The Americanist Imagination and Real Imaginary Place in Czech Bluegrass Songs

Abstract

During their long history of Americanism, Czechs have inscribed “real imaginary” elements of Americana on their environment, laying a foundation for the current interest in bluegrass music. Czech articulations of this imagined “Amerika” in translated, newly created, and recontextualized songs reveal a playful ambiguity. Czechs have cultivated bluegrass through a sense of place that contains traces of Americanness, blurring the boundaries between what is American and what is Czech. With humor and hard work, Czech bluegrassers shape a sense of place through their performance of songs in which U.S. music becomes part of the European landscape.

Notes

1. Translation from Czech to English by the author. I reconstructed my Czech version of this song from a version by the self-declared author, Lubor Hejda, with some verses taken from versions I found posted on band and songbook websites, and from those I remember from jam performances during my fieldwork.

2. Bluegrasser is a U.S. concept with a Czech counterpart, bluegrassák. This emic term reflects the ethnomusicological emphasis on music as a process, as per Small.

3. The proper term for the USA is the actual translation of the full title (Spojené Staty Ameriky), which I have heard used, but much less frequently than the abbreviated Amerika.

4. “El Toro” is part of the cottage settlement Údolí hadru; in his 2010 interview with Lukeš, Čermák states that the cabin was built in 1926.

5. Melinda Reidinger's dissertation (2007) is one of the few English language examinations of the Czech practice of cottaging, which is not limited to tramping or other Americanist practices.

6. For more on the wandervogel movement see Williams (107–46). Ethnologist Jan Pohunek distinguishes Czech tramping as Americanist: “Wandervogel was (and still is) a youth romantic hiking scout-like movement officially founded in 1901. It differs from tramping in terms of its slightly higher level of organization and the fact that is draws its inspiration from German mythology and history rather than from the American Wild West” (32).

7. Jehlička and Kurtz state that Seton’s books were translated into Czech in larger numbers than to any other language (312). One example is Seifert's translation of Seton's Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore.

8. Marko Čermák describes his experience hearing bluegrass on U.S. military radio in an interview segment of the film Banjo Romantika. Wagon Wheel Willy is featured in a segment of the film The Big Picture: The Story of American Forces Network AFN (1962).

9. Jamieson relates that he had to pull over onto the verge, he was so amazed when he first heard Bill Monroe's band on his car radio (53). John Hartford's song “On the Radio” described how he “bounced off-a all four walls” hearing early bluegrass-style broadcasts; the song appears on Hartford's CD Good Old Boys (Rounder CD 0462, 1999).

10. Information on the banjo and other aspects of bluegrass remained difficult for Czechs to access until the 1989 ousting of the Communist Party. Earl Scruggsʼs banjo instruction book and other key items were eventually introduced to the Czech scene, along with recordings. Several older Czechs have told me that the 1968 Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia led to more access to information, as émigrés in the USA or Canada could send materials to friends still in the Czech lands. Local sources such as Marko Čermák's own 1975 instruction book Pětistrunné Banjo (Five-Stringed Banjo) later emerged to help spread techniques and repertoire.

11. Text by Jan Vyčítal, this translation by the author

12. Barrett's discussion of the 1964 Czechoslovakian Western film Limonadový Joe presents another example of the irony of Czech temperance on screen. Hall’s account of Czech beer-drinking culture provides an introduction to common Czech practices of social alcohol consumption.

13. Elavsky explains that artists who did not comply could “lose the right to perform [or] could be forced into … occupations such as street sweeping, coal stoking, or sanitation collection” (103).

14. Ironically, the Greenhorns gained access to the West, traveling to West Germany to perform at gigs, as Marko Čermák explains in interview segments in the film Banjo Romantika.

15. Words and Music by Zdeněk Roh, used by permission.

16. “Old time” here refers to a musical practice similar to bluegrass but more influenced by the twentieth-century folk revival. Old-time enthusiasts vary widely but tend to focus on pre-bluegrass string band repertory from a variety of rural regions; in their musical projects they often express a back-to-the-land aesthetic, an ethos of inclusivity, and a desire to resist commercialization. Wooley provides a useful sketch of several waves of old-time string band revival that have happened since the 1960s.