Czech bluegrass

Czech Bluegrass is Czech interpretations of bluegrass music that emerged during the middle of the twentieth century in the southeastern United States.

The music's history and performance in the Czech lands, however, make it more than simple example of mimesis. The American genre and style have been absorbed and transformed in the Czech context to produce a spectrum of uniquely local phenomena. These musical compositions still bear enough relation to their inspiration to merit the "bluegrass" name. Czech Bluegrass can be considered with respect to ideas of transculturation, appropriation, traditionalism, and "world" music.

Czech interest in things American dates to the nineteenth century, and is suffused with luminous conceptions of the Old West, cowboys, American Indians and other iconic images. Czech Tramping emerged as its main vector after 1918 in the newly formed Czechoslovak Republic. Tramping in this sense is a Czech-specific blend of ideas taken from Scouting, the German wandervogels, and Americanist romanticism. The music that accompanied the movement (tramp music) was a blend of Czech folklore, early jazz and other "syncopated music", such as barbershop, harmony singing, and popular songs from the U.S., France, and elsewhere. Czech tramping enthusiasts quickly incorporated the sounds and "style" of Bluegrass when they first heard this music in the late 1940s.

Many Czech bluegrass "old-timers" date their involvement with something specifically bluegrass-like to the post-war years, a lean time for the music, but one that contains important developments. Information and inspiration for the music reached Czechs through unlikely means. When Czechs tuned into Armed Forces Network radio programs from US military installations in Munich, they were flooded with a wealth of American music that they were able to freely use for their own ends. Tramping's song repertory was soon augmented with tunes learned from the likes of Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, Jimmie Rodgers and others.

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