Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe

by Lee Bidgood, Tony Trischka (Foreword by)

Overview

Bluegrass has found an unlikely home, and avid following, in the Czech Republic. The music’s emergence in Central Europe places it within an increasingly global network of communities built around bluegrass activities.
 
Lee Bidgood offers a fascinating study of the Czech bluegrass phenomenon that merges intimate immersion in the music with on-the-ground fieldwork informed by his life as a working musician. Drawing on his own close personal and professional interactions, Bidgood charts how Czech bluegrass put down roots and looks at its performance as a uniquely Czech musical practice. He also reflects on “Americanist” musical projects and the ways Czech musicians use them to construct personal and social identities. Bidgood sees these acts of construction as a response to the Czech Republic’s postsocialist environment but also to US cultural prominence within our global mediascape.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252041457
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	09/11/2017
Series:	Folklore Studies in Multicultural World
Edition description:	First edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Lee Bidgood is an associate professor of bluegrass, old-time, and country music studies in the Department of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University.
 

Table of Contents

Foreword Tony Trischka vii

Introduction xi

1 Place, Meaning, Community, and In-Betweenness 1

2 Czech Bluegrass Histories and Backgrounds 21

3 Making Bluegrass at Home, Abroad, and In Between 52

4 Learning and Playing Americanness on the Fiddle 69

5 Singing Truth, Fidelity, and Play in Czech Bluegrass Gospel 99

A Tag: America/Amerika 119

Notes on Language 125

Notes 131

Glossary of Czech Terms 141

References 143

Recommended Media 153

Index 161

Editorial Reviews

"Lee Bidgood is the first person to do a serious accounting of the forces, political and artistic, that have contributed to the popularity of this outlier music in this unlikely locale. By putting himself in the narrative, one gets an up close and personal sense of the various aspects of the bluegrass and old-time music wave that has swept across the Czech and Slovakian musical landscapes for years—and still counting." —Tony Trischka, from the foreword
 


"Many readers will appreciate both the high level of insight, and that the text makes its points using only 124 pages. Ethnographic works about contemporary music traditions are needed, and Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe is a valuable tool, helping those interested in bluegrass music understand the rooting of the style in multiple cultures."—Journal of Folklore Research
 

"Bidgood's personalized analysis adds a significant, scholarly piece to the bigger picture of bluegrass as an international phenomenon."—Bookreporter

"This book will be of interest to those curious about the assimilation and adaptation of music forms. . . Readers eager for stories of bluegrass and country music that diverge from the common narrative of these genres being made by and for American Southerners will also appreciate the global approach to these genres." —Journal of American Folklore

From the Publisher