideal way to take in this soundscape36 so that it evokes an experience of a day at the festival would be to it at least twice; at least one listen using the following description as a guide, stopping to read and listen, and at least one uninterrupted listen from start to finish.

00:00-08:35-Early

00:00-01:48 - Environmental Sounds

I chose a camping site at the edge of the grounds of the Stewiacke River

Park in order to penetrate from margin to core the aural experience of the 37th annual Nova Scotia Bluegrass and Oldtime music festival. Thus, this soundscape begins at the margins of this festival and moves inward (the stage being located roughly in the centre of the camping area). By car, the Stewiacke

River Park is located approximately ten minutes from the small town of

Stewiacke and, thus, is a fully rural setting. The park, which is much longer than it is wide, is bordered on its long sides by the Stewiacke River and a rural road.

Bluegrass festivals generally take place in rural or semi-rural areas and, because of this fact, wildlife sounds are more apparent to an observer than they are under a thick blanket of urban sounds. In these clips-all recorded within a span of ten minutes or less-the calls of at least three different types of birds are present. The mourning dove and the crow are just two of the birds whose calls are audible in these clips. The sound of a squirrel can be heard from 00:17 to

00:25 (among other places in these clips). The apparent waxing and waning in the background hiss of the recording is the sound of a steady breeze rustling the

36 Fig. 4.1 on supplementary disc

178 leaves of deciduous trees near and far. In addition, passing vehicles and the voices of some nearby festival patrons can be heard as well. With careful listening, the clips set the stage by evoking a sense of spatial depth and portraying the Stewiacke River Park as it may be experienced apart from the bustle of the bluegrass festival. The sense of spatial depth is perhaps best demonstrated by the subtle, yet audible Doppler effect37 associated with the sound of vehicles passing by. The greater the speed with which an object travels the more pronounced the Doppler effect becomes, but since these vehicles are traveling relatively slowly the effect is subtle (but it nonetheless evokes a sense of the wide open space in which the recording is taking place).

01:49 to 03:29 - Fiddle Workshop

Bluegrass Festivals sometimes include workshops, often on Saturday mornings before the stage show begins. This particular one is a fiddle workshop hosted by a sixteen-year-old Matt Hayes from the Bluegrass Diamonds. The guitar strumming belongs Francis Cormier, the Diamonds' band leader, who was accompanying Matt during the workshop. The workshop was held under the adjacent awnings of two RV campers-in what Dennis Seeley referred to as 'the family space'-that were located about halfway between my tent and the stage.

The workshop was attended by maybe half a dozen novice fiddlers and a musician from one of the other groups performing at the festival (Ryan Roberts, who was Janet McGarry & Wildwood's guitarist before moving to Nashville, is

37 The Doppler effect describes how an object emitting a relatively absolute pitch appears to have a rising pitch when traveling toward an observer, and a falling pitch when traveling away from them.

179 the one asking how to get a bluesy sound out of the fiddle in the key of B-flat).

More than half of the people seated directly around Matt Hayes did not even have an instrument with them, but were nonetheless listening attentively. Those standing around behind the seated group, like myself, seemed to be there simply because it was a place to gather at that time of day. As such, some of of people in attendance did not even observe the workshop very closely. For these people the workshop seemed to serve simply as a meeting place for social interaction, which is evidenced in the recording by the conversations that carry on in the background during Hayes' instruction. All eyes and ears are not on the workshop's host.

03:30-08:35 - Walk From Tent to Stage

This five minute walk begins at my tent on the edge of the festival grounds and ends in front of the stage with Janet McGarry & Wildwood performing.

Listeners should take note of how environmental sounds no longer dominant at the edge of the festival grounds as they had earlier in the day. The sound of a voice emanating from the stage in the distance and two sets of footsteps are more than enough to move environmental sounds from the foreground to the background. The two sets of footsteps along the way are my own and those of my partner. The sound of our footsteps reveals the nature of the festival grounds to be a mix of grass fields and dirt/gravel roads. The beginning of the walk starts on grass with the voice of a well-known emcee named Jerry Murphy emanating from the stage in the distance. Murphy's voice, which can be heard at the very edge of the festival grounds, is a beacon that signals a band's set has just

180 ended and/or that another band's set is about to begin. As we draw closer to the stage, the campground becomes more densely populated and, thus, more sounds become apparent: the engines of vehicles (03:45 to 04:00), a guitar in the distance (04:07 to 04:09), the horn of a nearby vehicle (04:10), a mandolin in the distance (04:22 to 04:24), and a man sneezing (04:27 to 04:39). From

04:35 to 07:00 the sound of instruments in the distance progressively becomes foregrounded as I draw nearer to the stage. The sound of festival patrons jamming drowns out most other noises except for the sound of an RV's generator from 06:20 to 07:10. At the beginning of the walk, the sounds coming from the stage's PA system are barely audible while, at the end of the walk, I am standing in front of the stage and only sounds from nearby audience members can be heard along with the amplified musical performance.

The tonal "wah" of the recording of Janet McGarry & Wildwood (07:55 to

08:35) is caused by intermittent blocking of the microphone by people's bodies as I weave through them looking for a suitable place to take in the show. Janet

McGarry and Wildwood's performance demonstrates quite clearly the penchant for harmony singing and syncopated rhythms in bluegrass music. An interesting feature is Janet McGarry's encouraging the audience to 'give it up' for Ryan

Roberts (08:18 to 08:21) as he performs a lead break on the guitar. This feature is noteworthy because 1) it is an example of the tendency for band leaders to ask for and/or give praise to their band members while on stage, and 2) because this represents a very common spot in a song for the audience to

181 applaud a band member even when the band leader has not encouraged them to do so.

It is interesting to note that the recordings in the 'Environmental Sounds' clips are stationary recordings and evoke spatial depth by listening carefully to both the relatively stationary sounds occurring at various distances from the recorder

and those that were in motion (namely he vehicles passing by). In the case of the 'Walk From Tent to Stage' clip, the recorder and I were moving in relation to relatively stationary sounds happening all over the festival grounds. The result is not only a reinforcement of the sense of spatial depth in the aural journey

through the festival grounds, but also one of increasing sonic density as one

draws nearer to the stage from its margins.

08:36-18:57 - Stage Show

08:36-12:47 - Jerrv Murphv. Amv Gallatin & Stillwaters. A New Shade of Blue

The voice of emcee Jerry Murphy (08:36 to 09:38) is well known among

enthusiasts of Maritime bluegrass music. Jerry has done emcee work at every

festival I have attended and surely countless others as well. Jerry's voice is one

that any person who attends a few Maritime bluegrass festivals will come to

recognize quickly and easily. Introducing the group taking the stage is a

standard part of any bluegrass festival and so the voices of well known emcees

deserve a place in a soundscape thereof. Jerry also happens to be the treasurer

of the Downeast Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Society that hosts this particular

festival.

182 Amy Gallatin & Stillwaters hail from Connecticut and were the only imported talent at the festival (and even at that, Maritime bluegrass veteran Frank Doody accompanied her group on the banjo). The group's instrumentation includes dobro guitar, which is somewhat uncommon in contemporary Maritime bluegrass music despite being perfectly acceptable within the tradition. The sound of the dobro can be heard clearly, apart from the other instruments, during Jerry Murphy's band introduction (08:53 to 09:03). Amy Gallatin &

Stillwaters perform the song 'Roses in the Snow' (09:39 to 10:54). The band begins the song with a conventional short banjo introduction (09:41). Before

Gallatin finishes the second line of the first verse the crowd begins applauding

(10:04 to 10:12). Whether the audience applauding her voice or the band's choice of song is unclear, but applauding after a few measures of singing is a relatively common practice. AMy Gallatin & Stillwaters, like all of the other bands

I have heard, make extensive use of harmony singing, especially during the chorus of a song (10:16 to 10:33). The clip ends with an exemplary mandolin break (10:33 to 10:53), which is met with the standard post-break applause as the clip fades out.

A New Shade of Blue performs the gospel song 'Consider the Lilies' (10:55 to

12:47). The audience applauds during the mandolin intro (11:02-11:08) and, as was the case in the Amy Gallatin & Stillwaters clip, after the first line is sung

(11:15). Both examples represent conventional places for applause, but the reasons remain somewhat ambiguous. The former could be praising the choice of song (for those who are able to recognize it right away), or it could be praising

183 the skillfully executed tremolo melody on the mandolin. The latter could also be in praise of the song choice, for the first line makes the song's identity explicitly clear, or it could simply be praising the singer's vocal abilities. Countless bluegrass songs have very similar sounding instrumental beginnings because they share nearly identical chord progressions. In my experience an audience member is hard-pressed to be absolutely certain which song has just begun until the first line of text gives away the song's identity. Whatever the case may be, suffice to say that bluegrass festival patrons applaud frequently at conventional spots in a performance. One far more clear-cut case of conventional applause is for a lead break on an instrument, which may take either at its beginning or the end. In the case of the plaintive lead break on the fiddle (12:10 to 12:26), the applause come at the beginning and, as is the vast majority of the time, without any encouragement from the band's leader. The end of the fiddle's plaintive melody overlaps momentarily with the beginning of the mandolin's (12:26), effectively making a seamless transition from one instrument to another in a shared lead break. I include this clip both because it is a very fine example of the omnipresent harmony singing and because it demonstrates the frequent and sometimes ambiguous applause that could represent a further area of inquiry. Furthermore, the conversations audible throughout this reverent gospel song show that even taking in the stage show can be a highly social activity.

12:48-15:04 - Break Before Evening Show

184 This clip was recorded sitting at a picnic table in front of the canteen which is located just next to the stage area. I chose this location because it is located in the centre of the festival grounds and demonstrates the dense sonic environment that exists during the day even in the absence of musicians performing on stage. Several people can be heard speaking, most notably two elderly ladies discussing how cumbersome it is to carry around a hot cup of tea without a cover on it (13:04 to 13:25). Earlier in the clip there is a banjoist playing 'Clinch Mountain Back Step' in the distance (13:12 to 13:45) and later there is a guitarist noodling away (14:46 to 15:04). The clip also includes an elderly woman asking me if I am writing a biography-presumably because I was writing in my field journal as this recording was being made-and our short conversation (13:35 to 13:52) serves as evidence of the general ease with which strangers may engage with one another at a bluegrass festival. Also audible are children's voices, the sounds of vehicles driving by slowly, people's feet walking on the gravel around the canteen, and various sounds coming from within the canteen. In short, the clip demonstrates that even in the absence of a stage show the stage area remains a lively sonic environment.

15:05-18:57 - Bluegrass Diamonds. Audience Participation. Serae Bernard

From 15:04 to 16:25 is another fine example of harmony singing, this time from the Bluegrass Diamonds and their performance of the song, 'Once More'.

Their fine harmony singing on the song's chorus is greeted with relatively

185 enthusiastic applause (15:53 to 15:59). One might think that the existence of

conventional applause could make it difficult to discern when the audience has

really enjoyed something, but experience has shown that conventional and more genuine applause can be differentiated by the fact that the latter are, on

the whole, more enthusiastic. It is interesting to contrast the Diamonds'

harmony singing with that of A New Shade of Blue (10:55 to 12:47). Upon

listening to these two examples of harmony singing it becomes apparent that

the way the vocalists' voices blend creates a new voice quite distinct from the

voice of any individual singer. The voice of a band who sings in harmony quickly

becomes recognizable in the same way that a single person's voice become

familiar and recognizable after hearing it enough times: we come to recognize

its distinct timbrel characteristics. From 16:40 to 17:12 is an example of banter

between the stage performers and the audience that is quite common at

bluegrass festivals (it also happens to indicate that the Bluegrass Diamonds are

conscious about matters of song ownership and intellectual property).

The clips from 17:13 to 17:38 and 17:39 to 18:12 are examples of audience

members' active participation in the music. In the first clip an audience member

is clapping along and in the second an audience member is playing the spoons

to the music. Interestingly enough, in the 'rules' section of the festival program it

states that there is no spoon playing allowed in the stage area, but apparently

hand-clapping is perfectly acceptable. At least the spoon player was able to

participate more or less in time with the music.

186 Serge Bernard, in addition to being the banjoist for Janet McGarry and

Wildwood, also emcees frequently at bluegrass festivals. His voice is another that is distinct and easily recognizable (after all, he also hosts a radio show in

PEI called "Bluegrass Island"). Serge's introduction of the Grasskickers (18:13 to 18:29) is typical of his animated style of oratory and is quite different from

Jerry Murphy's more laid back, almost monotone style.

18:58-30:20 - Field Pickin' Time

From 18:59 to 19:23 is the sound of people dispersing from the stage area and heading back to the campsite area to begin their evening of festivities, and I am walking along with them to do the same. After preparing for the evening I stopped by the first couple of parties I happened upon (19:24 to 20:13). Again, the density of sound phenomena related to social interaction is marked. A proper jam has yet to commence, but there are at least two guitars being played in the recording. The most notable sonic feature is the sheer number of and density of overlapping conversations.

At 21:00 begins an eight-and-a-half-minute continuous recording of my partner and I strolling through the festival grounds. I simply approached places where music was being made, stayed there for a short time and moved on to the source of the next nearest source of sounds. In my experience, this festival was average for post-show jamming activity; I have seen both more and less throughout my travels on the Maritime bluegrass festival circuit. The continuously recorded stroll exhibits the ease with which a person may move about at a festival and find a jam that suits their tastes. The recording also

187 exhibits the omnipresence of social activity at and between jams. In recording this clip I estimate the distance walked to be well under five hundred metres which, once again, speaks volumes about the density of social and sonic activity at bluegrass festivals. As is the case with the 'Walk From Tent to Stage' from

03:30 to 08:35, continuous moving recordings seem to be the only way to capture the density of sounds at the bluegrass festival; stationary recordings simply could not demonstrate this feature of the sonic environment. From 21:23 to 22:16 a laid back jam can be heard, one that most amateur musicians would have little difficulty in joining. The song being played is 'Daddy's Never Here', which was written by New Brunswicker Leo Paul Savoie and has been previously recorded, but was bluegrassified by the Bluegrass Diamonds. The next jam (22:25 to 24:16) boasts a fuller instrumentation and clearly includes relatively skilled musicians, as is evidenced both by their instrumental and vocal competence as well as their 'tightness' playing together. Within seconds of leaving the second jam a third can be heard in the distance. The sound of the third jam after the 25:00 mark never gets too loud because I stayed behind the group of spectators listening attentively to the music. These musicians are pretty tight as well. When the tune is finished you can hear some of the spectators begin to chatter, at which point I decided to move on. A tune being played in a fourth jam ends just as I approach (27:00 to 27:45) at which point you can hear the group begin to talk, laugh, and tune their instruments. At 28:25 you can hear a man asking a group tuning up and getting ready to jam if they've

188 got a singer, perhaps because he's interested in joining or knows of someone who is.

At 29:33 we have pretty much walked from one side of the grounds to another, reaching the unofficial quiet corner. We can tell that a big jam has developed where we began this stroll so we decide to return to those campsites.

From 29:33 to 30:20 are the sounds of fifth jam; a lively one in full swing that boasts many spectators, perhaps two dozen or so.

Notes About the Recordings

The clips were recorded as 16-bit WAV files with a Zoom H2 compact digital recorder and later converted to 16-bit AIFF files in SoundStudio 3. The only digital editing applied to the recordings was a dynamics compressor to make subtle background noises more audible in the mix (as well as the addition of fade-ins and fade-outs at the beginning and end of sound clips). The final recording is now available in both 16-bit AIFF and 320kbps mp3 versions.

189 cv

Candidate's Full Name: Daniel Joffre Andrews

Universities Attended: St. Thomas University, 9/2002 -12/2006, BA (Honours with Distinction)

Publications: none

Conference Presentations: 10/2008

"Global Forms of Music and Local Meaning: A Discussion of Maritime Bluegrass"

53rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Middletown, CT, USA

A paper examining Maritime bluegrass enthusiasts' penchant for infusing bluegrass musical performances with elements of country music proper.