Bang bang ring ding ding and all thatWhat some discerning fans still might not know

If your musical group has no drums but has someome shaking a tambourine, that person is "the percussion." But if you do have drums or drum set but no other percussive instruments, you may call the drummer the "percussion section" -- though it's more likely you'll just say, "So and So on drums..."

Consider: In a rock band the rock drum set is "the drums" while a set of bongos may easily be viewed as part of the "percussion section."

In bluegrass there typically isn't much going with percussion, but it's certainly allowed -- except for the verboten drums. Old-time rural percussion might include washboard, tambourine, those Mexican things you shake and someone rhythmically batting the side of a wooden box. That way, everyone could get in on the music-making.

Now a group with a drum set and other percussive instruments can't be bothered with such verbal niceties. "Drums" means "drum set" and "percussion" means other percussive instruments.

The Oxford Language dictionary gives us these definitions as its top two:

1. Musical instruments played by striking with the hand or with a handheld or pedal-operated stick or beater, or by shaking, including drums, cymbals, xylophones, gongs, bells, and rattles.

2. The striking of one solid object with or against another with some degree of force, as in the clattering percussion of objects striking the walls and the shutters. Technically, a piano is a percussive instrument because soft hammers strike the strings.

Well, doesn't bass fiddle stand in for drums since both sort of soundmakers are used to keep time? So then, someone says, bass is a percussive instrument. Nope. You can make a case for the bass doing the job of a percussive instrument, But it's means of forming sound is its string set placed over a container holding a large volume of air. That larger volume is necessary to get the low, reverberating bass sound.

I post this silly bit of trivia in response to implications I have noticed that drums are not among the percussive instruments.

OOPS! Halt! A leetle glitch, sorry...

[Scroll down to Beatles LP sleeve.]

Released for a very short time in 1966 was an avant garde album cover. That Beatles sleeve was suppressed, and fast! The story is that the band had hired an avant garde Australian photog to do a cover. Not all bandmates were pleased but John and Paul had been to art school, with Paul hobnobbing with London's artsy set and with John striving to be a multi-dimensional artist. He certainly had a high creative streak. Anyway John backed use of that cover at full throttle.

My first instinct, when I saw it, was "SICKO! Who needs this?" But then I recalled that when I was in my early twenties, I'd probably just have guffawed at that bit, maybe adding, "These guys are CRAzee!"

But 1966 was not the time to try such a stunt in America. Yet, I can see that that cover has real merit as art. It carries the messages of the ludicrousness of civilized life and of how children worldwide are treated as chunks of meat with no regard to their human needs (something that would have struck a chord with John). Further, many young adult males are simply highly aggressive. Note that much highly popular hard rock carries an aggressive, in-your-face boldness. Artists, especially hard rock artists, are expected to take a fun-loving "amoral" stance (Stones). Sometimes the line is blurred between aimless barbarian rock and very forceful art rock (Metallica).

The Beatles "naughty" LP sleeve was only a small jump ahead of its time. Take a look at Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention with bandmates in drag a couple years later. That one survived the howls of indignation. I still think quite a bit of Zappa's art rock was cool, tho I'm not drawn to it these days.

[Scroll down to Mothers of Invention LP sleeve.]

Patient Katie

She's very cordial in explaining to a non-bluegrass fan why she does chops, and graciously deflects attention by pointing to another band member who occasionally does chops.

I don't know when the practice of having the fiddler do chops became standard in bluegrass. I doubt that chopping has become standard with any other instrument.

The fiddler doing chops makes sense. For one thing it adds to the percussive beat/rhythm, which is a great idea for a string band. It also helps keep the fiddler on time and in the right place during fiddle lulls or when she's not on vocal,

Of course in most string music, no one chops (except maybe in rock now and then).

Everyone looked great! Good stuff!

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Also jazzy now that i think of it

Ellen's vocals are frequently jazz-like, or even straight jazz, as in her rendition of Blue. And she definitely brings a wonderful jazz-like voice to nearly all her gospel leads.

Julz is not in the jazz camp, but her vocal and musical creativity make her quite the diva.

Oh! Wait a minute! Her May Baby vocals are effectively straight jazz.

Neither does Matt use much jazz-style in his work, but he sure can flat-pick that guitar and has a great, smooth singing voice.

Because my hearing is a bit problematic, I often wish his guitar had better amplification. But that's my problem, not his.

Drift Away (Gospel Version)

Compiled from internet sources

After recording her gospel album Bridges in 2015, Lynn contracted pneumonia a month later and died in a Nashville hospital.

Bridges featured a collection of 12 country gospel tracks. One song, Drift Away Gospel, was penned by Anderson's domestic partner Mentor Williams. The song was a gospel reworking of the original track first recorded in the 1970s.

"He rewrote it for our little church in Taos, New Mexico. We’d been singing it in church for a couple of years. The congregation loves it, and I hope our audience loves it," Anderson reflected.

Bridges marks Anderson’s very first Gospel project, something her fans have been asking about for a while. “I’ve been asked before when I was going to do one, and it just never happened. I got baptized at church — dunked in the Rio Grande River — so this just came about naturally.”

One cut, Wanderer’s Prayer, has lyrics that struck home, she said. “I’ve been so blessed in my life that things have kind of seemed to fall in place for me. I just have to keep on the right path, and not jaunt off to the left or the right. I love how the lyrics speak of asking the Lord to keep me in the right direction. That’s where the song hits me.” [See video below.]

Anderson during her lifetime divorced twice, losing custody of all her children over her intemperate outbursts. She then maintained a "committed relationship" with Williams until her death. Problems with alcohol came to public attention later in life and she was treated at the Betty Ford center.

Despite her difficulties, it's quite obvious that her Bridges songs are voiced with sincerity, implying that she went to the right place at death. The fact that she was dunked in the Rio Grande implies a probable adult decision to turn her life over to Jesus.

We don't know when she received adult baptism, but we know that, as a horse breeder, she spent quite a few years in Taos, NM, with her roommate, Williams, while overseeing her horse ranch in Texas.

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