Bluegrass Bluesman

September 15, 2012

The father of bluegrass Dobro (a resonator guitar), Graves is a big name in the world of bluegrass, akin to Earl Scruggs or the Smoky Mountain Boys. This memoir, compiled primarily from interviews taped in 1994 at Graves's Nashville home, tells not just his own story but the history of American bluegrass from the 1940s through the 1960s, providing a fascinating look at the musical culture of the South and encompassing themes of race, commercialization, and the divide between bluegrass and country music. Graves's love of music, his talent for working with musicians of all stripes, and his folksiness come through as readers absorb his spoken words. Introductions to each chapter set the stage for Graves's comments. The book also includes 16 pages of black-and-white photos, a chapter of testimonials about Graves, and an extensive list of notes and bibliographic information. VERDICT While the exterior suggests it may be a bit dull, this book is in fact thoroughly Southern, spicy, real, and lots of fun. Excellent for popular music history collections.--Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2012
Graves (19272006) cemented the last stone in the instrumental foundation of bluegrass when he joined Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs' Foggy Mountain Boys in 1955. He'd been developing his blues-inflected style for more than 10 years, deliberately adapting Scruggs' three-finger banjo picking to the dobro (or resonator guitar). With F&S until their 1969 breakup, Graves thereupon joined Scruggs' lucrative foray into country-rock and later played with Flatt's less remunerative Nashville Grass (Lester was a tightwad) as well as in plenty of other aggregations and contexts. In 1994, Graves and Barry Willis made the oral-history tapes that, augmented by other interviews, editor Bartenstein has masterfully fashioned into a smooth autobiographical narrative. Like the as-told-to's by Ralph Stanley (Man of Constant Sorrow, 2009) and Charlie Louvin (Satan Is Real, 2012), Graves' is presented as he spoke it, not with the grammatical punctiliousness of a professional coauthor. Focused on its subject's professional life, it doesn't tell as many road stories and domestic memories as Stanley's and Louvin's. It is fully as mesmerizing, though, especially for lovers of bluegrass.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)