Bluegrass for Christmas

There is more to Christmas gifts than books. There's Bluegrass music. So, I thought I would reference some Bluegrass musicians and groups to help both newcomers and old hands in the field of the great all American music genre.

1. Bill Monroe was almost universally acknowledged as the Father of Bluegrass music. Of course, Bluegrass musicians had as many personal and principled feuds as Calvinistic theologians, so some debated Monroe's paternity. Still there is no debating Monroe's skill as a mandolin player, band organizer, and promoter of the music. His voice defines the "high lonesome" sound of Bluegrass music. Numerous copies of his music are available. Both the earlier and later work display an incredible range of skills. As he put it, "We pitched the music higher and faster than it had ever been done before."

2. Ralph Stanley became a superstar of sorts just a few years back with the popularity of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Stanley was in his late 70s at the time and was then and still is performing. He is actually Doctor Ralph Stanley due to his having received an honorary degree for his contribution to preserving rich veins of American mountain music. Originally, Ralph performed with his brother Carter until Carter's death in the 1960s. Whether you listen to the Stanley Brothers or Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, you will be tapping into some really fine music. (By the way, Ralph S. and Bill M. were friends, but Ralph insists from the beginning he and his brother were playing a different genre of music than Monroe. The Stanley Brothers were performing Mountain Music, not Bluegrass Music.)

3. Ricky Skaggs made quite a name for himself in the 1980s singing country music. Then he turned back to his roots--Bluegrass. Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder perform some of the best of the works of Monroe, whom Skaggs idolized, and Stanley, for whom Skaggs worked. You can always be certain that at any moment of the day, Ricky Skaggs is somewhere playing music fast and furiously and having more fun than you are. Skaggs, who like many Bluegrass musicians is a dedicated Christian, has won several Grammy awards for his music. His newest album (seen down below), titled Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass-Tribute to 1946 and 1947, has been both nominated for a Grammy and put on the short list in my letter to Santa Claus.

4. Alison Kraus broke the gender barrier in Bluegrass Music. She with her voice and fiddle and her band, Union Station, which includes Dan Tyminski, do some of the best of Bluegrass music. She does both traditional Bluegrass and more updated versions. Like all true Bluegrass singers, she also does gospel songs. What a voice from a really pretty lady.

5. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs gained fame back in the 1960s from doing the theme music to the movie Bonnie & Clyde and for doing the theme song to the Beverly Hillbillies show (although it was sung by Paul Henning on the show itself). Scruggs, who still performs, is a banjo genius. Flatt was an excellent guitar player and singer. Both were originally part of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. Their breakup as a group was a major fissure in the music world. Their proposed reunion was not to be due to Lester Flatt's untimely death in the late 1970s. Last year I asked Santa Claus for Flatt and Scrugg's album of their outstanding performance at Carnegie Hall in the 1960s, but having been bad, I did not get it.

Two other Bluegrass Boys who made it big on their own were 6. Jimmy Martin, sometimes called the King of Bluegrass music and 7. Mac Wiseman. Martin's most famous song is "Sunny Side of the Mountain." Martin was a powerhouse of a performer. He joined with Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to perform in one of the greatest musical live recordings ever done--Will The Circle Be Unbroken. The sequels, both excellent performances, were done in the Unbroken Circle series, but none matched the first one. Wiseman has a really smooth voice with a Burl Ives type sound. He does not seem to be remembered as much as some of his colleagues (and one of his finest pieces was titled "Tis Sweet to be Remembered") and that is a shame.

Electronics revoutionized the volume of music and Elvis Presley revolutionized the mood. Many of the older Country Music acts just about died on the vine in the wake of the Memphis Tidalwave that hit American music in the 1950s and 1960s. (Here again we have to mention Monroe who encouraged Elvis in his singing--and that after Elvis sped up Monroe's song "Blue Moon of Kentucky". Also, Monroe's fast style earned him a place in the Rock and Roll Songwriters Hall of Fame.)

8. The Osborn Brothers, Sonny and Bobby, responded by hugging up amplifiers to their banjo and mandolin, while 9. Jim and Jesse McReynolds held fast to the older ways. The folk music revival of the 1960s caught wind of Bluegrass musicians. This led to the advent of Bluegrass Festivals, the most famous of which was and still is in Bean Blossom Indiana (which was founded in large part by Monroe). Bluegrass music surged in the 1960s and has continued to enjoy wide-spread popularity. Neither of these brothers groups are still intact, due to Jim McReynolds' death a few years back and to Sonny Osborn's retirement. If you have never heard the Osborn Brothers perform "Ruby, Are You Mad?" you haven't lived.

Another student and former bandmember of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys was 10. Del McCoury. He and his sons have one of the most powerful bands around. I have to confess to lacking any cd's of their music, except for selections on a few anthologies. McCoury has the legendary high tenor voice that is so defining for much of Bluegrass music, and he and his boys have the speed and virtuosity on their instruments that never ceases to amaze watchers and listeners.

11. There are numerous musicians who have succeeded in other types of music, generally country, who either began in the Bluegrass field or have recorded some songs and records in the field. We can think here of such performers as Marty Stuart and Charlie Daniels. Daniels' gospel Bluegrass album, titled "Songs from the Longleaf Pines," features his singing and fiddle playing and includes guest performances by Mac Wiseman and Earl Scruggs.

It's hard to imagine a better Christmas morning than the one were you unwrap a few good books and couple of fine Bluegrass compact disks.

Now, there's an Eleventary for you that even old George Grant can't match.

Christmas Book List for 2008

Normally, I write an essay this time of year that calls attention to certain books that would make worthy Christmas gifts. But in this year, we have had an economic meltdown that is gargantuan in scope. Add to that, we had a candidate running for the Presidency who advocated extreme interventionism in the economy. That same candidate, however, lost to the even more interventionist, left-leaning Presidential candidate. A lot of mediocre Republicans have been replaced by liberal Democrats. We have now the most solid coalition of leftists now controlling the Senate, the House, and the Presidency since Roosevelt’s famed first Hundred Days in office.

There are only good two bits of good news. First, unemployment is way down. What I mean is that unemployment for former Clinton staffers is way down. “Change We Can Believe In” can be best translated as “the Clintons are Back.” The second bit of good news is that gas prices are down. I can afford to buy gas for the car and vacation that I cannot afford.

Normally, I just merrily go about rattling off book titles for idle, leisure reading, but we are in a crisis. My response: Buy some cheap gas and head off to a bookstore. Now more than ever is a good time to read.

Surely, everyone is exhausted from a whole year of Presidential primaries, caucuses, debates, and campaigning. Yet, I want to recommend two great reads on politics. The first is Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg of National Review Magazine. This book is aptly subtitled The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Focusing on the Presidential administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, Goldberg uncovers lots of leftist ideas that are really better termed fascist than socialist. This book “rehabilitates” Mussolini, who is usually relegated as a buffoonish dupe to Hitler’s Axis political schemes. Mussolini was a really well read, really highly respected tyrant. He was a jerk, but he was the model for Fascism as practiced in many countries, including the U.S.
A book with similar, but not redundant themes is A Conservative History of the American Left by Daniel Flynn. American history is replete with examples of utopians, social reformers, social gospelers, socialists, and visionaries intent on remaking the world. Many have labored for their agendas with strong religious motivations, but their convictions rarely coincided with a sound, creedal and doctrinal Christianity. Flynn’s chapter on the extremists in the New Deal, the manipulative political scheming of FDR, and the failure of government interventionism in the 1930s is outstanding. His chapters on the radicalism of the 1960s is even better. Goldberg’s and Flynn’s books cover portions of history rarely discussed.

Some of my recent reading trends keep taking me back to the Great Depression. I hope these tendencies are historical and not psychological in intent. Whether they are prophetic or not remains to be seen. But I must add another book to this mix. Amity Shlaes has written a book called The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. This history is new in more than one sense of the word, for it takes on the whole accepted historiography that credits FDR and the New Deal with having answered and solved the problems resulting from the economic woes coming out of 1929 and afterwards. The opening portions of this book, along with recommendations from friends and reviewers, convince me that this is mind-altering material. (Yes, I know that Murray Rothbard and Paul Johnson previously delivered some really good counterblows to New Deal hagiography, but there is always room for one more good punch into the belly of a liberal icon.)

The writing of history itself is not as often studied or discussed as historical events and figures. Admittedly, a lecture on twentieth century historiography delivered by an Oxford don is not as appealing as hearing a military historian discussing the battle of Dunkirk. Yet, without historiographical presuppositions, life is, as Macbeth lamented, “A tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying nothing.” A man whose vision of history greatly differed from Macbeth was Christopher Dawson. We are blessed with seeing an increasing number of his books being reprinted. In addition, we can rejoice in
Bradley Birzer’s intellectual biography of Dawson titled Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson. Although Dawson lived through exceedingly interesting times, including both world wars, his own life was nondescript. He was a scholar who suffered from poor health most of his days. But Birzer follows the workings of Dawson’s fascinating mind and the writing of his books. Dawson was, in short, one of the most theologically centered historians of all time.

The subject of historians receives book length treatment in A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century by John Burrow. Whether considering the ancient historians like Herodotus, or the early Christians like Eusebius or Bede, or the Gibbon or Macauley, this book examines how these historians themselves made history or determined how we view history. It looks like a lot of fun.

For most of us our vision of history is centered on the United States, other English speaking lands, economics, culture, and religion. All of these issues are ably discussed in God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World by Walter Russell Mead. The world we live in, the economic prosperity of our times, and the prevailing world culture have been dominated by the maritime powers, which includes the Anglo-American alliance and the Netherlands. The rivals to these forces have been defeated throughout history. Mead credits this successful cultural power to the dynamic and open societies of the English speaking world and the flexible gyroscope-like interaction between Scripture, tradition, and reason. This book is chocked full of insights, although some, like Mead’s views of Calvinism, are not convincing.

For yet another look at the amazing American experience, consider Jay Winik’s really well written The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World. This book contrasts three simultaneous historical occurrences: The post-Revolution era of the United States when the Constitution was written and then enacted by the early Presidents, the French Revolution, and the reign of Catherine the Great of Russia. God has been good to the United States.

There is life beyond the study of history. Here I recommend Rainbows for the Fallen World by Calvin Seerveld. This classic work on developing a Christian vision for art and culture movingly sets out a vision for a Christian aesthetic life and artistic cultural development. Seerveld’s book has lots of useful information for Christian school teachers.

Now back to history: Anyone wanting some good Medieval reading should consider Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter Wells and Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill. Both books set out to correct wrongful, simplistic, and distorted views of the Medieval world. (I cannot help but note that Christopher Dawson’s Medieval Essays tops everything else in this area.)

Not long after the Medieval period of history “ended,” Europe’s future was threatened then (as now) by Muslims. The difference was that in the 1500s, the Islamic threat was tied to a nation—the Ottoman Empire—and the war was waged conventionally. Europe turned back that threat in two key battles that are covered in a book I cannot wait to read, titled Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World by Roger Crowley.

One must forgive this self-aggrandizement, but I really think Punic Wars and Culture Wars: Christian Essays on History and Reading that I wrote is a wonderful Christmas present. Thanks to the publisher, Covenant Media Press, the book’s cover is quite attractive. The book itself is filled with information about historical people and events, along with information about historians and teaching history. The chapters can be read in any order. Along with those features, it includes a wonderful foreword by my friend George Grant and a lengthy annotated bibliography describing a host of books worth pursuing.

With many new books coming out each year, one still has to remember the literary classics, the famous theologians, historians, and poets, and the all too easily forgotten defining works of the past several years or decades or centuries.
After recent reading fictional experiences, I find myself wanting to read more of Walter Scott, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, and J.R.R. Tolkien. My worldview studies have created an insatiable appetite for the writings of R.J. Rushdoony, Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Gordon Clark, and Herman Dooyeweerd. The histories written by Paul Johnson, Victor Davis Hanson, Barbara Tuchman, Niall Ferguson, and Theodore White are timeless. The classic works I am teaching this year such as City of God, Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, and The Divine Comedy are never fully plummeted, even after repeated readings.

So, if the economy reduces us to a much less affluent state, all we really need are some candles, some coffee or tea, and a stack of books. Then happy days will be here again.