John Cowan on Mountain Stage

For the uninitiated, bluegrass is acoustic music, that features the five string banjo, mandolin, guitar, upright bass and fiddle and noted for its lightning-fast picking and vocal harmonies.

While there are now thousands of bluegrass musicians in all parts of the world, some 50 years ago, there was only one bluegrass band - Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys. Bill Monroe came to be known as the Father of Bluegrass Music because he invented the musical sound during in the 1940s.

While there were many many musicians who had, at one time or another, featured in Monroe's band, the most notable line up (from 1946) featured Bill on his mandolin, Lester Flatt on guitar, Howard Watts on bass, and Earl Scruggs on banjo and Chubby Wise on fiddle. It was the hard driving sound of Scrugg's banjo that finally brought Monroe's search for his bluegrass sound to conclusion.

Bluegrass music - uniquely American - has now been a part of global music scene for some 60 years. While bluegrass fans are on the increase and remain loyal to the music form, it is likely that most folk are only familiar with the genre through a handful of songs that have become popular through mainstream media. Most of the music or bands have been featured on television shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show and Dukes of Hazard or movies such as Deliverance, and Bonnie and Clyde, which featured Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs performing the classic Foggy Mountain Breakdown. The biggest influence on brand recognition in recent times has been the movie and the soundtrack of the same name: O Brother Where Art Thou?.

Today, the popularity of bluegrass has spread far beyond the United States, with fans and musicians, popping up in Great Brittan, Japan, Australia, Europe, South America and many more countries.