Bluegrass Christmas Music

Bluegrass music has a natural affinity for Christmas themes.  After all, Christmas is a time to praise God, gather with the family, go back to the homeplace, enjoy mountains, music, and snow, and a time to sing and celebrate.  Bluegrass music is a music of the folks, a bowing to tradition, the rhythms and cadences of ordinary life with pauses to celebrate.  And bluegrass music has a strong Christian component.  The naturalness of the acoustic instruments, the gifts of the musicians, and the heart-felt themes are all testimonies of a Christian worldview.  And bluegrass music combines the shameful indulgence of a Saturday night bootleg whiskey drinking and brawling binge with the Sunday morning reconciliation found around the cross, or the manger, of Jesus.

In 1950, when the music was both reaching greater and greater defining points and yet was already a definite genre of its own, Tex Logan, a scientific engineer with Bell Labs in Texas, penned the first bluegrass Christmas song.  Titled "Christmas Times a'Comin," it was a made to order sure fit for bluegrass master and originator Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.  Just read the lyrics:

Snow flake's a-fallin'
My old heart's a-callin'
Tall pine's a-hummin'
Christmas Time's A-Comin'.

Can't you hear them bells ringin', ringin'
Joy, don'tcha hear them singin'
When it's snowin', I'll be goin'
Back to my country home.

Refrain: Christmas Time's A-Comin'
Christmas Time's A-Comin'
Christmas Time's A-Comin'
And I know I'm goin' home.

White candle's burnin'
My old heart's a-yearnin'
For the folks at home when
Christmas Time's A-Comin'.

Can't you hear them bells ringin', ringin'
Joy, don'tcha hear them singin'
When it's snowin', I'll be goin'
Back to my country home.

The dropping of the 'g's at the end of each line reflects the English (as in, from England) pure roots of Southern language. (See Cleanth Brooks' The Language of the South.)  The use of words like "home," "folks," and "yearnin" all reflect very powerful themes within bluegrass music's closeness to what William Faulkner called "that fierce pull of blood."  In other words, people working up in Detroit, or off in Houston, or elsewhere could identify with that strong urge to get off work, maybe as late as December 24, hop in the car with the family and get back to the country to see the whole family.

Strangely enough, Monroe's song remained one of the few bluegrass Christmas songs for years.  Country artists added some additional Christmas songs.  Gene Autry was, after all, a singing cowboy, and his great hit was "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer."  And Elvis was, along with every other niche he fit into, a country singer, and his big hit was "Blue Christmas," which was covered by quite a few country artists. In time, country artists produced a few more Christmas songs and albums.

The Bluegrass musicians still did not produce much.  Perhaps it was because bluegrass music thrived from the 1960s on through the festivals.  Following a revival of folk music, starving bluegrass artists suddenly found ready audiences in such places as Newport, Rhode Island and Bean Blossom, Indiana.  But the festivals did not take place usually in the Christmas season.  And bluegrass albums cut a small piece of the music sales pie.  With the popularity of Celtic instrumentals at Christmas, it is surprising that bluegrass didn't have a greater impact.

Little by little, bluegrass artists have recorded more and more Christmas songs.  Both Ralph Stanley and Ricky Skaggs have Christmas albums.  Still, some of the best bluegrass Christmas music can be found on collections featuring various artists.

One I recently acquired and one that is a real bargain is Christmas Times a Comin': The Essential Bluegrass Christmas Collection.  Produced by Time/Life, this truly is a wonderful assembly of artists and songs.  Monroe does the title song, along with another called "That's Christmas Time to Me."  The Stanley Brothers perform "Christmas is Near" and Ralph and his band do "That's Christmas Time to Me."  Del McCoury and some of his gang, including Mac Wiseman, perform a fun song, "A Bluegrass Christmas," and then later one of those heart-rending songs about Momma, called "Call Collect on Christmas."  Add to all this, Emmylou Harris, the great Jimmy Martin performing "Old Fashioned Christmas," Larry Sparks and others.  That ain't an intruder in the group.  Banjoes, fiddles, mandolins, bass fiddles, acoustic guitars, and the high lonesome tones of bluegrass singing dominate the whole recording.

After a day of enduring malls, traffic, human clogs of shoppers, over-stimulation of the senses from the bombardment of the stores, this album is a trip along a dirt road, up ahead, I can see the homeplace, a tree can be seen in the window....