MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Bluegrass, a subgenre of country music, evolved primarily from Appalachian folk music. Musically, it is characterized by acoustic instruments, namely variations of the banjo, mandolin, guitar, bass, and fiddle, often accompanied by high-pitched vocals (Rosenberg, 1993; Seymour, 1996). Bluegrass became largely popularized and influenced, beginning in 1939, by the tradition of Bill Monroe and his band, the Blue Grass Boys (Goldsmith, 2004). Interestingly, bluegrass music holds a long association with religion, with gospel themes and references even more prominent than in country music. Of the most early influential bluegrass artists, 30 percent of their recorded and published songs were religious (Rosenberg, 1985). This deeply rooted connection between bluegrass and religion manifests at modern bluegrass festivals with artists performing religious-based songs and many even interspersing with religious commentary. Disparately, in spite of its near allegiance to religion, bluegrass music is also marked by considerable criminal and violent lyrical content that can, at times, be exceedingly graphic (e.g. Knoxville Girl). Hence, many bluegrass lyrics contain behaviors that would be considered “sinful”, yet somehow such lyrics pervade the music, almost as an affront to the religious heritage and makeup of bluegrass audiences. To explore this thematic divergence, seven bluegrass festivals were attended and the stage shows recorded across the southeastern United States. Two raters listened, transcribed, and coded the lyrics for the presence or absence of 19 categories of sin, pain, and religious content. Additionally, raters provided a mood rating for each song on a 1-10 scale. In cases of interrater disagreement on thematic lyrical content, a third rater listened and coded the song to resolve such discrepancies. Results include basic descriptive data concerning analysis of song content at these bluegrass festivals. In addition, exploratory cluster analysis revealed the statistical groupings of the coded lyrical content areas.