Local Blues Man Goes Bluegrass
Bluegrass Is My Second Language: A Year in the Life of an Accidental Bluegrass Musician by John Santa (Josten's Publications) We could spend some serious time discussing the differences and similarities in southern music especially in the two great popular streams of the blues and bluegrass. Bluegrass is party music; blues is hung over. Blues is introverted, bluegrass is extroverted. Blues is somber and bluegrass is irreverent. Some people think that the blues is black and bluegrass is country white. But it really doesn't matter that much. Both the blues and bluegrass probably come out of going to church singing music: The gospel hybrid from good news to the nightlife, high times and regrets.
Musicians like playing one or the other, and many play both well. I doubt if it is race anymore that separates the streams, as it is disposition, location and mood. John recognizes location as opportunity. Who your neighbors are and who plays well in which bands. And let's face it, moods are moody. Then there are the instruments...
John Santa had been playing blues for plenty of years when he found himself inadvertently jamming with some serious bluegrass musicians and he became a born-again bluegrass musician. This is a story of falling in love with performing happy music, full of the beginner's mind, the enthusiasm and fresh insights that brings us into the bluegrass world as rarely as described by anyone except in retrospect.
The resulting book is one long gossipy conversation about the locals of the North Carolina Triangle music scene, their special camaraderie with the music, each other, their instruments and a stray dog or kid. Actually it is a quite personal slice of bluegrass life so well placed that John's beguiling storytelling easily lets us flow into this musical world.
There are very few books about bluegrass, not embalmed with nostalgia, that talk about the living contemporary bluegrass music and musicians with such insider savvy and wisdom as Santa. He brings to this long pleasant endlessly confidential and confiding diatribe about his stumbling into the joys of bluegrass music, a shrewd sense of humor and a biting eye for detail tuned to the music. It's a hard read to put down. Once you get used to his easy wit, his insight eases us into the music scene. And the scene is all local, seriously Chapel Hill local, folks. The people are real and the names sound awfully familiar to anybody who attends to the musicians around town. Yet Santa assures us that everybody is thoroughly fictitious, and so we can be well assured that though we're reading about the way bluegrass is lived in this part of North Carolina. Nobody has to stand up and pay the tax man.
John Santa is a phenomenal conversationalist who probably learned to play all his instruments as a way of giving his vocal chords a rest. Once he gets to talking full stops and serious periods seem to get in the way of the urgent flow of story. Santa tells how he, a serious well-respected bluesman, got infected with the jittery happy jolts and sheer exuberance of bluegrass. The book is a phenomenal document of just how bluegrass is lived by bluegrass musicians. As for most musicians in our culture it's hard to make a serious living by one's art alone. We are given insider's view of how the music is created; some insights into technique and other sidelines and side lights all dressed in humorous southern conversational idiom ever fresh, ever funny and informative.
I think it's fair that the best way to describe Bluegrass is My Second Language is that it will be not exactly what you would expect, but it is by far the most insightful view of the contemporary bluegrass scene in and around the triangle that you're likely to find anywhere ever. Here is a wonderful guide to local places to-visit, eat-at, hear music, buy instruments and just hang-out; and there is a glossary that offers nonstandard stories and definitions, even some sheet music. I suggest that you listen to the interview John gave to us at WCOM’s Carrboro book beat.
In addition the Bluegrass Band EIGHTtwentythree début album, The Blessing Of The Strings that features some of the music in the book is available with over 14 tracks. John Santa sings, plays mandolin while puffing a manic harmonica. Jeff Wiseman masterful five-string banjo blends styles to bend the way you perceive of banjos forever. Composer Greg Eldred has the signature voice for the group and performs virtuoso guitar. Keith Carroll, does vocals and anchors the group with his driving acoustic (“doghouse”) bass. Watch him dance with his bass across the stage when the music winds him up!
And take it from there.
Bluegrass Is My Second Language Book Beat Podcast
Excerpt from the Glossary:
DOCUMENTARY I set out to make a documentary about these wonderful people and places but events conspired against me. After September 11, the recession the country was experiencing worsened and the hope of getting some civic (or music) minded sponsor to donate some money to help me tell these marvelous stories did not seem too likely, so I took to writin all this stuff down afraid that I would lose or forget it. Started out with the one page treatment and just grew from there. Now that things are getting better, I am ever more hopeful I will be able to let the world hear and see these great player, and the music they make.
DOGHOUSE BASS What the classical world calls a double, acoustic or upright bass, the Bluegrass world calls a doghouse bass. Like the difference between a violin and a fiddle, it's all in the eye of the beholder I reckon.
D 35 GUITAR I taught guitar to Martin Brown for quite a few years (still do in fact). During those beginning years he played him a perfectly serviceable Yamaha guitar. It's what we call a five year guitar, meaning that you get it, play it five years and about that time if you're still playin then you're good enough to know you're gonna KEEP playin and also good enough to know a guitar that sells for a couple hundred bucks is just not gonna cut it for a lifetime of playing, it's time to move on up to a better (read: more expensive) guitar. Now bein that I am a teacher of superior quality and consummate ability and Martin was a motivated student with a true love of music, he kinda burned through his five-year guitar in about three. So he began to get the itch and started lookin around to see what might suit him. Martin is not one to rush into a new purchase, particularly when that purchase involves a high end, big ticket item and I reckon I didn't help things much by tellin him to take his time, do it right cause he was lookin to get married to that new guitar, and just like with his wife Judy, it was important you get it right the first time. So he tried this guitar and that, including some higher end models of the Yamahas that sounded pretty darn good but he found he just kept driftin on back to the Martin guitars, and a D 28 model in particular that had kinda winked at him and caught his eye and ear. Now in my opinion, there are just certain things that are true and meant to be: Martin playing a Martin just seemed like a natural to me, call me crazy. So it turns out that I had been playin some Martins down at the Music Loft and lookin and listenin on his behalf at the same time he was out a courtin this here 28. Gets to the point where things are comin to a head and Martin is pretty hot to pledge his trough to that little 28 what had his fingers twitchin from the sweet feel of her. Never one to muddy the waters, I held my piece for about as long as I could, which in this case was about two and a half seconds fore I dragged him off to play this here 35 I had found that I thought had a right good sound and feel. In fact, the tone and color of that 35 was pretty darn close to the tone and color of MY 35 which was a good 20 years older and more mellowed. For you civilians, really good guitars--and Martins certainly qualify under that definition---actually get better as they age. Their tone gets warmer, darker, richer as the woods marry and blend and the player shapes the sound. A 35 that sounded as sweet as the guitar what stole my heart and caused ME to marry her, well, I just had to intercede and play matchmaker here. So poor Martin went back and forth, back and forth, playin one, then the other, and was still leanin toward that 28, a fine instrument, don't dare get me wrong on that. A 28 is made to have what we call "cut:" the ability to push on through the sound of the other guitars and ride on top, a great guitar for leads, a well-spoken guitar. The model D35 is acclaimed for two things: its three-piece back (most guitars are one or two pieces) and a rich, distinctive signature Martin bass boom. In other words, a very rich bottom (bass) end (sound). I understood Martin's dilemma, but was increasingly frustrated as I could not make him see the wisdom of my musical judgment. Back and forth we go, back and forth: 28, 35, 28, 35 until finally I grab the 35 from him and say Play the 28. And he does. Then I Now play the 35 and make it sound like the 28. And he struggles a bit, and then finds by changing his attack, and where he strums and how, and he can make that of 35 do a pretty darn close impersonation of that 28. Then I take the 35 from him and hand him back the 28. Now make the 28 sound like the 35 I implore and as hard he tried, he could not do that. You see, you can attack an instrument with bass in such a way as to minimize the sound of the bass, but you can't take an instrument without that distinctive low end and make it somehow more bass-y. You just can't. After a bit, Martin looked up at me and smiled and said,
So...two for the price of one, huh?
And I said
Exactly
And he said I reckon I will be buying this here D 35 and I said
Excellent choice sir.
And THAT is how Martin come to play a Martin. (Which is what God clearly intended all along.)
DEERING An American banjo manufacturer, some would say THE American banjo manufacturer. Gibson traditionally made the most sought after banjos for Bluegrass, but the Deering banjos are becoming a staple on the market and are really fine instruments with great tone and power. The Deerings are such superb instruments that even the most diehard Gibson devotee cannot deny their impact on the market and the music. American made, they are fast creating a name and tradition in Bluegrass all their own. Under the guidance of my good friend Jay Miller, the creator and former owner of the North Carolina based music store franchise The Music Loft, I had purchased a Deering banjo about six months before I met banjo genius Jeff Wiseman. Needless to say, I was delighted to see he played a Deering.
DOWNBEAT All God's children got to know where one is. Really good bass players and really good drummers just flat LIVE for knowin where one is, for the downbeat. I worked at the Music Loft in Durham for a while when I was just starting out and there was a drummer there, name a Carlton Miles. Now, if I don't get to be Fred Minor when I grow up, I wanna be Carlton Miles. Carlton is an extraordinary drummer, singer, studio wizard, teacher and just all around great guy. At the time, he was just startin out too, so while we both worked at the Loft (our real job and main source of income), we supplemented our meager musicians wages by teaching lessons: I taught guitar and Carlton taught drums. I will never forget, will remember till the day I die how every time I followed one of my students off to the practice rooms, Carlton, eternally perched behind the counter practicing paradiddles and FLAMS, would stop mid roll and holler SANTA.
And I'd turn to him and say Yo.
And he'd raise up a drumstick to his eye level and point that thing at me and sternly and earnestly say You teach them little white boys where One is now, hear?
And I'd smile and nod and say
Yessir.
And as I would be walking out of the room I'd hear him trailing off, Don't make it the drummers job, we're all tired of teaching them guitar players where one is, we're all countin on you John, all the drummers out there, not just me, we're ALL countin on ya! You hear?
You hear?
I heard.
