By Andrew Somerville
How much of modern bluegrass music would be familiar to early Prescott pioneers? Bluegrass is a modern style of stringed instrument music, but its main roots come from older Celtic music played by the settlers in Appalachia plus African-American traditions of gospel music, blues and the banjo. The genre also contains other smaller, but important, influences.
Amber Johnson, who authored her master’s thesis titled “A Most Enjoyable Evening”: Music in Early Prescott and Flagstaff, Arizona Territory, ca. 1865-ca. 1890 for Arizona State University, points out that stringed instruments were available for purchase in Prescott by 1869, therefore the necessary stringed element of bluegrass was present in early Prescott. However, Johnson's thesis indicates Prescott’s town brass band and Fort Whipple's brass band were very influential in Prescott’s early 1860s’ music culture because of their involvement in balls, dances and other social events.
Dancing was popular, as was a variety of dance music. Musical social events were frequently reported in the Arizona Miner. Music popular in Prescott and Fort Whipple included the waltz, cotillion, mazurka and polka. Cotillion music and dance originated in France, crossed to England in 1768 and arrived in what is now the USA in 1772. This dance later became the quadrille, which evolved into the square dance. Mazurkas are a Polish traditional dance and music, popularized, in part, by Chopin. Mazurkas entered the United States with the polka in the 1840s. Polka was considered mainstream American music by the 1850s and 1860s. However, the earliest music familiar to Prescott pioneers, the waltz, is also part of modern bluegrass music.
In an interview with the author on May 11, Ranelle Dietrich of the bluegrass group, The Arizona Wildflowers, she pointed out that if you change the strumming pattern of stringed instruments and remove the banjo, you have a waltz. She also speculated a possible historical connection between some root music of bluegrass and the waltz. Although evidence for the waltz's influence on bluegrass music may not be conclusive, the circumstantial evidence for musical cross-pollination is strong. Irish immigrants modified traditional Appalachian music in the 1840s. Around this time, traveling dance masters went from village to village in Ireland teaching the waltz, which is why Irish ceili dance music includes waltzes in its repertoire. Eddie Collins is a nationally regarded acoustic music instructor. In his May 2017 article for Banjo Newsletter the 5-String Banjo Magazine, he lists the following common “bluegrass waltzes”: Ashokan Farewell, Kentucky Waltz, Blue Moon Of Kentucky, All The Good Times Past & Gone, In The Pines, Tennessee Waltz, Down In The Willow Garden, Knoxville Girl, Westphalia Waltz, and Amazing Grace. One caveat is that, despite the waltz’s apparent influence on bluegrass music, bluegrass was originally meant to be valued or enjoyed for the musician’s virtuosity or skill and not danced to, (most people wouldn’t dance to Amazing Grace).
Bill Monroe was inspired by many musical traditions when he invented bluegrass music in the 1940s with his group The Blue Grass Boys. But the genre didn’t become widely popular in Arizona until the 1970s. Around the same time, the Arizona Old Time Fiddlers Association (AOTFA) formed in Payson to preserve and play traditional fiddle music, a major element of bluegrass. The Mile High/Prescott Chapter of the AOTFA wasn’t formed until 1989. Bluegrass music didn’t become a local tradition until the 1980s, when the Prescott Blue Grass festival grew from a fiddle competition dedicated to a local fiddler. The festival was originally held in Watson Lake Park until 1996, when it moved to the Courthouse Plaza. You can also see the bluegrass group The Arizona Wildflowers at “Bluegrass in the High Desert” at Sharlot Hall Museum, June 9 from 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm. See sharlothallmuseum.org/event/twilight-tales-the-arizona-wildflowers/
“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.