Famous Bluegrass Music Groups

Bluegrass music emerged from the hills of the Appalachian Mountains. It consisted of guitar, fiddle, bass guitar, and dobro music. The first commercial recording was done by A.C. (Eck) Robertson in 1922. In June of 1923, a man by the name of Fiddlin' John Carson made a recording for Oken Records. The first bluegrass singer to be recorded was Vernon Dalhart. The first female singers to be recorded were "Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis.

In 1927 Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family became famous and they recorded 300 songs. These included country songs, Gospel hymns, jazz, blues, pop, cowboy, and folk. All these styles are included in bluegrass. Johnny Cash joined the group and married June Carter.

1925 saw the start of the radio show called the Grand Ole Opry. Some of the first to be on the Opry were Uncle Dave Macon, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and no one can forget Minnie Pearl and her imagined "Uncle Ahab", her hat with the tag still on it, and her unforgettable "How--Dee!" The Opry, as it is called, is still going in bigger and better facilities. It began the "golden age" of country and bluegrass music.

Boogie Woogie worked its way into bluegrass with such stars as the Delmore Brothers, Arthur Smith, Merrill Moore and the unforgettable Tennessee Ernie Ford singing "Sixteen Tons" which supported the coal mining community.

After World War II Billboard dropped the term "hillbilly". They changed it to "folk songs and blues". Then Bill Monroe joined Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs along with Roy Acuff at the Opry. Homer and Jethro were popular on the Opry also, and Elvis Presley who was a great fan of bluegrass and country folk music.