Sacred Circles and the Difference Between Bluegrass and Rock and Roll Ones

I plugged into some hot bluegrass for a walk on this very cold day— the Del McCoury band’s “Cold Hard Facts,” followed by the 25^th Anniversary album by Chicago hometown bluegrass standard bearer Special Consensus.  The blazing picking and warm vocal harmonies did a nice job of melting through the New Year’s chill, and got me thinking about some of the bluegrass and rock and roll jams—Sacred Circles of pickers and singers-- I have had the privilege of sitting in on over the last few years.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine with whom I had once played in a bluegrass band (he on banjo, myself on mandolin) invited me to a party at his house on New Year’s Day and told me to bring my instruments.  I hadn’t seen him in several years and had never been to his house for party of any sort, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Gathered around his fireplace that day were roughly 15 people, every one of them with an acoustic  instrument.  There were several guitars of varying varieties (standard wooden 6 strings, dobros, 12-strings, etc), a few banjos and a few mandolins, a couple of fiddles, and a bass.  One guy (a former member of the Special Consensus, it turns out) appeared to be the unofficial emcee of the proceedings, calling tunes or selecting other people to call them, shouting out chord changes, pointing out different people to take solos, deciding on what key different tunes would be played in, etc.  I hadn’t played much mandolin or bluegrass since leaving the band I had played in with the host, so I was excited to get my bluegrass on.  I eagerly pulled out my mandolin and sat down.  Tunes were called, chord changes were shouted, soloists were pointed to, and I quickly found myself fumbling and embarrassed as the pickers around me shot out lightning fast licks and belted out clear, precise, multipart vocal harmonies which I could not, in my wildest of mandolin dreams, have possibly kept up with.  More confident on guitar—my first instrument— I put the mandolin back in its case and traded it for my standard and trusty Martin 6-string.  I hung in admirably for the rest of the evening, following chords to tunes familiar and unfamiliar bluegrass with the aid of my capo, taking the occasional modest solo (just play the damn melody, Mike, no need to play Fast Pick Derby with this crowd!), and even calling a tune or two (“Willin’” by Lowell George / Little Feat worked well, thank you!).  I left with my feet several feet off the floor (as it were), having been a part of a Sacred Circle ritual of musical co-participation dating back decades and, in one form or another, centuries and millennia.

Over the next few months, I was graciously invited to return to the Sacred Circle convened at my old friend’s house for several evenings of pickalong.  Mostly, the same experience was repeated, and joyfully so— intoxicating evenings of musical co-participation with a group of skilled, passionate, and well-versed musicians.  I left each time with the same feet-not-touching-the-ground musical buzz.  I am not, however, a chopsmith, even on guitar.  I can pick a little bit-- render a melody, even spit out a spiffy sounding few runs and riffs—but am more of a Keith Richards rhythm and song player than a Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen lead player.  Knowledge can, in certain situations, be a sadly inhibiting or even humiliating force, and as I sat in on yet more of these Sacred Circles, I found, much to my horror, that I was becoming inhibited and embarrassed by my relatively modest guitar chops as I jammed along with accomplished players capable of laying down solos which left me choking on the dust kicked up by their flurries of rapid fire notes.  One evening, I was shocked to find myself just putting the damn guitar in the case and listening, and then graciously declined a couple of invitations to come and jam in the weeks that followed.  Please note: no one in these circles said or did anything unkind or which in any way suggested that I was unwelcome, disrespected musically, or unequal or incompetent in any way.  Indeed, the folks in the Circles were unfailingly gracious, warm, kind, respectful, and encouraging (several times, knowing I do a nice job with the tune,  other people called “Willin’”).  The problem was that the bluegrass crowd’s musical skills, and as a result their values, are tilted heavily towards the virtuosic, and I am, for sure, no virtuoso.  If, like my friend and his gang, you have been a more disciplined picker than myself and so have developed playing skills fast and furious enough to run with the Big Guns, then these are your circles, and they are Sacred celebrations, indeed.  For me, however, while these Circles were nice places to visit, I did not feel at home.

However, I now had a grasp of what a Sacred Circle is—a group of musicians sharing an informal musical experience on musical common ground for no other audience than themselves—and of the heady effect participating in such a circle can have when it works out well.  Aware of the phenomenon, I had also deliberately cultivated (manipulated!) a few situations at parties to create a similar effect, placing myself in role of leader, but, rather than calling bluegrass tunes featuring blazing solo breaks, I had emphasized rock and roll standards which fostered audience singalongs.  Singing along with “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by the Band never failed to raise entire roomfuls of people several feet of the floor, and other tunes, at different moments with different crowds, had similar effect.   Many of these songs were familiar to people with only a casual relationship with music, and rock and rollers as well as non-playing folks who knew the songs and could simply singalong hopped on for the ride.  These were sacred circles, indeed, and I did felt powerfully at home in their warm embrace.  Happily, lurking in the shadows of my buddy’s lightspeed bluegrass jams were a small number of rock and roll players with more modest chops but extensive catalogs of rock and roll standards and deep album cuts in their bags, and we had spotted each other through the haze of notes around his fireplace.  One night, my buddy called only these folks over to his house, and we played long into the night, rolling through the entire first side of the Stone’s “Beggars Banquet,” Allman Brothers jams, the Band catalog, Beatles songs, blues standards, and more.  Melodies and hook lines were the coin of the realm, rather than blazing solos, and kids and significant others floated in and out of the Circle comfortably as familiar bits and pieces of songs surfaced.  The Sacred Circle of rock and roll is built around songs, rather than musical virtuosity, and this Circle, in the end, is my home.  Come sit and sing or pick along for awhile, taking a load off Annie (or is it “Fannie?”), scraping the shit right off your shoes, rambling on, or simply na-na-ing to Jude with the Band, the Stones, Zeppelin, or the Beatles.  You don’t need to pick particularly well or even have a big record collection.  You just gotta wanna rock and roll.