Bluegrass continues to evolve

If you think bluegrass is a genre of old music, the members of local band Heartland would like you to think again.

Bluegrass, they point out, was introduced to the world by Bill Monroe in the '40s and is only about 15 years older than rock 'n' roll. And, like rock, it's gone through its own fits and spurts of evolution.

Heartland will play some tunes by Monroe and other older artists when the band performs Saturday in a K'zoo Folklife Organization concert. But their main influences are the musicians who've taken bluegrass to new levels in the past few years.

Band member Mike Vilenski cited musicians David Grisman, Tony Rice and Sam Bush as those who are responsible for a new age of bluegrass.

"They played in the traditional role for years and have just one-upped everybody," Vilenski said. "They've taken it to a new level. We love it, and these guys are our big heroes, so we're following right in their footsteps."

Bandmate Mike Stoline added that Heartland covers songs by Alison Krauss and Union Station, Seldom Scene and the Cox Family, groups that have kept bluegrass popular and contemporary through the '90s.

"We are constantly bringing in new music and, quite frankly, we have to let some of that old music go," Stoline said. "Our style is really more of a modern bluegrass. Our influences are the current bluegrass musicians who've been on the scene in the last five years."

Heartland has been on the local scene for the past six years. The group formed in late 1995 with Stoline on bass, Vilenski on guitar, Dennis Dahl on banjo, Paul Franklin on fiddle and Bill Halsey on mandolin. When Halsey moved to Maine last year, they brought in Mike Siegel, who not only plays his own homemade mandolin but also has brought the sound of the accordion and harmonica to the group.

Siegel builds instruments semi-professionally. "I wouldn't say it's a profession; it's more a labor of love," he said.

He was between mandolins when Heartland asked him to join. He had just sold his own homemade instrument to David West, a close friend and a California recording artist. "But I had one semi-built, so I worked like a madman and got it done," Siegel said.

He fit right in with the mindset of the group, Siegel said, since his own musical interests range widely from classic to modern bluegrass and his influences on the mandolin range from Monroe to Grisman.

"I don't think I've ever worked in a band that really works at this craft as hard as this band does," Siegel said. "They're open-minded. They want to expand wherever this will take them."

If that means bringing in instruments that might have seemed foreign to bluegrass long ago, then that's OK. Siegel brought in his accordion and harmonica to "make it a little more expansive and fun," he said.

Bluegrass wasn't created with the intent that future musicians shouldn't deviate from the original blueprint, Siegel said. "It was just another style invented by a guy who was going to use these certain instruments and take it and create this sound. I just try to blend in other interesting facets to it and it works. It works real well."