Ask Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants appears at odd times in Blue Yodel.
You can post questions or add comments below and we will make sure Mr. BGSP sees them and replies on what he calls the Wonderful World of Webs.
This is his second installment.
Dear Mr. BGSP,
WIBA?
—DDIW
Dear DDIW,
OMG. ONINFFTOWIBA. ISSFBRTFMBIKB. GASFT. SITIOTFIPBIKBTTTOWIBA. GFYAHAND. YMMV.
Dear Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants,
How many pounds of nitrogen should I be using on my lawn?
—Shut-In in Dubuque
Dear Shut-In in Dubuque,
Maintaining the Blue Grass lawn requires 3 to 5 lbs of nitrogen per 1000 square feet annually. The frequency depends on the level of maintenance, but is usually spread over 3 to 4 applications.
Dear Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants,
While playing at a local pizza parlor the other night, I started getting messages on my banjo’s tone ring from a planet somewhere in the constellation Cygnus. I was able to transcribe much of it during the break, but I was wondering if you could translate? It appears to be variations on three letters: TIMTMITMTIMITITIMTIMTIMTIMTTIM, etc.
—Hewell, banjo player for the Wayfaring Stranglers at the Astro Bar, downtown Roswell, NM
Dear Hewell,
This is a message from a promoter named Tim who lives on the newly discovered planet Kepler-16b, which orbits in a circle around two suns every 229 days. It’s a frozen world, about the size of Saturn, and is mostly a ball of gas with a rocky interior—really a nice place for a bluegrass festival. Tim would like to hire your band, but wonders if you could play for 175 Kpls this first year to see how the Keplerians like you. Also, it’s 200 light years away, so you might want to look into that helium-3 bus.
Dear Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants,
Bill Monroe referred to the banjo as the fifth child of the bluegrass ensemble, yet I can find no citation of Mr. Monroe referring to the resonator guitar as the sixth child. [Our legal department would like to insist in a whiney voice that the resonator guitar is in no way associated with the Dobro® guitar.] Please clarify.
—Conehead in Oswego
Dear Conehead in Oswego,
WSM never conferred childhood status on the resonator guitar [Our legal department would like to insist in a kind of whiney voice and with increasing agitation that the resonator guitar is in no way associated with the Dobro® guitar]. However, there is an implied legal adoption as the sixth child is traditionally regarded as Saturday’s child, who, in fact, “works hard for a living,” and therefore by due diligence, the resonator guitar [Our legal department would like to insist in a kind of whiney voice, increasing agitation, raising of eyebrows and folding of arms that the resonator guitar is in no way associated with the Dobro© guitar] is now fully accepted as the sixth child.
Dear Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants,
Who’s gonna shoe your pretty little feet? Who’s gonna glove your hand?
—Woody and Cisco
Dear Woody and Cisco,
Papa’s gonna shoe my pretty little feet. Mama’s gonna glove my hand.
Or, as on the Wonderful World of Webs: Papas gonna shoot my party will feet. Mamas gonna glub my land.
Dear Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants,
I’ve read this far and it seems like your column is just a load of carp. Is there anything I can learn here?
—Your reader
Dear reader,
I will occasionally enlist the services of expert professionals in the field of the Blue Grass music to help answer questions. Our guest today is Jon Weisberger—a lifetime member of Chris Jones & the Knife Fighters, and a walking encyclopedia of walking bass.
I did receive a question that I thought required clarification—and an answer. This comes from Bob Singletary in Ontario, California, who writes,
Dear Mr. Blue Grass Smarty Pants,
Who was the first artist to use an electric bass on a Blue Grass recording?
Jon W responds:
Reno & Smiley, January 30, 1953.
[For anyone who can post the name of one of the songs from that session, Mr. BGSP will send you a signed photo of himself reading Neil Rosenberg’s Bluegrass: A History.]
