Thursday, September 2, 2010

Blue Moon of KY...

Today I joined Mickey and his classmates on a field trip to the JD Crowe Bluegrass Music Festival. So I've had "Blue Moon of KY Keep on Shining" stuck in my head all day. I'm not sure Mickey really enjoyed the music, but he did say he liked the banjo (because its origins are found in some African instruments that were "brought over" by slaves back in the day). I learned a lot about Bluegrass music, including that is was started in 1945 by Bill Monroe (apparently the god of Bluegrass, since every performer talked about him). A Bluegrass group usually consists of a bass, a mandolin, a guitar, a fiddle (violin played country style) and a banjo. Also, the mandolin below has 10 strings to double the sound, since most Bluegrass music is played acoustically.


This man was from Lexington and I can't remember his name, but he was a great fiddle player, probably my favorite performer of the day.

The banjo player was good also, but it was 90 degrees and were sat there for 30 minutes with no shade so the kids were just wiped out.


For those who care, I thought I'd post some videos of the performers.


A local clogger taught the kids some clogging moves. Mickey said he liked it, but looked pretty confused the whole time. Luckily, thanks to Mom's showchoir background (insert jazz hands), I was able to help him figure out the moves




1 comment:

Meredith said...

Love that....It's also funny how show choir from back in the day has come in very handy...