47 Fun Facts About Bluegrass

Which film made the bluegrass instrumental 'Dueling Banjos' a hit?

Deliverance. The film credited the tune to its performers, so its composer Arthur Smith, who had written it in the 1950s as 'Feudin' Banjos', sued Warner Bros. and won his name back.

Which Osborne Brothers bluegrass hit became an official state song of Tennessee?

Rocky Top. Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, the couple behind the Everly Brothers' 'Bye Bye Love', wrote it in 1967, and the University of Tennessee's band has played it at games since the 1970s.

Which instrument was Bill Monroe's trademark?

Mandolin. His older brothers had already claimed the instruments they wanted, so the youngest of eight took what was left, then turned it into a lead instrument.

Earl Scruggs popularised a three-finger picking style on which instrument?

Banjo. In country bands it had mostly been a comedian's prop; Scruggs's rapid three-finger rolls made it a lead voice and caused a sensation when he joined Bill Monroe's band in 1945.

In which region of the United States did bluegrass develop in the 1940s?

Appalachia. Its mountain string bands had long mixed the ballads and dance tunes of British and Irish settlers with African American blues, the blend Bill Monroe sped up into bluegrass.

Bill Monroe named his band for the bluegrass of which state, his home?

Kentucky, the Bluegrass State. He called his band the Blue Grass Boys in its honour, and the band's name later passed to the whole style of music.

Which Flatt and Scruggs instrumental was used throughout the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde?

Foggy Mountain Breakdown. The 1949 recording backs the film's getaway scenes, which made the old tune popular all over again and won Flatt and Scruggs a Grammy.

Flatt and Scruggs hit number one with the theme to which TV sitcom?

The Beverly Hillbillies. 'The Ballad of Jed Clampett' was the duo's only country number one, and they turned up on the show themselves, playing old friends of the Clampetts.

Which of these instruments is a standard part of a traditional bluegrass band?

Upright bass. Traditional bluegrass is all acoustic strings with no drummer, and bands that later added drums, piano or electric instruments were given a label of their own: 'newgrass'.

Which word completes the phrase long used for Bill Monroe's piercing singing, the 'high ___ sound'?

Lonesome. The phrase stuck to Monroe after a 1966 compilation of his early Decca singles was titled The High, Lonesome Sound.

Which star covered Bill Monroe's most famous song as the B-side of his first Sun Records single?

Elvis Presley. In July 1954 his trio took Monroe's slow waltz and sped it into a bluesy rocker, an early rockabilly record, for the flip side of 'That's All Right'.

Alison Krauss has long fronted which bluegrass band?

Union Station. Krauss joined as a teenager when songwriter John Pennell led it, and by the first album they made together, in 1989, the band was hers.

Bill Monroe auditioned in 1939 for a regular spot on which radio show?

Grand Ole Opry. A breakneck 'Mule Skinner Blues' won over the show's founder, George D. Hay, and Monroe stayed a member until his death in 1996.

Which instrument did Lester Flatt play in Bill Monroe's band?

Guitar. Flatt's solid rhythm playing set the timing for bluegrass, and his warm lead singing anchored the band's defining records of the late 1940s.

Which old song becomes a radio hit for George Clooney's band in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Man of Constant Sorrow. Clooney only mimed it: the lead voice belongs to bluegrass singer Dan Tyminski, whose recording went on to win a Grammy and a CMA award.

Bill Monroe founded an annual bluegrass festival in 1967 at Bean Blossom, in which state?

Indiana. Monroe had bought the country music park at Bean Blossom back in 1951, and the festival he launched there became one of the longest-running in bluegrass.

Which future Grateful Dead guitarist drove across the country in 1964 to follow Bill Monroe's shows?

Jerry Garcia. He and bandmate Sandy Rothman taped Monroe's concerts but never got up the nerve to ask for a job in his band; Rothman later toured with it, while Garcia went electric.

Which older style did Earl Scruggs's three-finger picking largely displace?

Clawhammer. The player strikes down on the strings with the back of a fingernail; once Scruggs's rolls took over, it survived on stage through a few holdouts such as Grandpa Jones.

Bill Monroe's song 'Uncle Pen' honours an uncle who played which instrument at dances?

Fiddle. Pen Vandiver took in his orphaned teenage nephew, and the pair earned much-needed money playing for local dances, an apprenticeship Monroe later set to music.

Lester Flatt balked at singing songs by which writer, a factor in his 1969 split from Earl Scruggs?

Bob Dylan. Their label pushed folk-rock material on the duo; Scruggs, keen to play modern music with his sons, welcomed it, while Flatt left to lead a traditional band.

Bill Monroe invited which future country star on stage as a small boy?

Ricky Skaggs. He had been playing for less than a year; he was soon a guest on Flatt and Scruggs's television show, and in his teens he was hired into Ralph Stanley's band.

Béla Fleck, later leader of the Flecktones, spent most of the 1980s in which bluegrass band?

New Grass Revival. Led by Sam Bush, its long-haired players folded rock, jazz and reggae into bluegrass, and some traditionalists shunned them for it.

Which country superstar won the Best Bluegrass Album Grammy for her 1999 album The Grass Is Blue?

Dolly Parton. With country radio cooling on her, she went back to the mountain music of her childhood, and bluegrass's own trade association named the result its Album of the Year.

Alison Krauss made the platinum album Raising Sand with which English rock singer?

Robert Plant. Producer T Bone Burnett chose mostly obscure songs for the Led Zeppelin singer and Krauss, and their 2007 album went on to win Album of the Year.

'Dobro' is another name for which instrument often heard in bluegrass?

Resonator guitar. Josh Graves brought it into bluegrass in 1955: Flatt and Scruggs had hired him as a bassist and comedian, then quickly moved him to the Dobro full-time.

In a standard bluegrass harmony 'stack', which voice sits on top?

Tenor. The lead carries the melody in the middle with the baritone beneath it, and because Bill Monroe sang the top part himself, a piercing tenor became the mark of the style.

Which 2012 Belgian film put Flemish bluegrass musicians at the centre of its story?

The Broken Circle Breakdown. Its actors performed all the band's music themselves, then took the songs on a concert tour as the soundtrack album sold well.

Earl Scruggs won a Grammy for a 2001 remake of his signature tune featuring which comedian?

Steve Martin. A serious picker since his teens, he joined Scruggs on the all-star remake and later won another Grammy for a bluegrass album of his own.

Which California country-rock group made a landmark 1972 album with Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff and Mother Maybelle Carter?

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Earl Scruggs helped persuade Nashville's old guard to record with the young Californians, and the album became a bridge between two generations of country music.

Carlton Haney staged the first weekend-long bluegrass festival in 1965 on a horse farm near which Virginia city?

Roanoke. Over Labor Day weekend Haney gathered Bill Monroe and other leading bands at Cantrell's Horse Farm in nearby Fincastle, and the multi-day format he tried there became the standard for bluegrass festivals.

Whose 1948 recording of 'Molly and Tenbrooks' arguably marked bluegrass becoming a distinct style?

The Stanley Brothers. They learned the song from Monroe's radio shows and released their copy before his own recording came out, which annoyed him but proved his sound was a style others could play.

Carter and Ralph Stanley's backing band was called what?

The Clinch Mountain Boys. The name honours the Virginia mountains where the brothers were born; when Carter died in 1966 few expected shy Ralph to carry on, but he led the band for decades more.

What did Lester Flatt call the traditional band he formed after splitting with Scruggs?

The Nashville Grass. Flatt kept many of his old sidemen and later hired a 13-year-old picker who had sat in with the band at a Delaware show: future country star Marty Stuart.

Which Washington, D.C. band began mixing folk songs, jazz and film themes into bluegrass around 1960?

The Country Gentlemen. 'We didn't care to sound like the rest,' said founder Charlie Waller, and their nights at a Georgetown club won bluegrass a new audience among the capital's folk fans.

Bill Monroe was badly hurt in a 1953 car wreck while returning home from what activity?

A fox hunt. A drunk driver hit his car on the highway north of Nashville, and it was almost four months before Monroe could tour again.

Bill Monroe won his 1939 radio audition with 'Mule Skinner Blues', a song by which singer?

Jimmie Rodgers. The 'Singing Brakeman' recorded it in 1930 as one of his blue yodels; Monroe's energetic remake became his trademark, so the father of country music supplied the father of bluegrass's calling card.

Bill Monroe's trademark 1923 'Lloyd Loar' instrument was built by which company?

Gibson. Lloyd Loar designed instruments for the Kalamazoo firm in the 1920s, and after Monroe made the F-5 famous, the examples Loar had signed became the most prized of their kind.

Which Dobro player, heard on well over a thousand recordings, later joined Alison Krauss's band?

Jerry Douglas. He was touring with a leading bluegrass band before he had finished high school, joined it full-time on graduating, and became the most prolific Dobro player in the business.

Which label signed Alison Krauss when she was 14?

Rounder Records. Three friends had started it in 1970 to record old-time and bluegrass music that might otherwise go unrecorded, and Krauss soon brought the label a Grammy.

Earl Scruggs was born in which state, where a museum now honours him?

North Carolina. He was born at Flint Hill, near Shelby, where the Earl Scruggs Center now stands, and he spent the war years working in a textile mill before he made music his living.

Which former Blue Grass Boy built a celebrated family band around his sons Ronnie and Rob?

Del McCoury. Bill Monroe hired him in 1963 to pick one instrument, then handed him another and made him lead singer, because Bill Keith had been given the first job a few days earlier.

Which blind guitarist did folklorist Ralph Rinzler bring to the folk revival before he managed Bill Monroe?

Doc Watson. Rinzler met him in 1960, when he was earning a living in an electric country dance band, and steered him back to the acoustic mountain music that won him rave reviews at Newport.

The Monroe Brothers' first hit record, in 1936, was what kind of song?

A gospel song. 'What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul?' sold well for Bill and his brother Charlie, but the pair quarrelled and split just two years later, each to lead his own band.

Which singer, later billed as the 'King of Bluegrass', slipped backstage in 1949 and sang his way into Bill Monroe's band?

Jimmy Martin. The 22-year-old rode a bus to Nashville on hearing that Monroe's lead singer was leaving, was overheard singing by one of the band, and was on the road with them a week later.

Who was the fiddler in Bill Monroe's 1946–48 line-up, later dubbed the 'original bluegrass band'?

Chubby Wise. He had driven taxis by day in Jacksonville, Florida, and played music by night before joining Monroe; he later spent years in country star Hank Snow's band.

Which flatpicking guitar great stopped singing in 1994 after a disorder damaged his voice?

Tony Rice. Muscle tension dysphonia took his rich baritone, so he gave up singing on stage and carried on as an instrumentalist, his picking as revered as ever.

Which city houses the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum?

Owensboro. The International Bluegrass Music Association made the Ohio River city its first base; its offices later moved to Nashville, but the museum and its Hall of Fame stayed.