Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 101; Fred Bartenstein interview

TAPE 1

Q: First, say your name and spell it.

FRED: My name is Fred Bartenstein. That’s F-r-e-d B-a-r-t-e-n-s-t-e-i-n.

Q: Okay, great, umm, first question. What is bluegrass and what are the characteristics of it?

FRED: Bluegrass music is a form that started in the last 30’s and early 1940’s. There was a guy named Bill Monroe who had been an old time country music star with his brother as the Monroe Brothers. He started his own band in 1939 and began to take pieces from other styles of music and form them into a special new kind of amalgam. He didn’t call it Bluegrass music; it was just Bill Monroe’s music. He drew from old spirituals, from southern fiddle music, from, uh, ballads, singing from all.... from jazz, from blues music and over time it became so popular in the 1940’s that other people started to play it. Alumni of Bill Monroe’s band like Lester Flatt and Earl Skruggs began to start their own groups and after a while in the 1950’s there was a need for a name to describe this phenomenon, this genre and because Bill Monroe called his band the Bluegrass Boys in honor of his native state of Kentucky, the music became known as Bluegrass music. A lot of people think that Bluegrass music is ancient and in fact, it does have ancient elements in it, umm, music that goes back as early as the 17th Century and lots of 19th Century material but Bluegrass as an art form itself didn’t begin until the late 30’s, early 40’s.

Q: Interesting.

Q: Well, you kind of hit on this but we’ll make this a separate... when and where did Bluegrass originate and how is it different than Country music?

FRED: Bluegrass came a long in the late 30’s and early 40’s and was considered at the time part of country music. Country music or Hillbilly music or Old Time music was popular primarily in the South. And, in the... as, as Bluegrass and Country music evolved in the late 40’s and 50’s they began to be... to be both seen as separate and sound different. Bluegrass held onto acoustic instruments after Country music had become mostly electric. Bluegrass emphasized the upbeat and Country music emphasizes the down beat. Bluegrass respects the past and has lots of references to things in history and old sounds and old phenomenon. Country music might be nostalgic but it’s mostly nostalgia about events in living memory. Bluegrass music considers itself an art form in which you have to be a virtuoso to play it. Country music is primarily a commercial or pop form of music. So, those are some main distinctions. Another one would be that Bluegrass music is typically sung at the high end of the vocal range whether its men or women and Country music is typically sung in a mid range, medium vocal range.

Q: Who started that high range?

FRED: Bill Monroe. Bill Monroe was a tenor and liked to sing high. He liked the intensity of high keys and high, umm, high singing and high playing and he also was a very competitive man. He liked to sing higher than the next guy and, and if he sang in a duet he would like to make... and you were singing the low part, he would pitch the duet at the edge of what you could sing to prove that he could sing his higher part even higher than that.

Q: Wow.

FRED: But, also that’s one way to answer it but also if you listen to Folk music around the world you’ll find that it’s often pitched in high keys and I think that partly has to do with before microphones were invented, uh, singing at the intensely in high pitch would carry across longer distances. If you were trying to yell at your kid who was three blocks away you’d probably find yourself yelling in a higher pitch than you would if your kid was in the next chair over.

Q: You talked earlier about the _____ differences about Country music and Bluegrass and that Bluegrass is basically in the past.

FRED: Well, Bluegrass honors the past. Yeah, Bluegrass isn’t only in the past, Bluegrass is... Bluegrass is constantly taking in elements from the broader culture and using it in Bluegrass. There was an album, uh, Beatle music and, umm, R&B has been interpreted Bluegrass style, lots of alternative Rock music has been performed in Bluegrass style, in fact, some of the most popular Bluegrass records today are the Picking On series, like picking on Aerosmith, picking on U2, picking on Green Day. Uh, you’ll find these in record stores.

Q: Interesting.

FRED: One of the things... one of the things that we’ve not mentioned is the instruments that are used in Bluegrass. A Bluegrass bank would typically include a guitar, a banjo, a five string banjo, a fiddle which is the same as a violin, it’s just the style is called fiddle, a string base and a mandolin, an eight string small instrument pitched the same as a violin but with double strings. Uh, in addition there’s a resonator guitar, Hawaiian steel guitar unampliphied that’s typically known as a Dobro (SP?), that’ll show up in some Bluegrass bands.

Q: You basically have to have all those instruments to be Bluegrass?

FRED: Ahh, you’re getting into a conversation that could go on and on, I mean, that’s the endless fight. Umm, I want to use the term typically, a Bluegrass band would typically have this constellation of instruments but you could and I would be an interesting challenge and Tony Ellis actually does... gets outside the range of what’s traditional in Bluegrass and still plays music that any Bluegrass ear would recognize as being Bluegrass music.

Q: Okay, we won’t get in that. Umm, Bluegrass is often characterized as traditional music. What does that mean?

FRED: There... there are two ways in which you might think of Bluegrass as traditional music, one, it draws a part of its repertoire from traditional sources, from folk music, from old fiddle tunes, from old ballads, from old sacred music, music that is passed from person to person without knowing, without remembering who the author was or in some cases not even having an author but that’s only a portion of Bluegrass music. Lots of Bluegrass is also newly composed or drawing on more modern sounds. Another way that you could think of Bluegrass as traditional is that the styles of playing the instruments and the styles of singing are learned less in schools and colleges and conservatories and more from musician to musician or within families or within communities which is a quote, traditional way of learning a cultural form.

Q: Umm, obviously we’ll talk _____ right now. Bluegrass is more of a community or a family oriented type of music. Umm, like you said, you pass it one from generation to generation, you learn it... you’re father or your grandfather knee.

FRED: No, no, know you’re describing old time or traditional music which Bluegrass draws on. Bluegrass itself is a fresh and relatively new phenomenon, think Rap, think Rock, think Jazz, think Rag Time, think things that are very current that people are excited about, that young people would be excited about. It’s not grandpa’s music. There... but Bluegrass is unusual, let’s say compared to Rap in that it draws in lots of older material, lots of traditional material, lots of songs that your great grandfather might have known but would still be played in this new and fresh style.

Q: Okay, great. Well, we’re kinda hitting on the misconceptions and what are some of the common misconceptions about Bluegrass?

FRED: Well, one of the biggest misconceptions about Bluegrass is that it’s ancient, that Bluegrass existed in from time in memorial back in the southern mountains. When actually Bluegrass music started in the late 30’s and early 40’s of the last century. Uh, another common misconception about Bluegrass is that it’s an ignorant, uh, style that takes no effort to learn to play, that only idiots would listen to it, uh, that it’s a southern style. Let’s picture if you will the famous scene in Deliverance where there’s a retarded kid sitting on top of a... of a, a shack playing the banjo, uh, in reality the musician that was playing that track was a Julliard graduate, uh, Eric Weisberg (SP?) who... and Bluegrass takes years and years to perfect any of the styles whether it’s the instrumental music or the singing. It’s considered virtuoso music and lots of pop musicians in country music in particular respect Bluegrass stylists as having more talent, more chops than they do and a lot of the, the musicians that play pop music in the daytime will jam at night in a Bluegrass format. It’s kind of string Jazz would be a good way to think about it or string chamber.... or chamber.... country chamber music.

Q: Why is it so difficult to learn?

FRED: The, the instrumental techniques that are required for...to play Bluegrass are not...

FRED: The instrument techniques that are required to play Bluegrass aren’t obvious, maybe with the sole expectation of the rhythm guitar. Rhythm guitar if you learn eight or nine cords you can... and learn to do them in time you can probably pass a Bluegrass musician but to be able to play what’s called lead, which is instrumental solos and back-up which is following another instrumental soloist or following a vocalist is a specific kind of technique. Playing in an ensemble, playing in the timing of Bluegrass... Bluegrass has a lot of complex syncopation in it that you can always tell a new or amateur Bluegrass band from a professional or an accomplished Bluegrass band because they don’t get the timing quite right and it takes years to hear.... first to hear it and then to do it on your own and then to do it with four or five other people.

Q: Okay. Uh, Bluegrass has roots in its rural communities yet today it seems that the genre has become more widely appreciated, why is that?

FRED: Bluegrass music was originally played by country people, people who had grown up in rural areas in farming and mining and timbering communities. And, was played for rural people, it was considered country music played by people from the country for people from the country... that if Bluegrass musicians went to a city it was just because the radio station was there or the record company was there or the building that was large enough to hold a crowd was there but people would come in and pick-up trucks from the country to go to those concerts and would listen to the radio in their farm houses, umm, or play the records on wind up victrolas back in the mountains before electricity reached there. That all began to change as the 20th Century rolled along and people from rural environments moved to the city. Much like Blues musicians moved from the Delta to Chicago and the music modernized and changed and, and reached new audiences. Bluegrass music as people from Appalachia, from rural south moved into cities both southern cities and northern cities they took the music with them and they took a love for the music with them creating new performance opportunities, creating lots more money to spend for instruments, for records, for going to concerts and those elements, uh, led to Bluegrass reaching new audiences, uh, radio obviously reaches a lot of people both in city... in the north and in the south. Uh, the Second World War created an interest in lots of country music that had not existed, uh, originally outside the south. It wasn’t until the 1960’s however, and the folk music boom that Bluegrass music started to become considered part of folk music and part of what was cool to northern and intellectual and urban audiences and it took off really big time in the mid 60’s and on through the 1970’s. And, part of what make Katie Lauer (SP?) an interesting character in Ohio Bluegrass History is that she was a major figure in bringing Bluegrass to these new audiences both in the north, in cities and the professional or college educated, uh, audiences that would not have previously been caught dead letting anyone know they liked Bluegrass or even thinking that they might be interested in it.

Q: So, how has Bluegrass changed?

FRED: Bluegrass has evolved, Bluegrass today... in some ways sounds similar to the music that was being made in 1945 by Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Skruggs, Chubby Wise, Howard Watts, the classic Bluegrass band but in other ways it has become... in other ways it’s become different. Uh, it’s drawn on the sounds of all the music that’s been made in the culture since 1945. Uh, obviously rock song...rock sensibilities didn’t exist back then, the idea of a jam band, a jam Bluegrass band which bases it’s kind of improvisation on Rock and Roll techniques wouldn’t have existed. But, Bluegrass is not a mono culture; you can’t describe it as one thing. There’s lots of variety and richness it’s one of the things that makes Bluegrass so fun is that you can hear 10 Bluegrass bands and 10 very different sounds.

Q: Okay. Uh, how and why did Bluegrass music and musicians come to Ohio, umm, and what sets Ohio Bluegrass artists from their southern counter parts?

FRED: Bluegrass music... Bluegrass music and Bluegrass musicians came to Ohio as part of the great Appalachian migration. The migration started about the First World War and went on in...and the migration continued up through, oh, maybe 1970 or the early 1970’s about the time that the industrial changes began to happen in the Ohio economy. We were... a lot of people were coming North for jobs. In the Dayton, Cincinnati part of Ohio large numbers of those immigrants... large numbers of those migrants were from Kentucky and from Tennessee. In Columbus and Akron and Cleveland large numbers of those migrants were from West Virginia. Umm, these people brought their instruments with them, they brought their tastes in music with them and it wasn’t long before there were in as the famous expression, you know, there are more, uh, Kentuckians living... the cause rural eastern... because rural eastern Kentucky is widely separated small communities, it’s not... because rural Kentucky is small communities that are widely separated, you find that when people migrate to Ohio into cities like Dayton and Columbus and Hamilton and Middletown that you could get more Kentuckians in one place then you ever could back in the country, uh, the land is flatter here, it’s easier to drive, the, there’s more places to live, there’s more jobs to have. So, the audiences are actually larger for Bluegrass music and starting in the 1960’s there become radio stations like WPFB in Middletown that start specializing in Bluegrass music. Reaching primarily the Appalachian in migrants but also a lot of native Ohioans, a lot of Buckeyes who start... whose ears start liking the new sound.

Q: What makes Katie Lauer somewhat of a pioneer in Bluegrass music and the national _____ in Ohio?

FRED: Katie... Katie Lauer is a very interesting figure in Bluegrass music for... obviously she was one of the very first professional female band leaders in Bluegrass history. Now, it’s a misconception that Bluegrass has always been male music or it’s a misconception that Bluegrass is male music, music by men for men. There have always been women from the very beginning included in Bluegrass music as songwriters, as singers, as even as instrumentalists but they weren’t prominent until the 1970’s and Katie Lauer as she began to bring her band forward in Cincinnati in the mid 1970’s was unique. She was one of only, oh, three or four female Bluegrass band leaders in the world. Uh, Katie Lauer was unique because she was a bridge between the professional college educated audiences in Cincinnati, the Folk music crowd, the Jazz music crowd with what it would have been previously a separate culture, the Appalachian quote, hillbilly bars of the Over the Rhine neighborhood. Katie Lauer bridged those two scenes, she was comfortable in both of them and she taught people on both sides of that divide to become comfortable in new ways crossing over into each others territories. Katie brought music from, from early Jazz, uh, from, umm, umm, from, umm, (LONG PAUSE) blocking the famous Smith...

FRED: Katie brought music from early Jazz into Bluegrass music. She knew and loved Bessie Smith and it was nothing for Katie to sing a Bessie Smith number right next to a Jimmy Rogers or Bill Monroe number.

Q: Great, okay. Umm, well, were female Bluegrass artists taken seriously?

FRED: At first, umm, at first female Bluegrass artists were taken as a, as a curiosity and a lot of men honestly in the early days would say, uh, a women could only play a base in the back of a Bluegrass band or sing the high harmony vocal or maybe play rhythm guitar but she couldn’t play banjo or she couldn’t play mandolin or she couldn’t sing lead, she couldn’t lead a band. Well, it took people like Katie Lauer to prove them wrong and, uh, today that’s... it seems amazing that there ever could have been this other point of view because in today’s Bluegrass music some of the great stars and the most familiar and famous Bluegrass musicians are female, the Allison Krause’s, Lori Lewis’s, Rhonda Vincent’s, umm, Dale Ann Bradley’s. These are national Bluegrass stars...it wouldn’t occur to anyone that they couldn’t be. Allison Krause has more Grammy’s than any other artist, uh, in history if I’m not mistaken.

Q: Okay, describe Katie. What is she like as a person?

FRED: There was once a, a film and maybe some of the people have seen it called, Gap Toothed Women that talks about the amazing women throughout history and throughout the arts who have a space between their front teeth and the things that they’ve done and I think of Katie as one of those classic gap toothed women. Katie is, uh, Katie is charming and she’s completely uninhibited. Katie will say what comes to her mind, she is hilariously funny, she is outgoing, she’s energetic, she’s charismatic, she’s fearless. She, uh, commands attention on stage and in person, she’s also brilliant, uh, in addition to being a Bluegrass singer, she’s also a Jazz singer and in addition to that she’s a great writer. She has done a lot of writing in Cincinnati, in the, in the periodicals and in magazines and if I’m not mistaken she’s even written chapters for books. Uh, so Katie brings that wit and that intelligence to everything she does. She has a big voice, a sweet voice. Umm, she enjoys her work as a musician, uh, I’m sure there are lots of ways in which she could have been more successful, financially, uh, than being a Bluegrass musician or a Jazz musician or a working musician of any kind but she’s just been...she’s been drawn to it. Her audiences love her and that’s... it’s become her faith.

Q: So having put up with being one of the pioneers, what do you think is her drive? What made her, you know, cause I’m sure there were nights driving, you know, somewhere, you know, is this worth it?

FRED: There are two things that Katie Lauer loves about Bluegrass music, one, is the music itself, the sound. She describes the first night that she heard it. She walked into a bar in Cincinnati no knowing what she was in for and by the end of the night she knew she needed to be part of it. She said, I just hung around until they eventually put me in the band. Uh, and it’s clear as you listen to her recordings and her concerts that she deeply loves and deeply knows the Bluegrass idiom. But, the other thing is that Katie is totally fascinated by the Bluegrass scene. The Bluegrass scene is wild, particularly in its early days. It was wild, it was weird, it was unexpected. Some of the characters that would come along are characters that you couldn’t think of to write into a novel and I think that’s the writer side of Katie. She would see these characters wonder in and out of place like Aunt Maudies Country Garden on Main Street in Over The Rhine Cincinnati and say where else in my life would I ever be exposed to people like Mr. Spoons who was a character that would come in and play for tips with spoons. He would play on people’s backs and on their heads. He had little routines and numbers and he made his whole living playing the spoons, in bars in Cincinnati. Uh, and Katie could go on and on and I’m sure she will telling you about the interesting characters she’s met down through the years.

Q: Very good. What has Katie done for the Bluegrass community in Ohio?

FRED: Katie... Katie Lauer as much as anyone in Ohio brought Bluegrass to new audiences. The University of Cincinnati crowd, the Kentucky... the northern Kentucky, Cincinnati intellectual’s scene, the journalists, the, uh, football and baseball starts, the financiers, the business people. Katie became cool at a... in the mid 1970’s and people...rich people, people dripping in diamonds, uh, young entrepreneurs, successful business people on the meg (SP?) would all know Katie Lauer, like Katie Lauer and get some cache of telling their friends that they knew her or had been to see her at, at Aunt Maudies. So, Katie brought in large new audiences. She legitimized Bluegrass music for people who wouldn’t have been caught dead listening to it, particularly in the Cincinnati area. Uh, the other thing she did was to prove you could be a female band leader. Another thing she did was... she was kind of... Katie Lauer was kind of the godmother... Katie Lauer was kind of the godmother of a scene a musical scene in Cincinnati, uh, think Peter Pan and Wendy and the Lost Boys. There were 50 or 60 lost boys playing Bluegrass music in Cincinnati and Katie was at the... was like the queen bee of that scene. Umm, and when you, when you want to move an artistic project forward, the first thing you’ve gotta have is critical mass of people that are interested at it... in it and good at it. And, they were drawn to Cincinnati to be part of the scene that Katie made fun, that Katie made happen, that Katie made connections, Katie knew people that could put a record together, Katie knew people that could take up a bar that...which only had a jukebox and put a little stage in the corner of it, a place to perform. Uh, Katie knew people that if you needed a banjo teacher she could tell you who to go to to get a banjo lesson. So, she was a maven, if you will, of Bluegrass in that scene.