Rob Schumer: eye surgeon, filmmaker, bluegrass guitarist.

In 1939, Bill and Charlie Monroe formed the Blue Grass Boys, named for their Kentucky home, and started playing country standards, gospel songs, and dance tunes faster and smoother than anyone had ever played them before.  The term "bluegrass music" was created almost 10 years later in response to the number of bands imitating the Monroe brothers' style.  Originally these bands included the basic elements of banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and bass played to a driving beat, with an emphasis on melodies and vocal harmonies.

In October, I met with Rob Schumer and Ruth Oxenberg at the White Rabbit Coffee Shop in Red Hook to discuss Bluegrass Journey, their self-produced documentary of the modern bluegrass scene.  Schumer, who has a day job as an eye surgeon, told the story of how they were drawn to bluegrass.  "We were planning our wedding at what was then our country home [in Livingston, now their main residence] and because of the county setting of our wedding we agreed that a bluegrass band might be a good and fun idea, so we decided to look into it.  Turned out just by chance that our wedding was the same weekend of what was then called the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival [in Ancramdale]. The festival has since been renamed Grey Fox and is one of the premiere bluegrass festivals in the world.  It's a fabulous event with devoted fans who have been coming five, 10, or even all 27 years."  They contacted the festival producer who was happy to pass on band contact info and after listening to tapes from many of the most renowned bluegrass bands in the world (and passing on Del McCoury) they hired Old Cold Taters to play their wedding.  A visit to Winterhawk the following year sealed the deal.

Oxenberg, a former ABC news producer told me, "We were still living in New York City and I was still working in network news and ol' Rob over here said, 'Why don't you pitch a story to Peter Jennings?'  So I did and it turns out Peter Jennings is a bluegrass fan.  So in 1996 we spent about four months working around the country and the basic thrust was that if you think bluegrass is all pick and twang hillbilly music, think again.  While working on it, everyone was really helpful and couldn't have been more welcoming.  As we were leaving Winterhawk one day after shooting, Rob said we should do a feature length film."

Rob Schumer & Ruth Oxenberg in the music room of their Livingston home.

They started by watching all of the movies about bluegrass  there are (which didn't take very long), and Schumer said they discovered that other than the historically focused High Lonesome which was released in 1993, "The better made films were mostly just film documentation of performances, not done documentary style.  We felt that we wanted to do something that captured what we were experiencing in the bluegrass community, something in the vein of the films like Woodstock, Monterey Pop, Jazz on a Summer's Day.  They do so much more than just show the music.  They show the culture of the music.  They give a real glimpse into the whole lifestyle of the music."

Poster for Bluegrass Journey.

Most of the filming for Bluegrass Journey was done in 2000, shot on location at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Music Festival and at the International Bluegrass Music Association's trade and award show in Louisville.  One of the attractions of bluegrass to the couple is its lack of commercialism and the accessibility of the stars.  Oxenberg and Schumer's film shows the devoted nature of the fans who camp and dance at Grey Fox in a Woodstockian dose of rain.  Performers wander through camp jamming with fans around the fire.  The highlight of the movie is extraordinary musicianship, from the "plowed to the fence" frenetic fingerpickings of the Del McCoury Band to the old time sound of Bob Paisley and the Southern Grass, to the power of Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, to the young mandolin wizard Chris Thiley.  Bluegrass stars Peter Rowan, Jerry Douglas, Tim O'Brien, and many others give informative interviews that paint the interaction between performers and fans as a very intimate affair.  Oxenberg said, "It's about playing music and being part of a community."

Oxenberg explained, "The forms of bluegrass are simple.  But it's got a tremendous amount of soul, a tremendous amount of drive, there's great harmonies, catchy melodies, and it appeals to people.  But due to its origins as a backwoods country music there's kind of a condescension factor from the music industry because of the cultural association and its primitiveness and rusticness."  Schumer added, "I think the success of Oh, Brother Where Art Thou, which sold something like eight million copies, opened the industry's eyes."

When I spoke with Oxenberg and Schumer, they had just returned from the IMBA Trade Show and Awards Ceremony where The Del McCoury Band won Entertainer of the Year for the ninth year running, and Rhonda Vincent captured Female Entertainer of the Year for the fifth time in a row.  After screening their film the last two years at the trade show, the success of their venture was confirmed by the fact that the hotel played Bluegrass Journey 24/7 on a closed circuit television channel.  Schumer said, "I think that we have been successful at creating something that hadn't been done before and that will henceforth be an ongoing part of the culture of the music and will be part of the process of passing this on to others and growing it, perhaps even shaping people's perceptions and concepts of what bluegrass can and should be.  It's kind of overwhelming on a personal level."

Ted (age 6) and Tristan (Age 4) Schumer.

When I inquired about the process of self-producing and releasing a film Oxenberg laughed and said, "We're lucky he is working, because this is my full-time job right now.

"It's been such a great experience but it's also been a lot of work since we released it ourselves.  People are asking us, 'What's your next film?'  And I just laugh because we are only halfway done.  Pick up a copy at www.bluegrassjourney.com," she said chuckling.  Schumer concurred: "We released it on our own label, we're doing theatrical distribution, we're doing television sales, we're doing all the promotion and press.  It's going to be on Nashville PBS early in the fall next year, and we are working on a national PBS deal.  It's a tremendous amount of work."

When I asked about the recent growth in the popularity of bluegrass, Schumer theorized about a trend away from sameness and toward authenticity.  "There is a definite increase in the popularity of roots-based music across the board, bluegrass being just one [form of it]," he said.  "It used to be really interesting to drive to different into parts of the country, and really sample all the different regional subcultures that used to exist.  Now, it's really weird.  You can be in Austin, you can be in Orlando, you can be in Nashville, Denver, Boulder, and it's the same seven national restaurant chains with the same menu.  Unfortunately, people haven't realized that this commercialism is destroying what is really special about America, which is sort of the melting pot of all these different cultures.  People are looking for stuff that is rooted, real, and regional sounding that is not overproduced and all commercial sounding... Bluegrass is one style of music that just hasn't sold out.  It cuts through the homogenization of modern American pop culture that we are all drowning in."