In the Carolinas, bluegrass is more than music--it's a way of life. The origins of the genre date back to the earliest frontier settlements, and banjo music appeared at dances in Greenville, South Carolina, as early as 1780. The genre was essential to socialization in the textile mills of both states. Old-time music of the Blue Ridge Mountains heavily influenced the sound. Bill Monroe, considered by many to be the father of bluegrass, began his recording career in Charlotte in 1936. Many of the most popular bands, such as the Hired Hands and Briarhoppers, regularly performed live on local television stations in Columbia, Spartanburg and Charlotte. Today, bluegrass festivals fill local calendars across the region. Author Gail Wilson-Giarratano uses interviews and the historic record to tell this unique and compelling story.

Wayne Erbsen's newest book takes a deep look at bluegrass music to uncover its true roots: ballads of early pioneers, Scots-Irish fiddle tunes, black spirituals, plantations melodies, blues, murder ballads, sentimental parlor songs from Tin Pan Alley, North Carolina banjo styles and gospel songs. the book is richly illustrated with over 100 vintage photos and includes lyrics, musical notation, chords, history and playing tips to 94 songs. There are also nearly 80 pages of history and profiles portraying important musicians including the Monroe Brothers, Carter Family, Bradley Kincaid, Riley Puckett, Charlie Poole, Wade & J.E. Mainer, Vernon Dalhart, Carolina Tar Heels, G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, Ernest V. Stoneman, Blue Sky Boys, Fiddlin' John Carson, Coon Creek Girls, Earl Scruggs, Eck Robertson, Callahan Brothers, Samantha Bumgarner, Bill Monroe Zeke & Wiley Morris, Jimmie Rodgers and Stringbean. Optional CD by Wayne Erbsen and Laura Boosinger is available containing fourteen songs from the book.

In 1934, WBT radio announcer Charles Crutchfield formed a spur-of-the-moment musical group to satisfy a potential sponsor looking for a "hillbilly" radio program to showcase its products. Known as the WBT Briarhoppers, this group went on to become one of the longest lasting bluegrass/country ensembles in America, staying on the air until 1951 and then continuing to perform. Compiled from firsthand interviews, this work tells the story of the WBT Briarhoppers, analyzing the band's history and its connection to the growth of American radio and radio advertising. Using the Briarhoppers as a common thread, it examines changes in culture and the group's contribution to country and bluegrass music. The work also discusses legendary performers including the Tennessee Ramblers, The Johnson Family, and Bill and Charlie Monroe. A discography is included.

Bluegrass music is an original characterization, simply called a 'representation, ' of traditional Appalachian music in its social form.

The Central Blue Ridge, taking in the mountainous regions of northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia, is well known for its musical traditions. Long recognized as one of the richest repositories of folksong in the United States, the Central Blue Ridge has also been a prolific source of commercial recording, starting in 1923 with Henry Whitter's "hillbilly" music and continuing into the 21st century with such chart-topping acts as James King, Ronnie Bowman and Doc Watson. Unrivaled in tradition, unequaled in acclaim and unprecedented in influence, the Central Blue Ridge can claim to have contributed to the musical landscape of Americana as much as or more than any other region in the United States. This reference work--part of McFarland's continuing series of Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies--provides complete biographical and discographical information on more than 75 traditional recording (major commercial label) artists who are natives of or lived mostly in the northwestern North Carolina counties of Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Surry, Watauga and Wilkes, and the southwestern Virginia counties of Carroll and Grayson. Primary recordings as well as appearances on anthologies are included in the discographies. A chronological overview of the music is provided in the Introduction, and the Foreword is by the celebrated musician Bobby Patterson, founder of the Mountain and Heritage record labels.

With an influx of Appalachian migrants who came looking for work in the 1940s and 1950s, Baltimore found itself populated by some extraordinary mountain musicians and was for a brief time the center of the bluegrass world. Life in Baltimore for these musicians was not easy. There were missed opportunities, personal demons and always the up-hill battle with prejudice against their hillbilly origins. Based upon interviews with legendary players from the golden age of Baltimore bluegrass, this book provides the first in-depth coverage of this transplanted-roots music and its broader influence, detailing the struggles Appalachian musicians faced in a big city that viewed the music they made as the "poorest example of poor man's music."

Beginning banjo lessons have never been more fun! Written for the absolute beginner, this FUN book is guaranteed to help you learn to play bluegrass banjo (How many books come with a personal guarantee by the author?). · Teaches the plain, naked melody to 23 easy bluegrass favorites without the rolls already incorporated into the tune. · Wayne shows simple ways to embellish each melody using easy rolls. · With Wayne’s unique method, you’ll learn to think for yourself! · Learn how to play a song in different ways, rather than memorizing ONE way. · Includes a link to download 99 instructional audio tracks off our website! You WILL learn to play: Bile ‘Em Cabbage Down, Blue Ridge Mountain Blues, Columbus Stockade Blues, Down the Road, Groundhog, Little Maggie, Long Journey Home, Lynchburg Town, Man of Constant Sorrow, My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Nine Pound Hammer, Palms of Victory, Pass Me Not, Poor Ellen Smith, Pretty Polly, Put My Little Shoes Away, Red River Valley, Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Shall We Gather at the River, Wabash Cannonball, When I Lay My Burden Down, When the Saints Go Marching In.

The twentieth anniversary paperback edition, updated with a new preface Winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association Distinguished Achievement Award and of the Country Music People Critics' Choice Award for Favorite Country Book of the Year Beginning with the musical cultures of the American South in the 1920s and 1930s, Bluegrass: A History traces the genre through its pivotal developments during the era of Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys in the forties. It describes early bluegrass's role in postwar country music, its trials following the appearance of rock and roll, its embracing by the folk music revival, and the invention of bluegrass festivals in the mid_sixties. Neil V. Rosenberg details the transformation of this genre into a self-sustaining musical industry in the seventies and eighties is detailed and, in a supplementary preface written especially for this new edition, he surveys developments in the bluegrass world during the last twenty years. Featuring an amazingly extensive bibliography, discography, notes, and index, this book is one of the most complete and thoroughly researched books on bluegrass ever written.

Legions of bluegrass fans know the name Otto Wood (1893–1930) from a ballad made popular by Doc Watson, telling the story of Wood's crimes and violent death. However, few know the history of this Appalachian figure beyond the larger-than-life version heard in song. Trevor McKenzie reconstructs Wood's life, tracing how a Wilkes County juvenile delinquent became a celebrated folk hero. Throughout his short life, Wood was jailed for numerous offenses, stole countless automobiles, lost his left hand, and made eleven escapes from five state penitentiaries, including four from the North Carolina State Prison after a 1923 murder conviction. An early master of controlling his own narrative in the media, Wood appealed to the North Carolina public as a misunderstood, clever antihero. In 1930, after a final jailbreak, police killed Wood in a shootout. The ballad bearing his name first appeared less than a year later. Using reports of Wood's exploits from contemporary newspapers, his self-published autobiography, prison records, and other primary sources, Trevor McKenzie uses this colorful story to offer a new way to understand North Carolina—and arguably the South as a whole—during this era of American history.

A collection of interviews, profiles, conversations and quotes with the biggest names in bluegrass, mountain and string music.