Neil Rosenberg's Bluegrass Generation is a meticulously documented memoir of the author's early involvement in bluegrass music, covering the period from the summer of 1961 to the end of 1963, when he ended his management tenure at the historic Brown County Jamboree. In focusing on this brief period, Rosenberg documents the transformation of bluegrass music from a component of country music to its emergence as a traditional genre defined in opposition to country. Rosenberg calls this process “gentrification” due to its appeal to urban, educated audiences. Not wholly autobiography, not wholly ethnography, the book articulates an important collaboration that transformed bluegrass music and echoed a broader transformation in American culture.

The book’s historical content echoes observations in Thomas Adler's Bean Blossom, which focuses on the history of the Jamboree and of the festivals organized later at Bill Monroe's music park in Bean Blossom, Indiana. Bluegrass Generation, however, is a memoir that synthesizes Rosenberg’s experiences as a bluegrass musician, Jamboree manager, folklore student, and deeply collaborative fieldworker. The book excels in its goals because Rosenberg was sensitive and open-minded in his Jamboree encounters, perceptive in his observations, and meticulous in his documentation. Just imagine, as you read Bluegrass Generation, trying to recall the events of your life in 1961!

This period and this process also pertain to the then-prevailing interests of the Indiana University Folklore Institute. Rosenberg was there as a graduate student, and it now seems extraordinary that in his pursuits at the Jamboree he operated largely on his own instincts, nurtured by fellow students and enthusiasts. The book—and much else we know about these matters—would not exist without his careful documentation, his profound rapport with and respect for the Jamboree musicians, and ultimately, his relationship of collaboration with them.

Bluegrass Generation is punctuated with unanticipated “aha!” moments that, in Geertzian fashion, deepen his involvement. In researching “White House Blues” he discovers native record collectors, which leads him to back issues of Disc Collector in the Indiana University library (74). He is surprised by negative views of the New Lost City Ramblers in Brown County (88). He asks Bill Monroe to autograph My All-Time Country Favorites and learns that Monroe has never before seen the album (123). He is asked by Jim Peva to promote the Jamboree at the Indiana University auditorium (140). He encounters Jimmy C. Newman's positive views of the Kingston Trio, who were considered exploitative and shallow in folklore circles (186). He documents Monroe’s early embrace of folk music, for example, trading “Gospel Plow” versions with then-folklore-student Peter Narváez.

I read Bluegrass Generation as a compelling narrative of collaboration, at times a vindication of Rosenberg’s then-unproven professional instincts. In the four-page afterword, however, he highlights his ongoing interest in two conceptual issues. One of these is his notion of “generation” as a comprehensive mechanism for cultural revival or revitalization—embracing not only musicians, but fans and enthusiasts and eventually a business structure, all beholden to the “mythology of bluegrass.” The narrative in Bluegrass Generation is substantial in supporting this conceptual apparatus.

Rosenberg’s second conceptual metaphor is “gentrification,” which describes changes both in the class-oriented tastes of the bluegrass audience and in the stylistic components of the music itself. The term embraces his role as Jamboree manager and his role in bringing a “new class of music consumer” to bluegrass. But it also embraces Monroe and bluegrass musicians who saw an opportunity to broaden their audience and achieve a meaningful legacy. And it embraces Brown County promoters who saw a connection of the Jamboree to Brown County’s lengthy history of homespun tourism.

In the narrative there is a good bit of taste arbitration that speaks to this metaphor—opinions on the Kingston Trio and on the New Lost City Ramblers, for example. Monroe’s famous distaste for the Country Gentlemen, who could be said to have gentrified bluegrass as much as anyone, stands out. But Bill Keith also brought urban sensibilities to bluegrass and was greeted—somewhat like Rosenberg himself—as an exotic ally. And, at the end of the narrative, as a result of Rosenberg’s recruiting efforts, we encounter Blue Grass Boy Joe Stuart as he “reeled off the names of universities represented in the audience” (242).

Rosenberg mentions some frustration that the principle of musical gentrification has not been more widely embraced. In this I am mindful of a growing literature on music as a component of urban gentrification that could be brought to bear on bluegrass, and vice versa. The principle is that artists, as “urban pioneers,” seek cheap housing in an undervalued area and initiate a chain reaction of rising value—possibly akin to what the Brown County boosters wanted from the Jamboree. City planners have come to embrace this trend, deploying music styles to attract affluent listeners to areas they want developed. As housing costs rise, low-income residents are forced to move, sometimes violently.

Rosenberg seems to view musical gentrification as victimless, which might arouse suspicion of an unfinished analysis. Think, for example, of David Whisnant’s All That Is Native and Fine, where, he argues, genteel tastes extolled by folklorists in Appalachia had a tempering effect on progressive resistance to resource extraction. This is not to suggest this happened in Brown County. But in a work meant to account for musical gentrification, a discussion about audience social status and taste should also include some treatment of who the various stakeholders were and how they benefited. The innocent-seeming quality of Bluegrass Generation makes it all the more intriguing—and difficult—as an interrogation of gentrification.

Adler, to his credit, situates the Jamboree—and country music parks in general—within the history of Western capitalism, the development of recreation, and the history of transportation. And he has a lengthy passage on why the Monroe family bought the Jamboree property in the first place. In this he finds little to indicate the Monroes were attracted to Brown County as a ready-made nostalgia zone. Monroe’s tastes were more nuanced and included a keen sense of authenticity, almost as if finding common ground with folklorists was more aligned with his destiny.

This is not to fault Rosenberg for writing what is, after all, a memoir. But he ends his book with unfulfilled yearnings that I share with him and believe are worthwhile to explore. Bluegrass Generation is a magnificent work whose significance radiates thoughtfully far beyond its own ambitions. In partitioning the early-sixties Jamboree from the larger bluegrass narrative, we are able to reclaim the limited historical visibility that these actors themselves encountered. Of the many pleasures this book affords, we can add Rosenberg’s light-handed approach to the memoir genre.

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[Review length: 1093 words • Review posted on May 27, 2021]