ZAPPED

 

cleve gray, zen garden

Some concern today for the culture in the mountains that has passed away. Not debilitating concern, by any means, but missing it like remembering a friend who died a quarter century ago. The culture has died out in a lot of ways, been processed through the way of natural change. I mourn a natural change in the ways of the people in the mountains, and embrace the change at the same time. Mountain culture has been through a major shift. The shift from old-time to bluegrass was the artistic expression of the change that came to the mountains with electricity. The music will go on from that time. Musicians will go on playing it. Fiddlers conventions will go on. The soul of the culture is in its music. It will live on, something like an eternal flame, a living reminder through the tunnel of unforeseeable changes in the future. As change has been its nature in the past, mountain music will go on changing. I don't know what will become of the word traditional. That word has been blown to tiny pixels since WW2. Bob Dylan appears to be carrying the thread of tradition through this conceptually changing time into the next generation.


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