I’m beginig to appriciate this style of music. Abody else? (Speaking as an X Jaz musician)
I have two general observations:
(1) If you’ve heard one bluegrass tune, you’ve heard them all. 
(This one drives bluegrass-loving Mr. S nuts.) In other words, I find the style a bit too predictable.
(2) On the other hand, (1) makes it very easy to sing instant harmony, play along, etc., to bluegrass even if you haven’t heard the song before.
I love it. Have been learning the harmonies for years–most of my family likes to play guitar and sing when we get together. Unfortunately, I don’t know many current artists. I’ve been trying to find them, but all I’ve really heard is the stuff played at bluegrass festivals that is usually decently old.
It’s also a great style for a beginner guitarist, because you can usually keep up and learn as others play.
Love bluegrass.
You’ve probably heard Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek.
You probably haven’t heard Yonder Mountain String Band.
Check them out http://www.yondermountain.com/
While it is an easily recognized musical genre…the songs are of course not all the same. 
Forgot to add…a pretty cool current CD worth checking out is the Chieftains “Down The Old Plank Road”. Mix of celtic and bluegrass tunes. It’s always a pleasure to see how much two musical genres that I enjoy so much, have similar roots.
Artsy fartsy question. I’ll move to Cafe Society.
Bluegrass? I like it.
Please to differentiate from “roots” and “old-timey” music, which we all know from the O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU soundtrack.
Bluegrass music arose in the 1940s and featured blazing tempos and elaborate instrumental soloing, and compares to the older backcountry styles much like urban bebop is to urban ragtime.
Another Bluegrass lover checking in. You’d think it would be a natural for anyone who grew up in eastern KY like I did, but I was in college before I really came to appreciate it.
That’s no accident. I saw Nickel Creek in concert last month down near Raleigh. (Gillian Welch opened up.) It was a fantastic show, but the last thing you could call it is traditional Bluegrass. As I was leaving, the people behind me were complaining about it: “I thought it’d be more like their first album–you know, more bluegrass.”
Bluegrass fans hold on to tradition more tightly than any other music form I can think of–after all, the Del McCoury Band has won the IBMA Entertainer of the Year award several times in the last few years, and they’re about the most traditional act out there. (They’re also one of the best–I’ve seen them and worked with them many times, and they’re not only amazing musicians, but incredibly nice people.) You would think this would stagnate the art form, but you still have your Flecktones and your Nickel Creeks out there pushing it forward, so it works out well.
For traditional stuff, I’d recommend the aforementioned Del McCoury Band, Rhonda Vincent and Blue Highway, among several others I’ll think of later. For more out there stuff with roots in bluegrass, try anything involving Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, the previously mentioned Yonder Mountain String Band, Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident…I could go on, but that should do it for now. 
Dr. J
I’m a mad fan of most of the faster types of bluegrass - I used to think that all the records sounded the same, and I suppose that if you define bluegrass as only one sound, then that becomes a truism.
However, the record that got me onto bluegrass was Dolly Parton’s The Grass Is Blue, which has numerous sounds within a ‘bluegrass’ feel. Silver Dagger is just awesome, and that’s a song I’ve managed to convert a lot of friends to bluegrass with (no coincidence, as it’s the song that got me interested!)
It’s my opinion that most of the real bluegrass out there has been heard by only 100,000 people or so…give or take. If this statement is not true by a long shot, then my point in saying that is that most of the stuff on, say, CMT that is passing for bluegrass isn’t. I’d have to say that Bill Monroe is my favorite artist, as well as Alison Krauss whenever she sings (or plays) bluegrass.
Ditto on the Bill Monroe thing. His band, in it’s heyday, were like the Judas Priest of bluegrass. Faster, louder and proud of it.
Scarlett67 wrote:
Though I love bluegrass, I have to admit there’s some truth to that. (I have the same complaint with the Blues, by the way.)
What sets apart the truly great bluegrass song, IMHO, is the lyrics. The best bluegrass can be either hauntingly sad or sidesplittingly funny.
Though nobody loves a good mandolin solo more than me, I could get bored pretty quickly with a purely instrumental bluegrass. The poetry of bluegrass is what completes the art form for me.
I have played bluegrass guitar for over twenty years.
Bluegrass was invented by Bill Monroe. The short story is that Bill simply played “old-timey,” traditional tunes in a manner he likedÑfast, flashy, tuned sharp slightly to add tension and driveÑand others copied him. It wasn’t until the '50s/'60s that people began to recognize that a new genre had taken form and began to call it “bluegrass” (a term Bill only grudgingly accepted in the late '60s).
Nothing on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack is bluegrass, strictly speaking, except for The Stanley Brother’s “Angel Band.” Most of it is slickly-produced versions of old-timey tunes, and a few blues and gospel tunes. I still don’t understand why music from southern Appalachia is used as a soundtrack for a movie set in the Mississippi Delta. The focus should have been Robert Johnson, not the Carter Family.
The great bluegrass acts are (IMHO):
Bill Monroe
Stanley Brothers
Flatt and Scruggs
Dillards
Osborne Brothers
Country Gentlemen
Del McCoury
Ricky Skaggs (not his electric stuff)
That’s enough to get a person started.
Alison Krauss is inoffensive, but rather lightweight. Nickel Creek are technically impressive, but musically immature and lyrically embarrassing. However, they are young, and may have some surprises in store for us yet. Time will tell.
Bluegrass is an instrumentally virtuosic genre. However, what really gives the genre its soul is the “high lonesome” sound of the vocal harmonies. The short story here is simply that this is how Bill Monroe sang, and others consistently copied him.
The single greatest influence on bluegrass guitar-playing is Doc Watson, who virtually invented flatpicking fiddle tunes on the guitar. However, Doc is not, strictly speaking, a bluegrass player himself, though he is a close cousin to the genre. Doc is also as good a musician as has ever walked the planet. If you don’t like Doc Watson, either you haven’t actually heard him or there’s something wrong with you. Clarence White, who played with the Kentucky Colonels, was influenced by Doc, and is the second-biggest influence on bluegrass guitar. Norman Blake is another influence, though, like Watson, he does not play bluegrass, strictly speaking (starting to get the idea that bluegrass takes its tradition seriously?).
The biggest influence on bluegrass mandolin-playing is easily Bill Monroe himself. Enough said.
The two biggest influences on bluegrass banjo-playing are Earl Scruggs and Bill Keith, both of whom played in Monroe’s band (Scruggs in the '40s; Keith in the '60s).
Other bluegrass instruments are the fiddle, the standup bass and, to a lesser extent, the dobro (Cf. Jerry Douglas).
In the '70s, a sub-genre of bluegrass arose as an attempt to push the boundaries of traditional bluegrass. “Newgrass,” as it’s called, includes folks such as Tony Rice (guitar), David Grisman (mandolin), Bela Fleck (banjo), and, more recently, Nickel Creek.
An aside: The O Brother soundtrack is OK, but if you want the real deal when it comes to traditional country and blues, check out The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers (country), and Robert Johnson, Son House, Skip James, and John Hurt (country blues). It has been said that if Robert Johnson doesn’t move you, you’re already dead. I agree.
The best book on bluegrass is easily Neil Rosenberg’s unoriginally-but-appropriately-titled Bluegrass: A History. It’s real musicology, so don’t expect Rolling Stone-slickness/shallowness. Bill Malone’s Country Music, USA is also good, but more general.
My opinions only.
OK, I’m done.
Some comments on previous comments:
If you’ve heard one bluegrass tune, you’ve heard them all. - I agree. Flatt and Scruggs’ “No Mother in This World” has an uncanny resemblance to Don Stover’s “Sunbonnet Mother”. Why, only a person with actual ears could ever hope to tell them apart.
Unfortunately, I don’t know many current artists. - Do yourself a favor, then, and check out some of these from the past: Bill Monroe, Don Reno and Red Smiley, Jimmy Martin, The Stanley Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, Jim and Jesse, the Kentucky Colonels; (skip the Country Gentleman though).
…most of the stuff on, say, CMT that is passing for bluegrass isn’t - while it’s always hard to define a type of music, due to the (hopefully) evolving nature of that type, I’d have to agree with the sentiment expressed here. I like Dolly Parton’s “The Grass is Greener”, I just don’t think it is truly bluegrass simply because there is a banjo and fiddle on the CD.
Ditto on the Bill Monroe thing. His band, in it’s heyday, were like the Judas Priest of bluegrass. Faster, louder and proud of it. - No doubt, BM and the Bluegrass Boys could really crank out the up-tempo song. But, they had so much more to offer than just “blazing tempos and elaborate instrumental soloing”.“When The Golden Leaves Begin to Fall” immediately comes to mind. Surely all you bluegrass fans here have heard of this one?
*The two biggest influences on bluegrass banjo-playing are Earl Scruggs and Bill Keith * - No argument here. I think Don Reno surpasses them both though, in truly amazing banjo feel, and brilliant technique.
Bluegrass was invented by Bill Monroe. - While BM’s importance cannot be disputed, the influence and contribution of many other musicians shouldn’t be ignored. Did Elvis “invent” rock and roll?
I got a band for ya:
notcynical:
Obviously, best banjo-player is a subjective notion. I love Reno too, though I love Scruggs and Keith equally well. Doug Dillard is my nominee for most underrated banjo-player. He’s also my nominee for fastest (whatever that’s worth). Hell, the Dillards are underrated, period.
I’m not a big fan of the Country Gentlemen either, but there’s no denying their influence: they introduced many, many people to bluegrass. They’re something like the Pete Seegers of bluegrass. You know what I mean.
I don’t think your Monroe-Elvis analogy is apt: Elvis simply does not stand in the same relationship to rock ‘n’ roll that Monroe does to bluegrass. While it’s probably true that no single individual has ever really invented a genre wholly alone, Bill Monroe probably comes closer to having done so than any other figure in the history of American music. Elvis was the biggest voice of rock ‘n’ roll, but he was never the voice of rock ‘n’ roll. Monroe, on the other hand, was the voice of bluegrass. No early contemporary (late '30s to early '50s) of Monroe’s came close to standing in the same relationship to him as, say, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, or Jerry Lewis stood in relation to Elvis. And most of his later competitors either directly copied him (e.g., Stanley Brothers), or were fromer members of his band (e.g., Flatt and Scruggs). However, I’m not dissing the Stanley Brothers at all: I happen to think they were easily the most soulful bluegrass band ever, and on some days they’re even my favorite.
For all intents and purposes, Bill invented bluegrass. The claim is slightly hyperbolic, but not by very much.
hot rize (and their opening act, red knuckles and the trailblazers)
“oh we travel around on the hot rize bus”
“oh mona”
“some folks say they look like us”
“oh mona”
it’s good stuff
unclviny