From Guitar World · · 2m
Bluegrass has a father, but no mother
Lindsay Lou found out the songs she'd played since she was 13 were written by women nobody names, so she made a record about it.
In brief
Lindsay Lou found out the songs she'd played since she was 13 were written by women nobody names, so she made a record about it. The women who shaped bluegrass wrote the standards and invented the guitar solo, and a record of their songs is how you stop them being overlooked. Originally reported by Guitar World.
A startling discovery in Nashville
Lindsay Lou moved to Nashville in 2015 and realised many of the bluegrass standards she'd played since age 13 were written by women.
No mother of bluegrass
Everyone can name the fathers: the Stanley Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, Bill Monroe. The maternal side of the family tree was never written down.
“But there is no mother of bluegrass.”
Collected from women, credited to a man
A podcast host told her 83 percent of the trad songs were gathered from women singers. A.P. Carter's name sits on the copyright.
“83 percent of the trad songs were collected from women, but they all have A.P. Carter's name on the copyright.”
Mother Maybelle invented the solo
Guitar was rhythm duty in bluegrass. Maybelle Carter was among the first to take a lead break, picking the melody out with her thumb pick instead of a flat pick.
“In bluegrass the guitar didn't take solos. The guitar was a rhythm instrument.”
You don't need a stage
The music grew in kitchens and jam circles, not venues. All it asks for is a few people obsessed enough to keep playing it.
“You don't need a sound system. You need a bunch of people who are obsessed with the music.”
Finding the right producer
Lou picked Shani Gandhi, who engineered for Billy Strings, co-produced Sierra Hull's Grammy-nominated 25 Trips, and won a Grammy for Sarah Jarosz's Undercurrent.
Everybody said yes
She fired off messages to her friends asking if they wanted in. All of them agreed, and a month later the group was at Sound Emporium Studios.
“Hey, this is what I'm doing. Do you want to be a part of it?”
Molly Tuttle was the linchpin
Tuttle's childhood bandmate AJ Lee, plus Bronwyn Keith-Hynes and Hasee Ciaccio, all ended up in the same room. Separate chapters of one life, together.
“To have all these different parts of Molly's life in one room felt a lot like the fates too.”
Just show up
No charts, no pre-production. They sat in a circle, ran each song a few times, and the arrangements worked themselves out.
“We got in a circle, played the song a few times, and the arrangements presented themselves.”
The one they laboured over
I've Endured took real work. Lou wanted to carry Ola Belle Reed's spirit while knowing the Tim O'Brien version lives in everyone's head.
“I wanted to embody Ola Bell Reed's spirit as much as I could.”
A stepping stone, not a rewrite
Lou isn't trying to rewrite bluegrass history, just make these women harder to overlook and give young pickers a clearer path in.
“I hope it's a stepping stone, where you see more young women coming up, picking and leading bands.”
What it means
The women who shaped bluegrass wrote the standards and invented the guitar solo, and a record of their songs is how you stop them being overlooked.
