Grass doesn't make the cut

The Bitter Southerner (BS) online magazine sends this greeting:

To learn a culture, three actions are required: 1) Listen to its music. 2) Read its writers. 3) Listen to the stories of its everyday people. Our end-of-year roundups let you do all three. Southern culture broadened and deepened this year, and we want to keep you informed.

We also wanted to wish you a happy New Year.

The BS assists action 1) with its seventh annual list of 'our region’s best records' - that is, the thirty best Southern albums of 2019 - and the BIB notes with regret that no bluegrass album qualifies for inclusion. The nearest is #22, Allison Moorer's Blood. #4, though, is Songs of our native daughters (Smithsonian Folkways SFW40232), 'made by four black women with accordions and banjos' - Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell, with production, engineering, and mixing by Dirk Powell.

PS: Bluegrass Today has just published its 'Top 30 bluegrass songs for 2019'.