Sunday, December 14, 2008

Bluegrass Hotel Project

When I first found out I was moving to Kentucky (I make it sound like it came as a surprise, but it was me who made the decision to move), the first thing I thought of was how happy I was to be moving to the "bluegrass" state. Back when Roommate and I were an item, and he lived in Tennessee and I lived in NOLA, my favorite parts of visiting him were getting to see great bluegrass music live.

I naturally assumed that my new life in Loueyville would be chock-full of hot, sexy, live bluegrass. But... not so much. I take some of the blame. I haven't been very good about tracking down the good stuff. But I find it funny that when I mention loving bluegrass music to my students, they react like I'd just declared my love for polka.

Anyway, the Bluegrass Hotel Project was announced today at the Jockey Silks Bar at the Galt House. It seems like it should be a bigger deal than the few paragraphs the CJ devoted to it.

Named after the Bluegrass Hotel, a Victorian mansion in Cherokee Park where
many of the musicians used to stay, the project will highlight a time and place
when musicians from around the country flocked to Louisville to play bluegrass.

The project will include a two-hour television documentary to be broadcast
this time next year, a CD, DVD and a book. It is being produced by former
Bluegrass Alliance member Bill Millet.

Sam Bush, one of the musicians on hand today, said he had his own place to
stay when he moved to Louisville from Bowling Green at the age of 18, but he
stayed some nights at the Bluegrass Hotel. He said he and the others were
at the press conference “because we all had a great experience when many of us
moved to Louisville in the early ’70s.”

Sam Bush was/is in town? Hopefully he'll be back on March 6 when the Galt House will be hosting a festival/concert to celebrate the project.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Actually is a lot of great bluegrass here... and Sam Bush is in town often. Asheville embraces bluegrass music more than Louisville (and what Louisville seems to embrace is mostly horrible garage-ish bar bands as if because they can play a guitar LEO should devote every other article to one of these "alt" groups without any thought given to the fact that they aren't really many with talent)... I lost my point. Point is, thank god for the Bluegrass Hotel. Finding good bluegrass here should be as easy as finding good Irish music in an Irish pub, which, with an Irish pub on every corner in this city, I've yet to hear a good Irish rock band or traditional band at all. But you can sure find loud guitars and unintellectual snarky goatee bands on every corner.