Performing Race(d) music in Central Europe: Can bluegrass be "Ethnically Czech"? ****************************************************************************************** * Lee Bidgood ****************************************************************************************** Abstrakt The 1993 Česko-Slovenský split was the latest step in the formation of today’s nearly mono nation-state, a culturally homogeneous milieu where ethnicity blurs with citizenship, and not always welcomed. As a phenotypically “white” scholar engaged in participatory observat performance of bluegrass music, I feel the power of music to forge identity in this exclus my “Americanness” both endears me to and distances me from my Czech colleagues and the lif communities. Bluegrass’s foundations in U.S. minstrelsy, its connections with pro-Anglo rhetoric, and i “whiteness” in sound and effect give me pause as I consider how bluegrass musical practice in the Czech Republic. Bluegrassers perform repertory and style that is part of the Afro-A tension: enhanced by cultural hybridity, but also complicated by legacies of identity and Czechs process the American black / white tension when they recreate its sounds within ver demographic and socio-historical conditions? The appearance of the Confederate battle or “rebel” flag and controversial repertory in Cz is less important in this discussion than group dynamics and discourse that evoke many of categories outlined in current American “whiteness” literature. The “minority” rhetoric vo as a small part of the European conglomerate, and as members of the local bluegrass subcul their de facto majority status within the bounds of the Czech state and within the bluegra By describing some of the groups and events I have observed this year in the Czech Republi a sense of the “Czechness” that is built into Czech performances of country and bluegrass, implications of these intersections of music, identity, and performance. Klíčová slova bluegrass, ethnicity Bluegrass is a country music subgenre innovated in the Southern United States by Bill Monr musicians in the mid-20th century. Through a variety of interesting twists, music-making i bluegrass has been going on in the Czech lands for over a half century, nearly as long as US. The prehistory of Czech bluegrass activity lies in the Central European affinity for r America, especially of wilderness, the "Wild West" as described by Karl May and Jack Londo detailed by Baden-Powell and Thompson-Seton, and the rambling idylls of Thoreau. The so-ca movement of the early 1900s grew out of images of adventure drawn from these writers, the music theater of the Osvobozené Divadlo of Werich and Voskovec, and the visual spark of we as those starring Tom Mix. (Kotek 106-7) The associated genre of "tramp songs" soon followed. Tramping's musicians, already equippe band instrumentation (guitars, mandolins, etc.), eagerly incorporated US country and blueg Armed Forces Network broadcasts first brought these sounds to Central European airwaves af World War. Today bluegrass and country music elements are widespread in the Czech Republic. The Blueg Ceské Republiky lists nearly 200 groups on their website, Prague'sCountry Radio broadcasts everywhere, and most small towns host events called "country baly" which feature songs and would be familiar to bluegrass fans in the States. Amidst this variety of interpretations of "America" and country music, there are a wide ra interpretations of bluegrass and many derivative labels, such as "trampgrass," "Czechgrass Grass," "Newgrass," etc. My dissertation research is focused on Czechs who are most intens recreating a traditional bluegrass style. Bluegrass Cwrkot is a good example - they wear s ties, and cowboy hats, and they stick to repertory taken from bluegrass old-timers Bill Mo and Scruggs. Traditionalist bluegrass, more than any of the constellation of bluegrass-related expressi on the "good old days," and on a few "good old boys" who created the "bluegrass" sound and 1950s as a way of celebrating a rural, and sometimes overtly "Anglo" music heritage in the roll, Rhythm and Blues, and other more progressive and racially charged sounds. A reverence for the first generation of bluegrass players, as well as the style and repert haunts bluegrass today-even in the Czech Republic. One of Cwrkot's "hits" is a newly compo Bill Monroe, a native of Rosine, Kentucky, and the self-acclaimed "Father of Bluegrass." A large photo of Monroe hangs over the stage at the hospoda "U Starého Rebela" in Sloupnic The Old Rebel Pub is owned by BG Cwrkot bassist Pavel Brandejs, and is the "home base" of they host bluegrass evenings once a month, and other events. I attended a concert there tw was struck by the decor and ambience. It was a normal Czech pub in many ways, but along wi artifacts of rural life and bygone days, the walls were covered with photos of bluegrass a Hank Williams, Jimmy Martin, Flatt and Scruggs - the whole pantheon. Instead of a football the concert started, a DVD called "Gospel Bluegrass Homecoming" poured Ricky Skagg's sweet harmonies over the bar into the smoky room. Another recurring item on the walls was connected to the name of the pub. The "Rebel flag, Confederate States of America, is an emblem of white, Southern pride in the US today. Desp because of, the controversy, it still appears all over: T-shirts, bumper stickers, flying at bluegrass festivals, even. While the implications of this particular sign are a bit mix context, the problem of "whiteness" does pop up here. As a recent article by Allen Farmelo points out, many narratives pose bluegrass as some so "traditional music of white people in the US." Farmelo describes a more complicated histor bluegrass to be a 20th century representation of cultural interaction over hundreds of yea and white Americans. The exclusion of African-Americans from narratives about string band United States, Farmelo contends, is part of the pattern of Anglo-American hegemony. David and Gavin Campbell's (2005) work provides extensive case studies which illustrate specific American string band music has been used by European-Americans to further their race-based Despite their critical work, though, bluegrass in the US continues to be a solidly "white" So what about whiteness in Czech bluegrass? Does the ethnic homogeneity of "white" - "nati bluegrassers have anything to do with the racial politics of the United States? Have Czech only the musical materials, but some of the cultural practices of bluegrass and the Americ nationalist, racist undercurrent in Czech society is a definite presence, but I don't thin and the rest of the scene are necessarily part of that stream. BG Cwrkot were guests of honor at the weekend bluegrass workshop in Nové Svatoňovice in th At the climactic Saturday night concert, bassist and bandleader Pavel "Brandy" Brandejs in fiddle player, who smiled shyly in the shadow of his broad-brimmed and western-ish hat: Nejmladším se mnou hrající člověkem je pan kterej je z Mladé Boleslavi hraje se mnou teprve rok kdo je tady na housle tak by ho rád vycitil s tím že se mnou hraje na housle rok, a na housle vúbec hraje rok a púl. [smích] má to v krví z Mladé Boleslavi DAVID KOUCKÝ! The youngest person playing with me is a man from Mladá Boleslav he's playing with me now for a year those who are here studying fiddle will be interested to know that he's been playing fiddle with me a year, and has only been playing fiddle for a year and a half [laughing] he's got it in his blood from Mladá Boleslav DAVID KOUCKY! [Author's field recording, and translation] What is it he's got in his blood? Why do I put these words in bold? If you saw David, you' buzz around David (I still haven't been able to land an interview to get better informatio is a Rom, a Gipsy - part of a group that has endured a deeply marginalized position in Cze centuries. Back to my original question: what is in his blood? After this introduction, David went on version of the bluegrass classic "Back up and Push," displaying a rough virtuosity that ga applause from the audience. What sort of "blood" would contribute to this sort of playing? Otherness? Is it ... Bluegrass? I'm not sure how to take Brandy's comment, and am even more "not sure" how to take up this when I meet with him, as I hope to do. "So...you are a Romani musician involved in bluegra that work? Do you feel there is racism directed at you? Do you feel kinship to African-Ame musicians, musical practices?" etc. etc. Just thinking about it is disorienting, and remin different situation I work within here in the Czech Republic, how the race/ethnicity probl States are somehow part of culture here, but are not the only dynamic at play. One avenue for understanding his position, though, is to imagine how I share some part of I can't help remarking on the parallel between myself and David: We both are set apart in some sort of birthright that we claim through genetics. In the Czech Republic I am often - always - introduced on stage with phrases similar to those we just heard. I am often prese Ameriky," which is a rhymed reminder that I can be reified, essentialized as a figure of " the same way that David is enclosed by the discourse of ethnicity. I realize the limits of this line of thinking, however. Unlike David, I can slip into a cr visibly different from the rest of the "white" folks around. I'm usually marked only by my sometimes I can pass linguistically, my stumbling Czech or my practiced English usually gi My fiddle playing also gets comments. Two of the top fiddlers in the bluegrass scene here and Stano Paluch, both accomplished musicians with conservatory backgrounds and experience musical settings. At a bluegrass workshop outside of Brno in 2005, we were sitting around fiddle tunes and talking. The specifics have left me, but I still remember being surprised great musicians both said that they feel as if they aren't very good fiddlers, that they d music the way they would like - using ME as an example of someone who is able to play it w especially the rhythmic feel they noticed in my right hand, in my bowing. Another very able (and conservatory-trained) fiddler, Jirka Králík, stopped me cold as I s playing fiddle tunes this past October. I had just played the opening phrase of the tune " a standard fiddle tune in bluegrass circles. He stopped me, excited: "WAIT! How'd you play over what I had played, and came up with the diagnosis - I was using a bluesy/modal/pentat instead of a "normal" major tonal framework, slipping in a G instead of the F# usually fou phrase of the tune. These musical elements are stereotypically "black" - a problematic observation, but one th Tagg's analysis (1989) of this sort of characterization, leaves some room for discussion a identifications and musical style. Interestingly enough, the characteristics I remarked on me of David Koucký's fiddling style, which, like mine, is rougher, less controlled than Pe polished finesse. We are both outsiders in a way, but both incorporated into the Czech blu won't push the parallel too far, but will just say that for all its exclusivity and prickl even in its Czech forms, incorporates difference in ways that continue to surprise me. Joti Rockwell's recent dissertation considers bluegrass as it is constructed by people who and consume the music. Rockwell proposes that bluegrass activity is a constellation of ind discourse around the central trope, spinning out variations, but maintaining a connection typical illustration of flexible, developing tradition. Concluding a section where he desc bluegrassers argue about what, in fact, bluegrass itself IS, he says that "as long as the people continue listening, and as long as people continue listening, performers continue p music under discussion. The debate, then, is an important reason why the genre is alive an be sustained." (Rockwell 2005, 101) The concept of tropes is encouraging to me - seeing Czech performances of bluegrass as par negotiation of tropes rather than the successful or unsuccessful reproduction of a specifi genre regime allows for the sort of alternative narratives that Farmelo seeks in redressin historiography. A tropological understanding of bluegrass more readily accepts the sort of about bluegrass that I come across here in Czech Republic - whether it be my stories as a player, or the ones that David Koucký or his bandmates in BG Cwrkot have to tell. More imp understanding bluegrass as a trope poses all of us as active agents in a discourse, as peo engaged in negotiation of what bluegrass is, not subjects of an abstract idea of genre. Th only to my ears, but also to my conscience. Lee Bidgood is a doctoral candidate in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music at the Un Virginia. As a Fulbright student grantee in 2002-2003, he was affiliated with the Ethnomus program at the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University, and has enjoyed a continued re Dr. Jurková and other scholars. Lee's soon-to-be-finished dissertation is entitled "Locati Finding America: Performing Bluegrass Music in Czech Republic". References Rockwell, Joti. Drive, Lonesomeness, and the Genre of Bluegrass Music. Doctoral Dissertati Chicago, 2007. Whisnant, David. All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Regio University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Farmelo, Alan. "Another History of Bluegrass: The Segregation of American Popular Music, 1 Popular Music and Society (Spring-Summer 2001), 179-203. Campbell, Gavin. Music and the Making of a New South. Chapel Hill: University of North Car 2004. Tagg, Philip. "Open Letter: ‘Black Music', ‘Afro-American Music' and ‘European Music', Pop 8, No. 3, African Music (Oct., 1989), 285-290. Lee Bidgood [ URL "LM-787.html "]