However, the ‘defence’ already starts to fall apart here. Bluegrass is not the invention of bumpkin midwest farmers, any more than any genre is ‘invented’. Bluegrass’s roots are fascinating, and musicologists have made much of them. Broadly, we can say that the traditions of English and Irish folk music came to the new world to different landscapes and different-sounding instruments, and different stories in different tenors. So, a new musical idiom arose, a new genre flowed forth, and a culture around it. The ‘hick’ association belies the music’s complexity, both of origin and musical technicality.
