Bluegrass Music: Album, Track and Artist Charts

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Description of Bluegrass

Acoustic string band music in the country tradition comprises high, plaintive singing, fiddle, mandolin, five-string banjo, guitar and upright bass. The music spotlights tight harmony singing and improvisational instrumental solos. Thematically, the music can be either secular or sacred, but many important artists come from a gospel tradition. Widely regarded as the father of bluegrass, Kentucky native Bill Monroe was a vastly influential bandleader, chart-topping singer/songwriter, and innovative, virtuoso mandolin player. The 1946 incarnation of his Blue Grass Boys featured Earl Scruggs' pioneering five-string banjo playing and Lester Flatt's singing and guitar playing. They would all ascend to bluegrass legend and establish the paradigm for bluegrass to come -- namely the Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, Reno & Smiley, and Flatt & Scruggs. In the 1960s and '70s, a progressive element cropped up in bluegrass with bands such as the Kentucky Colonels, the New Grass Revival, Boone Creek, and many others augmenting the high-lonesome sound with elements of jazz, thereby broadening the canon to include songs from folk, rock and pop genres. And then there's the new traditional movement, which seeks to bring bluegrass back to its purist roots, ironically through newfangled production techniques. But the bluegrass we are referring to here encompasses the genre as a whole, with the heaviest emphasis on the genre's purist blueprints.

Bluegrass Key Tracks

Play/Add All

Play/Add	Track	Artist
	1. Shine Hallelujah Shine	Bill Monroe
	2. Silver Dagger	Dolly Parton
	3. Blue Mountain Hop	Bela Fleck
	4. Blue Moon Of Kentucky	Bill Monroe
	5. Mule Skinner Blues	Muleskinner
	6. Ode To A Butterfly	Nickel Creek
	7. All American Bluegrass Girl	Rhonda Vincent
	8. Bakersfield Bound	Chris Hillman
	9. Close The Door Lightly When You Go	Cliff Waldron
	10. I've Just Seen A Face	The Dillards
	11. Every Time You Say Goodbye	Alison Krauss
	12. Country Boy	Ricky Skaggs
	13. Orange Blossom Special	Ralph Stanley
	14. In The Pines	The Kentucky Colonels
	15. Friend Of The Devil	Jerry Garcia

Filed Under

Country > Country-Folk/Bluegrass > Bluegrass

Bluegrass Key Artists

Alison Brown

Brown is a Bluegrass
prodigy whose instrumental
solo albums display her love
for both traditional music
and pop songs.

Alison Krauss

Krauss blends bluegrass'
rustic instrumentation with
folk-pop songwriting
sensibilities, fusing tradition
with innovation. Alison Kr...

Bailey Brothers

Active in the '40s and '50s,
the Bailey Brothers were a
Bluegrass brother duet act
that started out as old-timey
pop singers.

Bill Monroe

Monroe was one of the first
to popularize the Bluegrass
band paradigm of guitar,
acoustic bass, fiddle
mandolin, and banjo. The...

Chris Hillman

From the Byrds to the
Burritos and beyond,
Hillman plays truly
professional Folk-Rock,
Country Rock and Bluegr...

David Grisman

Known for his
collaborations with the late
Jerry Garcia, Grisman has
led his own Bluegrass
quintet dating back to the...

Del McCoury

McCoury has an old
fashioned family Bluegrass
band with tight, next-of-kin
close harmonies and tons if
instrumental exchange. H...

Doug Dillard

Doug Dillard's adroit
banjo-picking effortlessly
traversed from bluegrass to
pop and country rock
while retaining his style....

Doyle Lawson

Lawson is a critically
acclaimed mandolin player
who played joyous country
gospel songs with bluegrass
instrumentation.

Earl Scruggs

Scruggs injected his
matchless style of Bluegrass
picking with bits of rock
and pop while maintaining a
pastoral twang.

Flatt and Scruggs

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs
were pioneers of
fast-pickin' Bluegrass music.
Their guitar and banjo
playing are unparalleled....

Harley "Red" Allen

Hazel Dickens

West Virginian bluegrass
and folk lynchpin Hazel
Dickens has been recording
outspoken, purely
American music since the...

J.D. Crowe

J.D. Crowe was one of the
founders of progressive
bluegrass. His innovative
banjo playing pushed
bluegrass' margins outwar...

Jerry Garcia

Best known as the lead
vocalist for the Grateful
Dead, the late Garcia was an
admirable folk and
bluegrass player as well....

Kenny Baker

Kenny Baker, one of the
most sought after session
fiddlers, played with
bluegrass luminary Bill
Monroe as well as Don Gib...

Lilly Brothers

The Lilly Brothers were a
bluegrass act specializing in
those high-lonesome vocal
harmonies that only siblings
can sing.

Nickel Creek

This young trio from San
Diego plays devastatingly
beautiful bluegrass and folk
songs sung by an
angelic-voiced singer. Ma...

Ralph Stanley

Ralph Stanley's manic banjo
playing helped popularize
Bluegrass music via the
Stanley Brothers and the
Clinch Mountain Boys.

Rhonda Vincent

Rhonda Vincent is an
Americana wonder who
plays stellar country folk
and bluegrass. Her voice
can bring a man to tears....

Ricky Skaggs

Skaggs is a cosmic American
Bluegrass picker who cut
his teeth with the Stanley
Brothers as well as Emmylou
Harris' Hot Band. Arguabl...

The Kentucky Colonels

They were one of the very
first Progressive Bluegrass
bands, innovating traditional
picking with stylishly hyper
arpeggios. Playing Progres...

The Osborne Brothers

The Stanley Brothers

Vassar Clements

Vassar Clements is the most
legendary and innovative
fiddle player on the
bluegrass circuit. He's
played on rock albums, to...

Bluegrass

Description of Bluegrass

Bluegrass Key Tracks

Bluegrass Key Albums

Filed Under

Bluegrass Key Artists

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