Quality Control

Not too long ago,  a new compilation CD was released that made quite a big splash in the bluegrass world. It was touted as the first actual Bluegrass set from a record label that has been known for fantastic collections of world music for the last 25 years. To have bluegrass represented by a company with a stellar reputation was just more than anyone could have asked for.

Well, be careful what you ask for, as Granddad always said. Once it was released and we got to hear the selections, it seems the bluegrass world was once again divided into two camps … those who absolutely love the selections and those that stand firm with the “This Ain't Bluegrass” mantra.

One review I read said that “this collection of music is to the bluegrass genre what 3.2 beer is to fermented beverages – watered down at best.”

While I personally enjoyed the music selected to represent bluegrass on this collection, I have to admit that I did feel some disappointment time and again as each new song began to emote from the speakers.

What I was hearing was a super-fantastic collection of Great American Folk music from a wide variety of sources. What I wasn't hearing was anything close to what I was expecting to hear from impressions left upon me by the CD title.

If Bluegrass were a Fortune 500 company, would this product ever have gotten past the quality control department? If the Oscar Meyer company packaged all their hot dogs under the name Prime Rib, and you didn't know the difference, you'd probably think prime rib wasn't too much to brag about and then how would you feel once you discovered the difference? Would you feel cheated, deceived, or used? If this CD were a microwave oven, you'd expect to put food in, close the door, push a few buttons and in moments the food would be hot. What you would not expect to do is to put wood in the microwave and light a match first to build heat. That's pretty much what this record company is asking us to do with this CD. Just take it on faith - because they said so - that this is bluegrass music.

Granddad always said you can paint stripes on mule but that don't make him a zebra. Just because they called it bluegrass doesn't make it so.

The danger here is in the blurring of the lines. I just recently read a post on a social media site, by a well-known and award winning bluegrass band of national prominence, that said at least 15 people per show come up to them and say something like … “I hate bluegrass, but I really like you guys and I'm gonna be your biggest fan from now on...”

How can it be that someone can have such a conflict … “I hate bluegrass, but I like you” … and this group just happened to be an award winning bluegrass band? It happens because of the blurring of the lines and having no accountability for the lack of a quality control mechanism. It happens because our bluegrass world is in a wishy-washy state where we can't decide what to do.

It's called growing pains in any other business. When business has good leadership, strategies are built and used to grow past those pains - not wallow in them, crying “poor us.”

Where is our bluegrass leadership? Is it time for a group to form that is not about partying, socializing and jamming but rather about forecasting the future and finding solutions to problems, alternative routes around road blocks or slow-downs?

If Texaco, Sony, AT&T, Wells Fargo, Coca Cola, UPS, Southwest Airlines, John Deere Tractors or any other company doing business today allowed anyone and everyone to use their name with such disregard as “Bluegrass” is allowed to be used, they all be out of business.

Bluegrass can't be anything and everything and it can't be all things to all people depending upon the whim of the moment. There has to be a standard by which it can be measured Where is the glory and honor in the annual awards when the measurement stick is a foot long for this band and three feet long for that band and doesn't exist for the next band?