Bluegrass music is one of the most easily recognized styles of American country music. The typical bluegrass band consists of a fiddler, a banjoist, a guitarist, and a mandolin player, all of whom take turns on solo improvisation, much in the manner of a 1920s jazz band. Bluegrass is not, strictly speaking, a form of folk music.
The style first rose to prominence in the years following World War II, when Bill Monroe (whose hundredth birthday, incidentally, was just this year) formed his Bluegrass Boys. Bill had recorded during the previous decade with his older brother Charlie as “the Monroe Brothers.” One of his most famous songs, “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” was covered by Elvis, whose upbeat rock ‘n’ roll version in turn inspired Monroe to record a new one of his own. Another of Monroe’s songs, “Uncle Pen,” is a tribute to his fiddle- playing uncle. Flatt & Scruggs is another bluegrass group consisting of two former Bluegrass Boys, who later performed solo. Flatt died in 1979, but Scruggs is still alive and playing.
Recently, Doyle Lawson created an instrumental called “Rosine,” whose title is a tribute to Monroe’s birthplace. It includes strains from his 1967 instrumental “Kentucky Mandolin.”
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