| Bluegrass has run like a powerful current through
the past half-century of American music; it is
both a vital genre on its own terms and a significant
influence on other forms, and it has been widely
recognized as such.
Thanks to a confluence of commercial and social
factors, the Cincinnati-Dayton Region has played
a unique and consistent role in fostering bluegrass
from its inception in the late 1940s. Communities
of Appalachian immigrants provided local audiences
for bluegrass performers, while radio stations
and independent record labels and studios disseminated
their work throughout the region and around the
country. The result has been not only vitally
important music, but a rich, distinctive social
and cultural history that can shed much light
on the origin and development of the music.
Many of the sources from which such a history
can be compiled are in danger of disappearing
as musicians and other participants grow older,
materials decay or disappear and social and
economic forces alter the audiences and institutions
that have sustained the music. We stand in danger
of irreplaceable losses with the passage of
time and changes in circumstances, and such
losses will have an effect not only on regional
musicians and audiences, but on the entire field
of bluegrass music and its study.
Timely action is needed. Therefore, we have
created Bgrass, Inc. |
