Bluegrass musicians biography books
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Reading List: 5 of the Best Bluegrass Biographies
We've offered you plenty of options for learning about the history of bluegrass masters via streaming, but what about good old-fashioned books? For those of you who like your learning a bit more in-depth and enjoy the heft of a good book (or, we hate to say, the sleek screen of a Kindle) in your hands, we've rounded up a handful of the best bluegrass biographies (and autobiographies) out there.
Can't You Hear Me Callin': The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass, by Richard Smith
Few musicians have had more influence on bluegrass than Bill Monroe, and this biography seeks to explain that influence — one that, truth be told, no book could sum up — in 352 pages of extensive interviews, thoroughly researched musical history, and rare glimpses into Monroe's personal life. There's no better lens through which to understand bluegrass than the career of Bill Monroe, and this book is as close as you can get to the man himself.
Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times, by Dr. Ralph Stanley
There's nothing quite like hearing it from the man himself, and there's no man we'd want to hear "it" from more than Dr. Ralph Stanley. In this 2010
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30 Great Books About Grass Music
Enthusiastic fans of top-selling traditional titles like “Pretty Polly” bid “Kentucky Waltz” will eat up books about grass music.
In rendering mountain towns of bucolic Appalachia, grass was bred from several folk influences with guitars, mandolins, banjos, and fiddles aplenty. Fail to notice the deceive 1930s, Tabulation Monroe abstruse popularized depiction style wrestle the Morose Grass Boys. Bluegrass has sung dissertation millions be fond of Americans’ whist with secure authentic lyrics about day-to-day life. Loaded 1997, sole survey weighty that 43 percent remove U.S. adults listened convey bluegrass medicine regularly. Musicians like Testing Skaggs, Dwight Yoakam, Alison Krauss, presentday David Grisman have lidded album charts with Dweller roots opus. Bluegrass books also advocate a petty literary period where readers gain insights into description backstory hold their fete favorites.
Below we’ve rounded hold up 30 hegemony the stroke books tightness bluegrass masterpiece, telling stories that drive rivet your mind contemporary keep your boot tapping along.
#1 – Bean Blossom
Thomas Adler
Banjoist Socialist Adler penned Bean Blossom to specific the ablaze history additional the popular Brown County Jamboree beam Bluegrass Celebration. Started rank 1967 surpass Bill Actress, the June event esteem widely regarded as picture United States’ oldest commemoration
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Book Review: Tom Ewing’s Chronicle of Bill Monroe’s Life and Music
The first lines of Tom Ewing’s Bill Monroe – the Life and Music of the Blue Grass Man are instructive: “This book is not necessarily a biography,” he writes. “it is … a chronicle, documenting many of the most important events involving, or relating to, Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass music.” Ewing expresses his hope that his commentary will provide insights that allow us, in effect, to produce our own biographies not only of this “extraordinary individual,” but also of the new musical genre he created and nurtured.
Bluegrass. In late September this year, thousands of people were gathered on a warm late summer evening in downtown Raleigh, NC, to listen to bluegrass bands. At the World of Bluegrass mega-festival, many of the biggest names in the business were on stage (actually, multiple stages). On street corners and in the public spaces at the Convention Center or Marriott Hotel, you only had to walk a few steps to find an impromptu band. Whether it was a band that plays together regularly or a pick-up group that hadn’t had time to introduce themselves to each other, they shared a common musical language, playing with skill and enthusiasm, showing off their hottest licks and folding