75 Years & Counting

The year 2020 was proclaimed by many as the 75th anniversary of the birth of bluegrass, a time that celebrated when the stars aligned in 1945 to provide Bill Monroe with an all-star cast of pickers and singers in his Blue Grass Boys band. At the top of the list were smooth Tennessee-born vocalist and rhythm guitarist Lester Flatt and a dazzling North Carolina banjo picker by the name of Earl Scruggs. Also in the mix were Florida swing fiddler Chubby Wise and bass players Howard Watts and Birch Monroe (Bill’s brother). It was this grouping of Bill Monroe’s outfit that was most-often emulated in the 1940s and ‘50s when up-and-coming bands wanted to adopt what became known as the bluegrass sound. Bluegrass historian Neil Rosenberg observed that until another band copied Monroe’s performance style, it was purely one man, one band, performing his/its unique style of music. It wasn’t until another group, the Stanley Brothers, began emulating Monroe’s music that it moved from b