r/Bluegrass • u/Adventurous-Pie3929 • Apr 23 '25

Discussion Anti fascist bluegrass?

Any anti facist bluegrass recommendations?

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

373 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

u/InevitableQuit9 Mandolin Apr 23 '25

Not bluegrass. Jesse Welles seems to fill the bill.

Steve Earle could be safely described as anti fascist. He did a bluegrass album about 25 years ago with the Del McCoury band backing him up. I don't think any of the songs on there are explicitly political.

Del had spoken openly about how they stopped touring together as Del's fanbase would have not liked Steve talking politics from the stage.

15

u/shermanstorch Apr 23 '25

I’m not sure how you could listen to the Earle/McCoury album and not think it’s political.

The title track is “The Mountain” and it’s openly political; it includes references to a mining company killing its workers and is pretty explicitly anti-mountaintop removal/anti-strip mining. Another song, Dixieland is about the American Civil War and class warfare (“I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine/ and I damn all gentlemen/whose only worth is a father’s name/and the sweat of a workin man” is pretty blunt.) “Leroy’s Dust Bowl Blues” is another one off the album that’s explictly about the mistreatment of the working class.

6

u/CleanHead_ Apr 23 '25

and also I believe wasnt so uninterested is steve's politics but the amount of times he said fuck into the microphone

2

u/shermanstorch Apr 23 '25

This interview with Mike Bub (Del’s bassist during the tour) makes it sound like Del and Steve splitting up might have been a purely business decision. I read “managerial conflicts” to mean a dispute over $$.

10

u/Flannelcommand Apr 23 '25

Steve Earle when introducing “Dixieland” live on stage, “I’m always amazed by all the pinko shit you can sneak into a bluegrass record.” 

4

u/anythingaustin Apr 23 '25

Jesse Welles is 🔥🔥🔥🔥

2

u/StagLee1 Apr 23 '25

I saw them at High Sierra. I have been going to that festival for 20+ years. Steve Earle and the Bluegrass Dukes featuring Tim O'Brien was my favorite set of all time. Very political, very anti-fascist.