Talk:Progressive bluegrass

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[edit] Nickel Creek?

Nickel Creek is a quartet (mandolin, fiddle, guitar, bass), although they have changed bassists frequently. More importantly to this page, the music they play is not bluegrass (Chris Thile has gone so far as to say this), although Chris and Sean have recorded some bluegrass apart from the band (i.e. Chris' solo albums). The "About" section of the Official Nickel Creek website acknowledges this (Sara says, " I think of us as a sort of high-energy chamber band."). I see that the Nickel Creek page also indicates that they are a bluegrass band, and I am making this comment there as well. Cmadler 15:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

According to AMG Nickel Creek is progressive bluegrass: "Distinguished by their youth and eclectic taste, Nickel Creek became a word-of-mouth sensation on the progressive bluegrass scene and soon found their appeal spreading beyond the genre's core audience." Under styles it lists bluegrass second. ([1]) Hyacinth 20:50, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

AMG is not perfect, and "progressive bluegrass" is still bluegrass; often electrified, amped up, with non-traditional songs and chords, and non-traditional instruments, but still bluegrass. In the end, there has to be some characteristic (or set of characteristics) defining a band as bluegrass (or progressive bluegrass), something more than "AMG says so." Cmadler 13:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Isn't newgrass something of a catch-all term for bluegrass dervied music? Sam Bush may have called it Newgrass and David Grisman may have called it Dawg music, but the influence of traditional bluegrass provides the common thread, certianly that thread runs through a fair bit of Nickle Creek's music as well. -MrFizyx 14:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old Crow Medicine Show

Would Old Crow Medicine Show fall under a newgrass heading?--Twintone 21:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I dunno. My first hit when I googled this was CMT.com[[2]: "The five guys in Old Crow are sometimes tagged as bluegrass musicians, but they don't label themselves that way personally." My POV: I think there sound is more old time than bluegrass. They don't have many elements of trad bg (mandolin chop, banjo roll, etc.). Then again this is a very amorphous category. So... if someone who knows what they are talking about (WP:RS) calls them the latest manefestaion of progressive bluegrass then I suppose we just expand the category to include them. -MrFizyx 22:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. CMT also stated them as one the best bluegrass albums of 2004. [3] It gets so confusing sometimes!--Twintone 04:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I would look to see if they have been labeled as bluegrass by a bluegrass publication (e.g. Bluegrass Unlimited). This would be much more convincing than CMT.com Cmadler 17:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Accoriding to BU (Aug 2004):"If you had any doubts that a new generation is playing our music, this CD will do a lot to dispel them. This band has been described as an amalgam of old-time, bluegrass, and punk." I think this lends some support for one wanting to include them here. -MrFizyx 20:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)