reference: cartoon #4
Here’s how Wikipedia defines an autoharp: “The autoharp is a trademark for a string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither.”   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoharp) First and foremost, it’s important to understand that autoharps and autoharp players are not universally disliked among acoustic musicians in general. In fact, it’s altogether common to find an autoharp in old-time jams, and when they’re played with skill, they can be a great addition.

Where autoharps are NOT WELCOME is in most bluegrass jams. It’s fair to say that pretty much all instruments that are not a banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, doghouse bass or dobro are viewed with disdain by practitioners of Bill Monroe’s invention, but autoharps are particularly off-putting since they’re equipped with at least 36 and as many as 48 strings and hence create quite a racket and tend to blunt the breaks (solos) of the other instruments. Moreover, like zithers, they’re about as UN-melodic an instrument as one could imagine, owing to the fact that the instruments play chords, not individual notes, which makes listening to a solo autoharp break during a bluegrass song something akin to a root canal. (Hence the gag with the music storefront window reading “ESTELLE’S AUTOHARPS—Come in and see what all the excitement’s about.)

Let me hasten to add that there are rare exceptions to this rule: scattered around the world are virtuoso autoharp players who can manage to somehow play melody lines that rival the six true bluegrass instruments. In fact, we have a world-class AH’er right close to where I live, a woman named Tina Louise Barr. Here’s a YouTube performance she does of La Bamba…amazing.

reference: cartoon #13
 One girlfriend says to the other, “It was all going so well…I’d decided I was going to take him home to meet my parents. And then, one day, just like that, I found a thumb pick in his windbreaker pocket.” A thumb pick is a little device, generally made of plastic, that fits tightly on a banjo player’s thumb and is used, along with two other smaller finger picks, almost always made of metal, to pluck the five strings of the banjer. Obviously, the new boyfriend had wisely kept his banjo playing a secret. When, one wonders, did the boy plan on telling his girl about the deadly addiction?

reference: cartoon #23 
I feel pretty comfortable saying that there is no American musical genre that has in its catalog more songs about returning home, or wanting to return home, than bluegrass and old-time music. I Wonder How The Old Folks Are At Home, Blueridge Cabin Home, Blueridge Mountain Blues, Little Cabin Home on the Hill, Cabin on a Mountain, Little Log Cabin in the Lane, Rocky Top, Paradise, I’m On My Way Home, 20 Years Of Farming, Cabin on a Hill, Long Journey Home, Old Home Place, Kentucky, Tennessee just barely scratch the surface of. Both timing-wise and geography-wise it’s not that surprising that bluegrass music chock full of compositions about people, mostly men, leaving their homes, mostly rural, to head to population centers to look for work during the depression. Away from home and family and loved ones, struggling to scratch out a dollar here and a dollar there, missing the old homestead was, in the early days of bluegrass, probably the single-most common theme in the genre’s songwriting. But, and this is only conjectured on my part and, obviously, the basis of cartoon #23, not everyone who was finally able to return home found the pastoral paradise they’d held in the bosom during the difficult ramblings. There’s a fair amount of cynicism in our collection of one hundred and fifty toons, and this one’s clear near the top of that group.

reference: cartoon #92
Here are the facts:

1. Bluegrass guitar requires the use of a flat pick guitar (with only a few very rare exceptions).
2. Bluegrass guitarists occasionally let loose of their flat picks inadvertently while playing.
3. Occasionally when this happens, the flat pick will fall into the sound hole of the guitar; and precisely 3 out of 7 times this happens the flat pick will never again be seen or heard from.
4. Precisely 3 out of 7 times this happens the flat pick will never again be seen or heard from.

Unfortunately, Cartoon #5, which depicts two scientists standing in front of a blackboard with a mathematical formula purporting to explain where vanished flat picks go, is just that, a cartoon…a joke with no basis in reality. If only Rod Serling had taken on this enigma in one of his Twilight Zone episodes before he smoked himself to death.

reference: cartoon #134
Crafting a good line-up of acts for a music festival is, without question, one of the most critical keys to a successful business undertaking. Getting the right mix of bands, hiring enough acts with name recognition, and at the same time staying within budget constraints will make or break a fest. Now, most festivals, including bluegrass festival, are produced by a commercial promoter whose intent is to turn a profit, and since it’s her or his money that’s being risked, that individual is sole arbitrator of which acts get hired. However, around the U.S. a handful of major bluegrass festival are produced by not-for-profit organizations, and a fair number of those are comprised of members who believe it is their inalienable right to put their oar in the water come band selection time. I served as the CEO of one such organization, the California Bluegrass Association, for about ten years and during that time developed an effective strategy for dealing with member suggestion.

reference: cartoon #25
Come on now, really? Someone could actually mistake blues for bluegrass? Well, not if they were listening to it being played, but the names of the two genres are close enough that, yes, it has happened. And to prove it, I’ll tell you my very own personal story…

I was twenty-seven years old and for years I’d played guitar—folk and blues mainly. Every Friday night my buddy and I would get together to play and sing. One Friday morning my pal called me at work and suggested that, rather than get together for our weekly session that night we should grab our tents and sleeping bags after work and go to a bluegrass festival. “What’s a bluegrass festival,” I asked? “Figure it out,” he answers, “blues, grass, get the picture?” That was all I needed to hear. That afternoon we headed off to Grass Valley.

Just about the time we’d gotten our tents pitched and opened a few cold ones, the music began on stage. We wandered over. “Doesn’t sound like blues to me,” I said. My friend agreed, but we sat down anyway. The first performer was Kate Wolf, and we listened to her entire set. Good music, but it sure wasn’t the blues I’d driven three hours to hear. Heh, where’s the blues. I came here for blues. Then a five-piece band came on stage carrying instruments that were only vaguely familiar. Jake Quizz-something and the Something-Something Ramblers. This was DEFINITELY not going to be the blues. Jake’s first song was Little Maggie, a lightening fast, pulsing rendition. It was like someone had taken a brick to the back of my head … it was like I’d been waiting to hear this kind of music my entire life.

That one song, sung by Jake Quisenberry over forty years ago on a tiny stage in the middle of a pine forest with maybe 75 people in the audience, was to change my life forever. It would gobble up every bit of free time I had, it would take me to places I’d never dreamed of going and, most importantly, it would introduce me to the best friends I would ever have.

So, yes, I club owner could hear the word “bluegrass” and mistake it for “blues.” It could happen. Oh, and why would the club owner referenced in the cartoon have a problem hiring a bluegrass band, you know, just for, like, one night? Simple—most people HATE bluegrass music.

reference: cartoon #14
Okay, first the basics. Wikipedia says a mandolin is “is a musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or “pick”. It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison (8 strings.   The courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.

No, in bluegrass music, two types of mandolins are used. Again from Wikipedia…” Most bluegrass mandolin players choose one of two styles. Both have flat or nearly flat backs and arched tops. The so-called A-style mandolin has a teardrop shaped body; the f-style mandolin is more stylized, with a spiraled wooden cone on the upper side and a couple of points on the lower side. There are also two types of sound holes, the classic round or oval hole, and the more modern pair of f-holes similar to those found on a violin. Both the shape of the instrument and the shape of the holes affect the tone of the instrument; the f-style, f-hole mandolins have the brightest, most penetrating sound, while the A-style, round holed mandolins generally have a fuller, sweeter tone.

My own experience in the bluegrass world is that generally speaking, there are more F-5 players than A-style players, but not by a whole lot. And, of course, Father Bill played an F-5, which is now far and away the most expensive mandolin in existence.

As for the joke, I’ve really never heard any serious disagreements between F’ers and A’ers, but have heard the occasional good-humored chide.

reference: cartoon #28 
Per Wikipedia, “Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music.[1] Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson’s flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music were highly regarded.”

I have to chuckle a bit at the last sentence, the one ending “highly regarded.” Among pretty much all musicians, but especially bluegrassers, highly regarded would be the understatement of the century. But the truth is, Doc wasn’t a bluegrass artist per se. Sure, he played lots of it, but never in an actual bluegrass band. And, really, truth be known, of all his dozens of albums, one and only one, Southbound, was a true bluegrass album…in the sense that all of the material was done in the style of the genre.

So then, the joke—bluegrass players who believe in heaven naturally believe there’ll be an eternity of jamming, excellent jamming, strictly BLUEGRASS jamming…and furthermore, there’ll be an enclave of exclusively bluegrass pickers and, naturally, Doc will be in that “sector.” Of course, old-time pickers, folk music people, and Americana (whatever that is) have their own thoughts about where Arthel Lane will be assigned. And I imagine so will he.

reference: cartoon #71
I listened to part of an interesting TED talk last week; it was on the subject or originality, and during it the presenter used Bob Dylan as proof of his thesis, which is that NOTHING is actually original. And he pointed out that when Bob was getting started, doing his early stuff, folk singers were not EXPECTED to write original songs. Rather, their job, he claimed, was to help preserve the earliest stuff by bringing it into their age, with their unique contextual interpretation. I believe what the guy said, though Dylan’s received a ration of criticism for most of his career for stealing the songs of others.

reference: cartoon #39
The day I posted this cartoon a woman wrote and asked, “where’s his instrument and open case?” I responded that I’d already done a few busking cartoons (playing on the sidewalk for tips but that this one was meant to be pointedly different. Rather than depicting a down and out street musician, I wanted to the make point that, really nearly ANY working musician struggles and needs help…even if the help is paying his kids’ college tuition.

reference: cartoon #95
In the context of music, “axe” refers to any musical instrument. The Word Detective, a guy named Evan Morris, believes the term came into use in 1955 and specifically referred to a saxophone…get it, sax-axe…but later was used as slang for all instruments. Not so, says my friend Bob Marney, who’s quite adamant about his original story. Bob says axe derives from another musical slang term, “wood-shedding,” which means practicing by one’s self.

So, really, who knows where axe came from? The origin certainly isn’t crucial to the toons in the book that include the term; just know that an axe can be a guitar or a fiddle or a mandolin or a bass or a fiddle or a dobro but NOT, for God’s sake, a saxophone.

reference: cartoon #101
Well now, that’s pretty funny, N. I’ve started work on the annotated bibliography for the cartoon book just this morning…explained what an “axe” is and was just about to offer the backstory for the doc and pig toon. So here it is…There’s a song in traditional bluegrass called “Pig in a Pen,” which has been recorded by EVERYBODY but is probably best known for a relatively late live recording done by a band called Old and in the Way.

The first verse, which is sometimes also used as the chorus, goes…

I got a pig at home in a pen
Corn to feed ’em on
All I need is a pretty little girl
To feed ’em when I’m gone.

So the joke here, quite simply, lies in literalizing the song’s story line to a disturbed pig and his shrink. No only not funny but utterly bewildering to those not in the know.

What led me to select this traditional song for a cartoon isn’t just that it’s very well known…it’s because it’s very, very, very, very well known. And here’s why. Unbeknownst to most blue grassers, even the very serious ones, is that, up until the O Brother soundtrack came out, the Old and in the Way album (self-titled) was the biggest selling bluegrass album of all time. Why, you ask? Simple. Old and in the Way was comprised of:

• Jerry Garcia – banjo, vocals
• David Grisman – mandolin, vocals
• Peter Rowan – vocals, guitar
• Vassar Clements – fiddle
• John Kahn – bass

You need only see the first two names to know just how much this album crossed over from bluegrass, a genre that, let’s face it, has precious little popular appeal.

reference: cartoon #121 
Every serious bluegrass aficionado has her favorites, both her or his current, but more telling, the genre’s pioneer they hold in highest esteem. Current favorites come and go, as it should be, but one’s historical hero, that’s more less constant over the long hall. And what’s equally true is that along with the hero worship there is, in most cases, a healthy dose of loyalty and defensiveness. Since my guy is Ralph Stanley, of the famous and beloved Stanley Brothers, both the fisticuffs and wedding day gags HAD TO have him in the key role.