IV.

Bluegrass

Bluegrass music developed in rural Kentucky during the 1920s and 1930s. It represented, primarily through its instrumentation, a return to the prerecording days of folk music. Characterized by the acoustic string-band sound of the Southeast, the bluegrass style usually features a banjo, fiddle, and mandolin in lead parts while a guitar and string bass provide accompaniment. Bluegrass vocals are often harmonized and emphasize a high-pitched tenor voice. Instrumental solos and improvisations may be featured between stanzas in a bluegrass song.

Singer and mandolin player Bill Monroe is known as the father of bluegrass music. A virtuoso mandolin player, Monroe combined traditional folk ballads and gospel songs with string-band music played at very fast tempos. Monroe, with his band The Blue Grass Boys, performed from the mid-1920s until Monroe’s death in 1996. Other well-known bluegrass performers include banjo player Earl Scruggs, who played with Monroe during the 1940s; the Osborne Brothers, a duo from Kentucky known for its work during the 1950s and 1960s; and more recently, artists Alison Krauss, Ricky Skaggs, and Vince Gill.