Yesterday BoingBoing.com posted a YouTube clip of three teenagers jamming on the Bill Monroe tune Big Mon.
The author of the BoingBoing post refers to their performance as “speed metal bluegrass.” To my ear it doesn’t resemble anything but bluegrass. Much bluegrass is that fast, or faster, and the comparison to “speed metal” is completely unnecessary. The boys, who were 15 years old at the time, do a respectable job, but while their performance is good, it is not as mind boggeling as the BoingBoing crowd seems to think.
May I submit our very own Sierra Hull jamming on another Bill Monroe tune, Roanoke.
Did I mention that Sierra’s main instrument is mandolin, not guitar?
While I appreciate a popular site like BoingBoing.com calling attention to young people playing bluegrass music, I wish they would do so by directing people toward those young artists, like Sierra, who serve as the stewards of the genre’s future.
