Bill Monroe
The Kentucky mandolin player who invented an entire kind of American music, then spent sixty years defending it note for note.
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The Stanley Brothers
Carter and Ralph Stanley turned mournful mountain harmony and old-time banjo into one of the founding sounds of bluegrass. Start with the Mercury recordings and let the high lonesome do its slow work.
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Doc Watson
How a blind guitarist from the Blue Ridge turned mountain fiddle tunes into a new language for the flat-top guitar. The quiet giant that a whole tradition of pickers still measures itself against.
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Tony Rice
The most influential flatpicking guitarist in the history of bluegrass, a player of impossible clarity and swing who rewrote what an acoustic guitar could do.
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Billy Strings
The kid from small-town Michigan who ran Doc Watson and Bill Monroe through heavy metal and the Grateful Dead, and became the biggest thing to happen to bluegrass in a generation.
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Molly Tuttle
A California flatpicking prodigy turned Grammy-winning bandleader, Molly Tuttle makes bluegrass feel wide open and new. Start with Crooked Tree and follow the picking.
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Sierra Ferrell
A train-hopping West Virginia busker who turned old-time music, country swing, and gypsy-jazz phrasing into a sound all her own, from the road to the Opry and a sweep of Grammys.
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Watchhouse
The Chapel Hill duo of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz, formerly Mandolin Orange, making patient, harmony-soaked folk rooted in old-time and bluegrass. Start with Tides of a Teardrop.
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Greensky Bluegrass
A five-piece string band from Michigan that plugged bluegrass instruments into the rock and roll ethos and turned acoustic music into a festival-filling force.
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Garcia / Grisman
In his last years Jerry set down the electric guitar and made warm, intimate acoustic music with mandolin master David Grisman, an old friend from his bluegrass youth.
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The Pizza Tapes
Three acoustic masters, a living room, and a pile of old folk and bluegrass songs: one loose, joyful, joke-filled session that became a word-of-mouth classic.
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AJ Lee & Blue Summit
A Santa Cruz band led by mandolin prodigy and award-winning singer AJ Lee, blending high-lonesome bluegrass with swing, country, and warm Americana.
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The Faux Paws
A genre-bending American roots trio built around brothers Andrew and Noah VanNorstrand with multi-instrumentalist Chris Miller, mixing fiddle, guitar, and saxophone across old-time, bluegrass, and dance traditions.
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Mama Said String Band
Mama Said String Band is a contemporary American bluegrass and string band playing original acoustic music on banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, and upright bass across four studio albums.
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Bronwyn Keith-Hynes
An award-winning bluegrass fiddler and the featured fiddle player in Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, whose clean, driving tone anchors both her own records, led by Fiddler's Pastime, and a long list of collaborations.
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Nickel Creek
Three child prodigies grown into the most inventive acoustic trio of their generation, bending bluegrass into something wide open. Start with This Side.
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Mipso
Four University of North Carolina friends turning front-porch string-band music into dreamier, atmospheric americana. Start with Edges Run.
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Sarah Jarosz
A Texas prodigy on the octave mandolin turned multi-Grammy-winning roots songwriter, warm and literate. Start with World on the Ground.
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I'm With Her
Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O'Donovan in luminous three-part harmony and shared songwriting. Start with See You Around.
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