Bluegrass

All-acoustic band music that split from country in the 1940s, with banjo, fiddle and high harmony singing

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Bluegrass is all-acoustic band music that split from country in the mid-1940s, marked by banjo, fiddle and high harmony singing.

Origins and era

In 1945 Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys added banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt on the Grand Ole Opry radio show in Nashville, and the three-finger banjo plus tight ensemble fixed the band's sound; when the two left in 1948 to form Flatt & Scruggs, the line-up reached a wider audience. Through the late 1940s and 1950s the Stanley Brothers and Reno & Smiley carried it onto records and radio. The folk revival of the 1960s took it to colleges and festivals, and in the 1980s newgrass began adding electric instruments and jazz harmony.

What you hear

The band is entirely acoustic: guitar, five-string banjo, fiddle, mandolin, Dobro and upright bass, with no drums. Tempos can be fast, in 2/4 or 3/4, instruments take turns soloing in eight- or sixteen-bar sections, and songs alternate with breakdowns where every instrument takes a solo in turn. Voices are high and tight, often in close three-part harmony, with songs about mountain life, parting and gospel. The banjo's three-finger roll supplies a continuous stream of notes while fiddle and mandolin handle syncopation.

Key figures

Bill Monroe defined the repertoire and line-up, Earl Scruggs made the three-finger roll the banjo standard, and Lester Flatt's guitar and voice supplied the other half; the Stanley Brothers fixed the mournful high lead, Ralph Stanley kept it into the 2000s, Jimmy Martin and Del McCoury kept the hard drive, and Alison Krauss carried it into later generations.

Lineage

Appalachian string bands, Irish and Scottish fiddle tunes, blues and gospel feed in; newgrass, Americana and the jam band scene come out. It fixed several folk ensemble practices into one line-up.

Common misunderstandings

Bluegrass is not country music with a banjo added; line-up, solo method and harmony are conditions. Nor is it old-time string band music, which differs in tempo and repertoire. Treating it as purely white Southern music misses the blues and Black string-band influence behind it.

Sources

• Neil V. Rosenberg, Bluegrass 研究专著（University of Illinois Press, 1985），用于核对 1945 年大奥普里编制与第一代乐手
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Bluegrass，用于交叉核对曲目与和声特征

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.