Authenticity Never Goes Out of Style: How Brechtian Alienation Creates Competing Authenticities at Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Festival

Abstract: Using performances by Rhonda Vincent and Appalachian Road Show at Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Festival in 2022, I demonstrate how musicians paradoxically alienate themselves from the perspectives contained in their songs to posit competing counterimages of authenticity: one based on shared values, the other based on shared heritage. If applied to bluegrass musicians, contemporary popular music performance theory would hold that their song selection would support their stage personae. However, this article finds that bluegrass musicians at this festival separate their stage personae from the narrators of the songs they sing through performer-narrator separation, a form of Brechtian alienation. Doing so reinforces a group fan base identity aligned with a historical reference point, while obviating the need for performers and fans to possess once common, now historical, life experiences from which authenticity was previously derived. This article highlights the role of emotions in alienation, as the alienation effect in this context does not stop spectators' emotional response but mobilizes unexpected emotions toward the end of crafting new visions of authenticity.