• Acoustic guitar
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• Beanblossom, Indiana
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• 
  

• 
  Beanblossom, Indiana
  Beanblossom, also spelled Bean Blossom, is an unincorporated town in Jackson Township, Brown County, Indiana. The town was named for the nearby Beanblossom Creek, which was in turn named for a person whose surname was Beanblossom.
  Bean Blossom is best known as the home of the Bill Monroe Memorial Music Park and Campground, a 55-acre (220,000 m²) wooded campground which for more than 60 years has hosted music performances (mostly country and bluegrass),^{[citation needed]} first at the Brown County Jamboree barn and currently at outdoor stages. A bluegrass festival (currently called the Bill Monroe Memorial Festival) has been held every June since 1967 and is the longest continuously-running bluegrass festival in the world.^{[citation needed]}
  In 2008, a charitable foundation was formed, called the Bean Blossom - Brown County Jamboree Preservation Foundation, with a mission of acquiring the Bill Monroe Memorial Music Park and Campground to promote the traditional music played at that site, preserve the historical landmark, and foster development and civic pride in Brown County, Indiana.
  
  wn.com/Beanblossom,_Indiana
• 
  Grand Ole Opry
  The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings November 28, 1925, as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM. Dedicated to honoring country music and its history, the Opry showcases a mix of legends and contemporary chart-toppers performing country, bluegrass, folk, gospel, and comedic performances and skits. Considered an American icon, it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world and millions of radio and Internet listeners. The Opry, today part of the American landscape, is "the show that made country music famous" and has been called the "home of American music" and "country’s most famous stage."
  In the 1930s, the show began hiring professionals and expanded to four hours; and WSM-AM, broadcasting by then with 50,000 watts, made the program a Saturday night musical tradition in nearly 30 states. In 1939, it debuted nationally on NBC Radio. The Opry moved to a permanent home, the Ryman Auditorium, in 1943. As it developed in importance, so did the city of Nashville, which became America's "country music capital".
  
  wn.com/Grand_Ole_Opry
• 
  Kentucky
  Kentucky (ⁱ/kɨnˈtʌki/), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the Upper South of the United States. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth (the others being Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts). Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.
  Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, because of the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park; the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States; and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River. It is also home to the highest per capita number of deer and turkey in the United States, the largest free-ranging elk herd east of Montana, and the nation's most productive coalfield. Kentucky is also known for horse racing, bourbon distilleries, bluegrass music, automobile manufacturing, tobacco and college basketball.
  
  wn.com/Kentucky
• 
  Nashville, Tennessee
  Nashville is the capital of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home to a large number of colleges and universities. It is most notably known as a center of the music industry, earning it the nickname "Music City".
  Nashville has a consolidated city–county government which includes seven smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. As of the 2010 census the population of the city of Nashville, not including the semi-independent municipalities, stood at 601,222. The population of Davidson County as a whole, including all municipalities, was 626,681. Nashville is the second largest city in Tennessee, after Memphis, and the fourth largest city in the Southeastern United States. The 2010 population of the entire 13-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,589,934, making it the largest Metropolitan Statistical Area in the state. The 2010 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 1,670,890.
  
  wn.com/Nashville,_Tennessee
• 
  Rosine, Kentucky
  Rosine is an unincorporated town in Ohio County, Kentucky, United States. Bill Monroe, The Father of Bluegrass, is not only buried in the town but also memorialized with a bronze cast disk affixed to the barn where his music remains alive. The community was named for the pen name of Jenny Taylor McHenry, poet and wife of founder Henry D. McHenry. The ZIP Code is 42370 and the area code is 270. The nearest towns are Baizetown, Horse Branch, and Beaver Dam, and the nearest major cities are Owensboro and Bowling Green. The community sits at an elevation of 429 feet.
  There are no schools in Rosine. Students from Rosine attend Horse Branch Elementary School, Ohio County Middle School, and Ohio County High School. Nearby private schools include Sugar Grove Christian Academy and Ohio County Christian Academy. The nearest colleges and universities are in Owensboro.
  U.S. Route 62 passes through Rosine. The town is north of the Wendell H Ford Western Kentucky Parkway and east of the William H Natcher / Green River Parkway.
  
  wn.com/Rosine,_Kentucky
• 
  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States

• Bill Monroe
  William Smith Monroe (September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American musician who created the style of music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from his band, the "Blue Grass Boys," named for Monroe's home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader. He is often referred to as The Father of Bluegrass.
  Monroe was born on his family's farm near Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children of James Buchanan "Buck" and Malissa (Vandiver) Monroe. His mother and her brother, Pendleton "Pen" Vandiver, were both musically talented, and Monroe and his family grew up playing and singing at home. Bill was of Scottish heritage. Because his older brothers Birch and Charlie already played the fiddle and guitar, Bill Monroe was resigned to playing the less desirable mandolin. He recalled that his brothers insisted he remove four of the mandolin's eight strings so he would not play too loudly.
  Monroe's mother died when he was ten, followed by his father six years later. As his brothers and sisters had moved away, after bouncing among uncles and aunts, Monroe settled in with his disabled uncle Pendleton Vandiver, often accompanying him when Vandiver played the fiddle at dances. This experience inspired one of Monroe's most famous compositions, "Uncle Pen," recorded in 1950, and the 1972 album, "Bill Monroe's Uncle Pen." On that album, Monroe recorded a number of traditional fiddle tunes he had often heard performed by Vandiver. Uncle Pen has been credited with giving Monroe "a repertoire of tunes that sank into Bill's aurally trained memory and a sense of rhythm that seeped into his bones." Also significant in Monroe's musical life was Arnold Shultz, an influential fiddler and guitarist who introduced Monroe to the blues.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Monroe
• 
  Bob Wills
  James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975), better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western swing, he was universally known as the King of Western Swing.
  Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin, who played steel guitar and bass. The band played regularly on a Tulsa, Oklahoma radio station, and added Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn section that expanded the band's sound. Wills favored jazz-like arrangements and the band found national popularity into the 1940s with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag", "New San Antonio Rose", "Smoke on the Water", "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima", and "New Spanish Two Step".
  Wills and the Texas Playboys recorded with several publishers and companies, including Vocalion, Okeh, Columbia, and MGM, frequently moving. In 1950, he had two top ten hits, "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" and "Faded Love", which were his last hits for a decade. Throughout the 1950s, he struggled with poor health and tenuous finances, but continued to perform frequently despite the decline in popularity of his earlier music as rock and roll took over. Wills had a heart attack in 1962 and a second one the next year, which forced him to disband the Playboys although Wills continued to perform solo.
  
  wn.com/Bob_Wills
• Bobby Hicks
  Bobby Hicks (b. July 21, 1933) is a Grammy Award winning bluegrass fiddler and a professional musician with more than fifty years of experience.
  Hicks was born in Newton, North Carolina and learned to play the fiddle before he was 9 years old. He attended several fiddlers conventions and at the age of eleven, he won the "North Carolina State Championship" playing the tune "Black Mountain Rag". He joined Jim Eanes band in the early fifties. In 1953, he was, through the bluegrass festivals arranger Carlton Haney, hired as a bass player in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. He did not record with the Bluegrass Boys until December 31, 1954, by then he had switched to fiddle. During this period, he learned to play "Nashville swing" by the session fiddler Dale Potter, a style hicks often used when playing with Bill Monroe on the road. Monroe dubbed Hicks "the truest fiddler he had ever heard". He recorded seven tunes with Monroe but had to quit in 1956 to join the army. In 1958, after his discharge, he rejoined the Bluegrass Boys, recording ten more songs. He left in 1959 to join Porter Wagoner. Later in 1963, he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and became a fixture on the Judy Lynn Show for the next seven years. In 1981, he joined Ricky Skaggs, a stint that would last for 23 years. In the mid and late 1980s, he frequently performed with Bill Monroe on stage and on records. He was inducted into the "Fiddlers Hall of Fame" in 2002. He appeared as a member of "Jesse McReynolds and the Virginia Boys" in 2003. The next year, he performed with "Hazel Creek". In 2004, he celebrated 50 years at the Grand Ole Opry.
  
  wn.com/Bobby_Hicks
• Byron Berline
  Byron Berline (born July 6, 1944 Caldwell, Kansas) is an American fiddle player. He is widely recognized as one of the world's premiere fiddle players, known for his ability to play almost any style within the vast American tradition -- from old-time to ragtime, bluegrass, Cajun, country, rock, and beyond.
  He started playing the fiddle at age five and quickly developed a talent for it. In 1965, he recorded the album Pickin' and Fiddlin' with the Dillards. The same year, he met Bill Monroe at the Newport Folk Festival and was offered a job with the Bluegrass Boys but he turned it down because he had to finish his education. He was graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1967, with a teaching degree in Physical Education, and joined the Bluegrass Boys shortly after.
  Byron Berline first met Bill Monroe in 1965 and was offered a job then. It wasn't until 1967 that he actually joined the band, though, replacing Richard Greene in March and leaving to go into the Army in September. He recorded three instrumentals with the Blue Grass Boys, including "Gold Rush" which he cowrote with Monroe, and which has become a jam session standard.
  
  wn.com/Byron_Berline
• Carter Stanley
  Carter Glen Stanley (August 27, 1925 – December 1, 1966) was a bluegrass music lead singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitar player. He formed the Stanley Brothers band together with his brother Ralph. The Stanley Brothers are generally acknowledged as the first band after Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys to play in the bluegrass genre. According to some historians, their recording of "Molly and Tenbrooks" (aka "The Racehorse Song") marked the beginning of bluegrass as a genre.
  Stanley was born in Big Spraddle Creek in Dickenson County, Virginia. The son of Lucy and Lee Stanley, Carter grew up in rural southwestern Virginia. In 1946 he and his brother Ralph formed the Stanley Brothers, one of the most respected and influential bands in the new genre of bluegrass music. Carter played guitar and sang lead while Ralph played banjo and sang with a strong, high tenor voice. Their harmonies are much admired, and many consider Carter Stanley to be one of the greatest natural singers in the history of country music. Carter also composed more than a hundred songs, and many of them remain standards in the bluegrass genre. He had a particular knack for deceptively simple lyrics that portrayed strong emotion. His most famous compositions include "White Dove" and "The Fields Have Turned Brown." His arrangement of "Man of Constant Sorrow" was popularized in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  
  wn.com/Carter_Stanley
• Charlie Cline
  Charles "Charlie" Cline (born June 6, 1931 Baisden, West Virginia - died November 19, 2004), was an American bluegrass fiddler and multi-instrumentalist, known for being the sideman of several legendary bluegrass groups from the 1950s and well into the 1980s.
  Cline learned to play the fiddle properly from Fiddlin' Arthur Smith about 1940. In the late 1940s, Cline became a member of the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, a radio band formed in 1937 and based in Bluefield, West Virginia, consisting of his brothers, Curly Ray Cline and Ned Cline, his cousin Ezra Cline, and Larry Richardson. Banjo player Richardson had been offered a job with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in the early 1950s, and was instrumental in bringing Charlie Cline into the group. Cline recorded 32 songs with the Bluegrass Boys between 1952 and 1955. In the following years, he continued to perform with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, The Stanley Brothers, The Osborne Brothers and Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys. In 1986, he appeared with the Warrior River Boys. Cline died in 2004 at Shadescrest Healthcare Center in Jasper, Alabama.
  
  wn.com/Charlie_Cline
• Charlie Monroe
  Charlie Monroe (July 4, 1903 – September 27, 1975) was an American country and bluegrass music guitarist.
  Monroe was born on his family's farm in Rosine, Kentucky; he was the older brother of the mandolin player Bill Monroe. His sister Bertha also played guitar, and brother Birch, fiddle. Charlie, Birch, and Bill played together as a band in the middle of the 1920s, and played on radio starting in 1927. Soon after this, however, their parents died and Charlie and Birch moved to Detroit and then Indiana to find work, eventually taking jobs in oil refineries near Hammond, Indiana. Bill followed them into the oil business in 1929, and the three continued performing in small-time and private venues.
  Tom Owens, a musician on the WSL Barn Dance radio program, heard them play at a dance club in 1932 and asked them to join his group as dancers. They accepted, and toured with Owens for the next two years. In 1934, they once again got offers to play music, this time for Indiana radio stations WAE and WJKS. Not long after this, Texas Crystals, a pharmaceutical company, offered to sponsor the Monroes for a radio program of their own. When Birch refused the offer, Bill and Charlie took the bill as The Monroe Brothers. The resulting program was so successful that it eventually became a daily broadcast on Charlotte, North Carolina station WBT.
  
  wn.com/Charlie_Monroe
• Chubby Wise
  Robert Russell "Chubby" Wise (October 2, 1915, Lake City, Florida - January 6, 1996) was an American bluegrass fiddler.
  Wise began playing fiddle at age 15, working locally in the Jacksonville area. He joined the Jubilee Hillbillies in 1938, then began playing with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1942, including dates at the Grand Ole Opry. He worked with Monroe through 1948, then played with Clyde Moody in 1948-49. He also played with the York Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, and Connie B. Gay.
  In 1954, Wise became a member of Hank Snow's Rainbow Ranch Boys, again appearing at the Grand Ole Opry; he remained with the group until 1970. Alongside this he worked as a session musician with Mac Wiseman and Red Allen, among others.
  Wise returned to Florida in 1984 and went into semi-retirement, though he continued to tour and record occasionally, such as with the Bass Mountain Boys in 1992.
  He joined producers Randall Franks and Alan Autry for the In the Heat of the Night (TV Series) cast CD “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” performing "Christmas Time's A Comin'" with the cast on the CD released on Sonlite and MGM/UA for one of the most popular Christmas releases of 1991 and 1992 with Southern retailers. Franks occasionally joined Wise performing twin fiddle with him on his shows.
  
  wn.com/Chubby_Wise
• Clyde Moody
  Clyde Moody (September 19, 1915 – April 7, 1989), also known as the "Hillbilly Waltz King" and sometimes as "The Genial Gentleman of Country Music" was one the great founders of American Bluegrass music.
  Born in Cherokee, North Carolina, Moody got his start in the late 1938 in the string band J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers. In September 1940 he joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys on the Grand Ole Opry. He appeared on Monroe's first solo recording session for RCA Victor's Bluebird label on October 7th of that year, playing guitar and singing lead vocals and bass on the Blue Grass Quartet's first recording ("Cryin' Holy Unto My Lord"). He was featured on that session singing "Six White Horses", a blues-based original. He also has the rare distinction of having played mandolin on a Blue Grass Boys session, as he provided the rhythm chops on "Mule Skinner Blues" and "Dog House Blues", while Monroe played guitar - the only instance where a Blue Grass Boy other than Monroe played mandolin at a Bill Monroe recording session. Upon his departure from the Blue Grass Boys in 1944, he remained at WSM and the Opry for several years as a solo artist. In 1952, he recorded as a member of the Brown's Ferry Four with The Delmore Brothers on King Records. He later played at the first Bluegrass Festival at Fincastle, Virginia, in 1965.
  
  wn.com/Clyde_Moody
• David Akeman
  David Akeman (June 17, 1916 – November 10, 1973), better known as Stringbean (or String Bean), was an American country music banjo player and comedy musician best known for his role on the hit television show, Hee Haw, and as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Akeman and his wife were murdered by burglars at their rural Tennessee home in 1973.
  Born in Annville, Jackson County, Kentucky, Akeman came from a musical family. He was taught to play the banjo by his father, James Roy Akemon. He got his first real banjo when he was 12 years old in exchange for a pair of prize bantam chickens. Akeman began playing at local dances and gained a reputation as a musician, but the income was not enough to live on. He joined the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, building roads and planting trees.
  Eventually, he entered a talent contest judged by singer-guitarist-musical saw player Asa Martin. He won and was invited to join Martin's band. During an early appearance, Martin forgot Akeman's name and introduced him as "String Bean" because of his tall, thin build. Akeman used the nickname the rest of his life.
  
  wn.com/David_Akeman
• 
  Del McCoury
  Delano Floyd McCoury (born February 1, 1939 in York, PA) is an American bluegrass musician. As leader of the Del McCoury Band, he plays guitar and sings lead vocals along with his two sons, Ronnie McCoury and Rob McCoury, who play mandolin and banjo respectively. In June 2010, he received a National Heritage Fellowship lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts and in 2011 he was elected into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
  McCoury has had a long career in bluegrass. Although originally hired as banjo player, he sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar for Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1963, with whom he first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry. McCoury briefly appeared with the Golden State Boys in 1964 before taking a series of day jobs in construction and logging, while continuing to work as an amateur musician in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
  In the 1980s his sons began performing with him. Fiddler Tad Marks and bass player Mike Brantley joined McCoury's group in early 1990s. McCoury's group toured widely throughout the US. They relocated to Nashville, Tennessee as they began to attract attention. Fiddler Jason Carter and bassist Mike Bub joined in 1992. Alan Bartram joined the band as bassist in 2005. McCoury became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in October 2003.
  
  wn.com/Del_McCoury
• 
  Doc Watson
  Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded. He performed with his son Merle for over 15 years until Merle's death in 1985, in an accident on the family farm.
  Watson was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina. According to Watson on his three-CD biographical recording Legacy, he got the nickname "Doc" during a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname. A fan in the crowd shouted "Call him Doc!" presumably in reference to the literary character Sherlock Holmes's sidekick Doctor Watson. The name stuck ever since.
  An eye infection caused Doc Watson to lose his vision before his first birthday. Despite this, he was taught by his parents to work hard and care for himself. He attended North Carolina's school for the visually impaired, The Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
  
  wn.com/Doc_Watson
• Don Reno
  Don Wesley Reno (February 21, 1927 – October 16, 1984) was an American bluegrass and country musician best known as a banjo player in partnership with Red Smiley, and later with guitarist Bill Harrell.
  Born in Buffalo, South Carolina, Don Reno grew up on a farm in Haywood County, North Carolina. He began playing the banjo at the age of five. His father gave him a guitar four years later; and in 1939 12-year-old Reno joined the Morris Brothers in performing at a local radio station. He left one year later to join Arthur Smith, with whom he would years later record "Feudin' Banjos". In 1943 he received an offer from Bill Monroe to become a member of the Bluegrass Boys, but chose instead to enlist in the United States Army. Trained as a horse soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas, he was sent to the Pacific Theater to fight on foot. He eventually served in Merrill's Marauders and was wounded in action.
  Influenced by old-time banjo player Snuffy Jenkins and others, Reno developed his own three finger "single-string" style that allowed him to play scales and complicated fiddle tunes note-for-note. The Reno style encompasses much more than just single-string picking; double-stops, double-time picking, triple-pull offs—all of these, and other techniques make Reno's playing recognizable. According to his son, Don Wayne Reno, "My dad told me more than once that the reason he started his own style of banjo picking was this: When he came out of the service, many people said 'You sound just like Earl Scruggs.' He said that really bothered him considering he never played a banjo while he was in the service, and when he returned to the U.S., he continued to play in the style he had always played before."
  
  wn.com/Don_Reno
• 
  Earl Scruggs
  Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for perfecting and popularizing a three-finger banjo-picking style (now called "Scruggs style") that is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. Although other musicians had played in three-finger style before him, Scruggs shot to prominence when he was hired by Bill Monroe to fill the banjo slot in his group, the Blue Grass Boys.
  Scruggs was born near Shelby, Cleveland County, North Carolina, to Georgia Lula Ruppe and George Elam Scruggs, a farmer and bookkeeper, who played banjo and died when Scruggs was four years old. His older brothers, Junie and Horace, plus his two older sisters, Eula Mae and Ruby, all played banjo and guitar. Scruggs' mother played the organ. He grew up in Cleveland County, North Carolina.
  Scruggs joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in late 1945, and quickly popularized his syncopated, three-finger picking style. In 1948 Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt left Monroe's band and formed the Foggy Mountain Boys, also later known simply as Flatt and Scruggs. In 1969, they broke up, and he started a new band, the Earl Scruggs Revue, featuring several of his sons.
  
  wn.com/Earl_Scruggs
• 
  Elvis Presley
  Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
  Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954, working with Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was the most important popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.
  
  wn.com/Elvis_Presley
• 
  Emmylou Harris
  Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She has released many chart-topping albums and singles over the course of her career, and has won 12 Grammys and numerous other awards.
  In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including Gram Parsons, The Band, Linda Ronstadt, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Mark Knopfler, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Rodney Crowell, and Neil Young.
  Emmylou Harris is the daughter of a career military family, her father, Walter Harris, was a military officer and her mother, Eugenia was a wartime military wife. Her father, a member of the Marine Corps, was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. In high school she also won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. Leaving college to pursue her musical aspirations, she moved to New York, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and recorded her first album, Gliding Bird. Harris and Slocum soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in the Maryland suburbs on the edge of Washington, D.C.
  
  wn.com/Emmylou_Harris
• Foggy Mountain Boys
  The Foggy Mountain Boys were an influential bluegrass band founded by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs in 1948, shortly after leaving Bill Monroe’s band. They recorded and performed together up until 1969.
  Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs met as members of Bill Monroe's band, the Blue Grass Boys, in 1946. The two left that band early in 1948, and within a few months had formed their own group, the Foggy Mountain Boys. Scruggs' banjo style and Flatt's rhythm guitar style as well as his vocals, gave them a distinctive sound that won them many fans. In 1955, they became members of the Grand Ole Opry. Many of the songs on their albums are credited to "Certain and Stacey". These songs were in fact written by Flatt, Scruggs, and various other members of the Foggy Mountain Boys. Certain and Stacey are the maiden names of the wives of Flatt and Scruggs (Louise Certain, wife of Earl Scruggs, and Gladys Stacey, wife of Lester Flatt).
  Scruggs, who had always shown progressive tendencies, experimented on duets with saxophonist King Curtis and added songs by the likes of Bob Dylan to the group's repertoire. Flatt, a traditionalist, did not like these changes, and the group broke up in 1969. Following the breakup, Lester Flatt founded the Nashville Grass and Scruggs led the Earl Scruggs Revue. Flatt died in 1979, at the age of 64. Flatt and Scruggs were elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985.
  
  wn.com/Foggy_Mountain_Boys
• George D. Hay
  George Dewey Hay (November 9, 1895–May 8, 1968) was an American radio personality. He was the founder of the original Grand Ole Opry radio program on WSM-AM in Nashville, Tennessee, from which the country music stage show of the same name evolved.
  Hay was born in Attica, Indiana. In Memphis, Tennessee, after World War I, he was a reporter for the Commercial Appeal, and when the newspaper launched its own radio station, WMC, in January 1923, he became a late-night announcer at the station. His popularity increased and in May 1924 he left for WLS in Chicago, where he served as the announcer on a program that became National Barn Dance.
  On November 9, 1925 he moved on to WSM in Nashville. Getting a strong listener reaction to 78-year-old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson that November, Hay announced the following month that WSM would feature "an hour or two" of old-time music every Saturday night. He promoted the music and formed a booking agency.
  The show was originally named WSM Barn Dance, and Hay billed himself as "The Solemn Old Judge." The Barn Dance was broadcast after NBC's Music Appreciation Hour, a program featuring classical music and grand opera. One day in December 1927, the final music piece on the Music Appreciation Hour depicted the sound of a rushing locomotive. After the show ended, "Judge Hay" opened the WSM Barn Dance with this announcement:
  
  wn.com/George_D._Hay
• Gordon Terry
  Gordon Terry (October 7, 1931–April 9, 2006) was an adept American bluegrass and country music fiddler and guitarist. He was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Fiddlers Hall of Fame.
  Terry was born in Decatur, Alabama and learned to play the fiddle at an early age. He made his first performance on the Grand Ole Opry at age nine. He attended fiddlers' conventions, and won first prize at the Alabama Fiddling Championship in 1946. In 1950, he joined the Grand Ole Opry and within a year, he performed and recorded with Bill Monroe. Terry served in the US Army in Korea. After his discharge, he moved to California, and made his movie debut in Hidden Guns in 1956. He appeared in three other movies and one episode of Sky King.
  In 1957, Terry returned for a recording session with Bill Monroe. In the following decades, he recorded with artists such as Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Faron Young, Merle Haggard, Neil Young and many more. In November 1961, he recorded a square dance album with Flatt & Scruggs. Terry founded Terrytown, an amusement park in Loretto, Tennessee in 1964, but later sold it. He also founded Reunion Of Professional Entertainers (ROPE), an association with an aim to build a retirement home for entertainers.
  
  wn.com/Gordon_Terry
• 
  Johnny Cash
  John R. "Johnny" Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003), was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he is primarily remembered as a country music icon, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly and rock and roll—especially early in his career—as well as blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal led to Cash being inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
  Cash was known for his deep, distinctive bass-baritone voice; for the "boom-chicka-boom" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band; for his rebelliousness, coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor; for providing free concerts inside prison walls; and for his dark performance clothing, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black". He traditionally started his concerts by saying, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." and usually following it up with his standard "Folsom Prison Blues".
  
  wn.com/Johnny_Cash
• 
  Lester Flatt
  Lester Raymond Flatt (June 19, 1914 – May 11, 1979) was a bluegrass musician and guitarist and mandolinist, best known for his membership in the Bluegrass duo The Foggy Mountain Boys, also known as "Flatt and Scruggs," with banjo picker Earl Scruggs. Flatt's career spanned multiple decades; besides his work with Scruggs, he released multiple solo and collaboration works. Flatt also served as a member of Bill Monroe's band during the 1940s.
  Flatt was born in Duncan's Chapel, Overton County, Tennessee, to Nannie Mae Haney and Isaac Columbus Flatt. A singer and guitarist, he first came to prominence as a member of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1945. In 1948 he started a band with fellow Monroe alumnus Earl Scruggs, and for the next twenty years Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys were one of the most successful bands in bluegrass. When they parted ways in 1969, Flatt formed a new group, the Nashville Grass, hiring most of the Foggy Mountain Boys. His role as lead singer and rhythm guitar player in each of these seminal ensembles helped define the sound of traditional bluegrass music. He created a role in the Bluegrass Boys later filled by the likes of Jimmy Martin, Mac Wiseman, Peter Rowan and Del McCoury. His rich lead voice is unmistakable in hundreds of bluegrass standards.
  
  wn.com/Lester_Flatt
• Mac Wiseman
  Malcolm B. Wiseman (born May 23, 1925), better known as Mac Wiseman, is an American bluegrass singer, nicknamed The Voice with a Heart. The bearded singer is one of the cult figures of bluegrass.
  Born in Crimora, Virginia, he studied at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Dayton, Virginia and started his career as a disc jockey at WSVA-AM in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
  His musical career began as upright bass player in the band of country singer Molly O'Day. When Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Bill Monroe's band, Wiseman became the guitarist for their new band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. Later he played with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. After a performance on Louisiana Hayride he became popular as solo artist. In the 1950s, he was the star of The Old Dominion Barn Dance on WRVA in Richmond, Va.
  During the folk revival in the 1960s, Wiseman had successful concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall.
  He joined producers Randall Franks and Alan Autry for the In the Heat of the Night cast CD Christmas Time’s A Comin’ released on Sonlite and MGM/UA for one of the most popular Christmas releases of 1991 and 1992 with Southern retailers.
  
  wn.com/Mac_Wiseman
• 
  Neil Young
  Neil Percival Young,OC,OM (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation.
  Young began performing as a solo artist in Canada in 1960, before moving to California in 1966, where he co-founded the band Buffalo Springfield along with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, and later joined Crosby, Stills & Nash as a fourth member in 1969. He forged a successful and acclaimed solo career, releasing his first album in 1968; his career has since spanned over 40 years and 34 studio albums, with a continual and uncompromising exploration of musical styles. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website describes Young as "one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers". He has been inducted into the Hall of Fame twice: first as a solo artist in 1995, and second as a member of Buffalo Springfield in 1997.
  Young's work is characterized by his distinctive guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature alto or high tenor singing voice. Although he accompanies himself on several different instruments, including piano and harmonica, his idiosyncratic electric and clawhammer acoustic guitar playing are the defining characteristics of a varyingly ragged and melodic sound. While Young has experimented with differing music styles, including swing and electronic music throughout a varied career, his best known work usually falls into two primary styles: acoustic (folk and country rock) and electric (amplified hard rock, very often in collaboration with the band Crazy Horse). Young has also adopted elements from newer styles such as alternative rock and grunge. His influence on the latter caused some to dub him the "Godfather of Grunge".
  
  wn.com/Neil_Young
• Osborne Brothers
  The Osborne Brothers, Sonny Osborne (b. October 29, 1937) and Bobby Osborne (b. December 9, 1931), were an influential and popular bluegrass act during the 1960s and 1970s. They are probably best known for their #33 1968 country hit song, "Rocky Top", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and named after a fictional Tennessee location.
  Although the Osbornes were born in Roark, Kentucky, on Jack's Creek, they then moved to Hyden, Ky., after their house burned down. Then, they grew up near Dayton, Ohio and had their first experiences as entertainers in southwestern Ohio. In 1952, Bobby was drafted into the military, and Sonny went to work with the "Father of Bluegrass Music" Bill Monroe. Upon Bobby's return from service in 1953, the Osbornes teamed up with Jimmy Martin, performing at radio stations WROL in Knoxville, Tennessee and WJR in Detroit, Michigan. At their only session together, on November 16, 1954 the Osbornes and Martin recorded six songs for RCA Victor. In late 1955, the Osbornes left Martin and moved to Wheeling, West Virginia , where they performed on WWVA Jamboree until Christmas, together with Charlie Bailey. They returned to Dayton in early 1956 playing the local clubs with guitarist Enos Johnson. When Johnson left, the Osbornes added guitarist Red Allen and fiddler Art Stamper to form a new group.
  
  wn.com/Osborne_Brothers
• 
  Patsy Cline
  Patsy Cline (September 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963), born Virginia Patterson Hensley, was an American country music singer as part of the early 1960s Nashville sound. Cline successfully "crossed over" to pop music. At age 30, she died at the height of her career in a private plane crash. She was one of the most influential, successful and acclaimed female vocalists of the 20th century.
  Cline was best known for her rich tone, emotionally expressive and bold contralto voice and her role as a country music industry pioneer. She helped pave the way for women as headline performers in the genre. Cline's was cited as an inspiration by singers in several genres. Books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays document her life and career.
  Her hits began in 1957 with Donn Hecht's "Walkin' After Midnight", Harlan Howard's "I Fall to Pieces", Hank Cochran's "She's Got You", Willie Nelson's "Crazy" and ended in 1963 with Don Gibson's "Sweet Dreams".
  Posthumously, millions of her records sold over a 50-year span. She won awards and accolades, leading some fans to view her as an icon at the level of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Ten years after her death, in 1973, she became the first female solo artist inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1999, she was voted number 11 on VH1's special, The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll, by members and artists of the rock industry. In 2002, country music artists and industry members voted her Number One on CMT's The 40 Greatest Women of Country Music and ranked 46th in the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" issue of Rolling Stone magazine. According to her 1973 Country Music Hall of Fame plaque, "Her heritage of timeless recordings is testimony to her artistic capacity."
  
  wn.com/Patsy_Cline
• 
  Paul McCartney
  Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of the Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), he has been described by Guinness World Records as "The Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles. With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. After leaving the Beatles, he began a solo career and later formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.
  According to the BBC, his Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song. Wings' 1977 release, "Mull of Kintyre", became one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK, and he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history, according to Guinness. As a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one titles on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.
  
  wn.com/Paul_McCartney
• 
  Peter Rowan
  Peter Rowan (b. July 4, 1942, Boston, Massachusetts) is an American bluegrass musician and composer. Rowan plays guitar and mandolin, yodels and sings.
  From an early age, Rowan had an interest in music and eventually learned to play the guitar. At the age of twelve he heard Elvis Presley for the first time and later, in junior high school, he formed a rockabilly band, the Cupids. Influenced by the blues musician Eric Von Schmidt, Rowan traded his electric guitar for an acoustic and began to play the blues. He was also influenced by the folk sound of Joan Baez. In college he discovered bluegrass after hearing The Country Gentlemen and The Stanley Brothers. He soon discovered the music of Bill Monroe and with some help from banjo player Bill Keith, he was to audition for Monroe who invited him to Nashville. Accompanied by Keith, Rowan went to Nashville and was hired in March 1965 as guitarist and lead vocalist of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. His recording debut as a "bluegrass boy" took place on October 14, 1966 and he recorded a total of fourteen songs with Monroe before his tenure ended in the spring of 1967.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Rowan
• Ralph Rinzler
  Ralph Rinzler (July 20, 1934 - July 15, 1994) was the co-founder of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall every summer in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a curator for American art, music, and folk culture at the Smithsonian. This festival was from the beginning and continues to be a major event for musicians, artistans, and craftsman from a broad variety of American culture, including African American, Native American, Appalachian, Southern, Western and other groups in the United States.
  Ralph Rinzler grew up in Passaic, New Jersey, and went to Swarthmore College where he began performing as a mandolin player in various folk music groups in the mid to late 1950s. After graduation he went to New York City where he eventually became one of the famous Greenbriar Boys, a popular folk group that was the main event at Greenwich Village's Gerde's Folk City, with Bob Dylan as his warm-up opening act. Rinzler and the Greenbriar Boys recorded several successful records and played many concerts and clubs up and down the East Coast. He also played on a lot of other people's albums, including Joan Baez, Clarence Ashley, and won a Grammy for his work as a producer.
  
  wn.com/Ralph_Rinzler
• 
  Ricky Skaggs
  Richard Lee "Ricky" Skaggs (born July 18, 1954) is a country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer. He primarily plays mandolin; however, he also plays fiddle, guitar, mandocaster and banjo.
  Ricky Skaggs was born in Cordell, Kentucky. He started playing music at age 5 after he was given a mandolin by his father, Hobert. At age 6, he played mandolin and sang on stage with Bill Monroe. At age 7, he appeared on television's Martha White country music variety show, playing with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. He also wanted to audition for the Grand Ole Opry at that time, but was told he was too young.
  In his mid-teens, Skaggs met a fellow teen prodigy, guitarist Keith Whitley, and the two started playing together with Whitley's banjoist brother Dwight on radio shows. By 1970, they had earned a spot opening for Ralph Stanley and Skaggs and Keith Whitley were thereafter invited to join Stanley's band, the Clinch Mountain Boys
  Skaggs later joined The Country Gentlemen in Washington, DC, J. D. Crowe's New South. For a few years, Skaggs was a member of Emmylou Harris's Hot Band. He wrote the arrangements for Harris's 1980 bluegrass-roots album, Roses in the Snow. In addition to arranging for Harris, Skaggs sang harmony and played mandolin and fiddle in the Hot Band.
  
  wn.com/Ricky_Skaggs
• Roland White
  Roland White (b. April 23, 1938 Madawaska, Maine) is an American bluegrass music artist, performing principally on the mandolin.
  At an early age, White formed himself, his two brothers (Eric and Clarence) and his sister (Joanne) into a bluegrass band which performed locally. When the family moved to California, the group won a talent show on a local radio station, after which a television station hired them (minus Joanne) as The Country Boys.
  After a two-year US Army enlistment, White re-joined the Country Boys, now re-named The Kentucky Colonels. In 1967, he had the opportunity to join the Blue Grass Boys, the backup band of his childhood idol Bill Monroe. He stayed with that group until 1969, when he joined the Nashville Grass, the backup band of Lester Flatt. White stayed with Flatt until 1973, when he, Clarence and Eric re-united as The New Kentucky Colonels. This only lasted a few months; he and Clarence were struck by an automobile as they loaded their equipment into their car after a performance. Roland White suffered a dislocated shoulder, but Clarence died in the accident.
  
  wn.com/Roland_White
• Rudy Lyle
  Rudy R. Lyle (born March 17, 1930 - died February 11, 1985) was an American bluegrass banjo player, mostly known for being a member of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in the early 1950's.
  Lyle was born in Franklin County, Virginia. His grandfather, Lomax Blankenship, was a well-known fiddler who used to play at local dances. When Lyle was young he was taught to play the banjo by Lawrence Wright, a banjoist who hailed from Rocky Mount, Virginia. In his teens, he joined "Uncle Joe Johnson's band" and appeared on WPAQ radio in Mount Airy, North Carolina. In the summer of 1949, Lyle met Bill Monroe when he came to Mount Airy for a personal appearance. Monroe was in need of a banjo player, since Don Reno had left earlier, but didn't want to hire Lyle immediately since he didn't want to take him away from Uncle Joe. Anyhow, three weeks later, Lyle was hired by Monroe, went to Nashville and joined the Blue Grass Boys. The first show he played with Monroe in the Ryman Auditorium was the RC Cola Show. The band consisted of Monroe, Lyle, Mac Wiseman, Chubby Wise, and Jack Thompson. He continued to work with Monroe until the summer of 1951. He was replaced by James Bowers and later by Sonny Osborne. In 1953, Lyle returned to the Blue Grass Boys, but left again the next year. Lyle recorded a total of 31 songs for Bill Monroe. In 1954, he worked with Jimmy Dean and later also with artists such as Roy Clark, Claude King, Patsy Cline, Cas Walker and Red Rector. Lyle was a private pilot and often flew own-built planes. He died in 1985 at age 54.
  
  wn.com/Rudy_Lyle
• 
  Scottish American
  
  Scottish Americans or Scots Americans (Scottish Gaelic: Ameireaganaich Albannach) are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Scotland. Scottish Americans are closely related to Scots-Irish Americans, descendants of Ulster Scots, and communities emphasize and celebrate a common heritage. The majority of Scot-Irish originally came from the lowlands and border country of Scotland before migrating to the province of Ulster in Ireland (see Plantation of Ulster) and thence, beginning about five generations later, to North America in large numbers during the eighteenth century.
  Recent studies state that there are between 30-40 million Americans who claim Scottish and Scot-Irish heritage in the United States. These figures include both Americans who claim Scottish heritage only as well as those who claim Scottish and other nationalities.
  The first Scots in North America probably came with the Vikings. A Hebridean bard is said to have accompanied Bjarni Herjolfsson on his voyage around Greenland in 985 which sighted the mainland. On the evidence of the sagas, the first Scots to set foot in the New World were slaves, a man named Hake and a woman named Hekja, who scouted for Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition in 1010, gathering wheat and the grapes for which Vinland was named. The controversial Zeno letters have been cited in support of a claim that Henry Sinclair, earl of Orkney, visited Nova Scotia in 1398. In the early years of Spanish colonization of the Americas, a Scot named Tam Blake spent 20 years in Mexico and Colombia and joined Coronado's 1540 expedition to the American Southwest.
  
  wn.com/Scottish_American
• Stanley Brothers
  The Stanley Brothers were an American bluegrass duo made up of brothers Carter and Ralph Stanley.
  Carter and Ralph Stanley were born in the Clinch Mountains of Dickenson County, Virginia. They were raised on a small farm near McClure, Virginia in that same county. Music was a part of their lives from early on, as they were able to listen to the likes of the Monroe Brothers, J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers and the Grand Ole Opry on local radio. The brothers soon formed a band, the Lazy Ramblers, and performed as a duo on WJHL radio in Johnson City, Tennessee.World War II interrupted any thoughts of a musical career, and it was not until both brothers returned from the service that they were able to make their own mark in music.
  They formed their band, the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys, in 1946 as the first band to copy the Monroe sound. Carter played guitar and sang lead while Ralph played banjo and sang with a strong, high tenor voice. Additional members of this early band were Darrell "Pee Wee" Lambert on mandolin and Bobby Sumner on fiddle. Sumner was soon to be replaced by Leslie Keith. On December 26, 1946, the band began performing at radio station WCYB in Bristol, Tennessee as stalwarts of the famed "Farm and Fun Time" radio show. They made their recording debut in September 1947 for Rich-R-Tone Records which had been founded the year before. Their records sold well "outselling even Eddy Arnold" regionally. Up to now, Ralph had been playing the banjo with two fingers only on recordings and in concerts but switched in 1948 to the three-finger style popularised by Earl Scruggs. In March 1949, the Stanley Brothers began recording for Columbia Records.
  
  wn.com/Stanley_Brothers
• 
  Vassar Clements
  Vassar Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was a Grammy Award- winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical traditions.
  Clements was born in Kinard, but grew up in Kissimmee, Florida. He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7 and the first song he learned was "There's an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor". Soon, Clements formed a local string band with two first cousins, Red and Gerald. Gerald was the fiddle player and when he got married and left, Clements had to pick up the fiddle. In his early teens, he met Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys when they came to Florida to visit Clements' stepfather who knew Chubby Wise. Clements heard Wise play and was impressed.
  In late 1949, when Wise left Monroe, Clements, who was then only 21, travelled by bus to ask for an audition. When told he would have to return the next day, Clements was crestfallen because he didn't have any money for a hotel room or even for a return bus trip. Monroe gave him some money to a night's lodging, and the next day Clements auditioned and was hired as Wise's replacement in the Blue Grass Boys. He remained with Monroe for seven years. During this period he recorded with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys in 1950 and 1951. Vassar Clements soon became one of the most distinctive, inventive, and popular fiddlers in bluegrass music. His virtuosity and ability to blend several different genres, including swing and hot jazz, into his style made him a pioneer in country music and much sought after session musician.
  
  wn.com/Vassar_Clements
• 
  Waylon Jennings
  Waylon Arnold Jennings (pronounced /welən dʒɛnɪŋz/; June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Jennings began playing guitar at eight and began performing at twelve on KVOW radio. He formed a band, The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J on KVOW, KDAV, KYTI and KLLL. In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings' first recording session, of "Jolie Blon" and "When Sin Stops (Love Begins)". Holly hired him to play bass. During the Winter Dance Party Tour, in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered a plane to arrive to the next venue. Jennings gave up his seat in the plane to J. P. Richardson, who was suffering from a cold. The flight that carried Holly, Richardson and Ritchie Valens crashed, on the day later known as The Day the Music Died. Following the accident, Jennings worked as a D.J in Coolidge, Arizona and Phoenix. He formed a rockabilly club band, The Waylors. He recorded for independent label Trend Records, A&M Records before succeeding with RCA Victor after achieving creative control of his records.
  
  wn.com/Waylon_Jennings
• 
  Willie Nelson
  Willie Hugh Nelson (pronounced /wɪli nɛlsən /; born April 30, 1933) is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed at the end of the 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.
  
  wn.com/Willie_Nelson

• Little Cabin Home on the Hill
• Bluegrass Breakdown
• It's Mighty Dark to Travel
• My Rose of Old Kentucky
• I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling
• Sweetheart You Done Me Wrong
• That Home Above
• Little Cummunity Church
• Along About Daybreak
• When You Are Lonely
• I'm Travelin' on and On
• Molly and Tenbrooks
• Travelin' This Lonesome Road
• Bluegrass Stomp
• The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band
• Can't You Hear Me Callin'

• My Sweet Blue-Eyed Darlin'
• Mule Skinner Blues
• Souther Flavor
• Beautiful Life
• My Blue Eyes From Heaven
• Northern White Clouds
• Uncle Pen
• Blue Moon of Kentuky
• Sugar Loaf Mountain
• The Old Home Town
• I'm Working On A Building
• Rawhide
• Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms

• When the Phone Rang
• Tomorrow I'll Be Gone
• Dark as the Night
• Stoney Lonesome
• Lonesome Wind Blues
• Thinking About You
• Come Go With Me
• Sold Down the River
• Linda Lou
• You Live in a World All Your Own
• Little Joe
• Put My Rubber Doll Away
• Seven Year Blues
• Time Changes Everything
• Lonesome Road Blues
• Big River
• Flowers of Love
• It's Mighty Dark to Travel
• Bluegrass, Part 1 (Bluegrass Twist)
• Little Maggie
• I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky
• Toy Heart
• Shady Grove
• Nine Pound Hammer
• Live and Let Live
• Danny Boy
• Cotton Fields
• Journey's End
• John Hardy
• Bugle Call Rag
• Old Joe Clark

• Kentucky Waltz
• True Life Blues
• Nobody Loves Me
• Good-Bye Old Pal
• Blue Grass Special
• Heavy Traffic Ahead
• Summertime Is Past and Gone
• I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky
• It's Mighty Dark to Travel
• Blue Grass Breakdown
• Sweetheart You Done Me Wrong
• Old Cross Road Is Waitin'
• Remember the Cross
• Shine Hallelujah Shine
• Can't You Hear Me Calling
• Travelin' This Lonesome Road

• Memories of Mother and Dad
• The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake
• Y'all Come
• Sitting Alone in the Moonlight
• On and On
• White House Blues
• Happy on My Way
• A Voice From on High
• Close By
• Put My Little Shoes Away
• Wheel Hoss
• Cheyenne
• You'll Find Her Name Written There
• Roanoke
• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band
• Used to Be
• A Good Woman's Love
• Cry, Cry Darlin'
• I'm Sittin' on Top of the World
• I'll Meet You in the Morning
• Scotland
• Molly and Tenbrooks
• John Henry

• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Sunset Trail
• My Sweet Darlin'
• I Still Miss Someone
• Kentucky Waltz
• My Rose of Old Kentucky
• Is the Blue Moon Still Shining?
• With Body and Soul
• Old Riverman
• My Louisiana Love

• Kentucky Waltz
• Nobody Loves Me
• Bluegrass Special
• Heavy Traffic Ahead
• Toy Heart
• Mother's Only Sleeping
• Blue Yodel No. 4
• Shining Path
• I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky
• Along About Daybreak

• Road of Life
• This World Is Not My Home
• Out in the Cold World
• It's Me Again Lord
• I Will Sing for the Glory of God
• Beyond the Gate
• Just Over in the Gloryland
• Pass Me Not
• Old Country Baptizing
• Somebody Touched Me
• Were You There When They Crucified My Lord

• Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8)
• You Won't Be Satisfied That Way
• Uncle Pen
• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Ole Slew-Foot
• Sweet Little Miss Blue Eyes
• Please Be My Love
• I Wish You Knew
• Love, Please Come Home
• Train '45' (Heading South)
• Bonny
• When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again
• Hit Parade of Love
• Mary Ann
• Sunny Side of the Mountain
• Free Born Man
• Tennessee
• Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms
• Feudin' Banjos
• The Ballad of Jed Clampett
• Roll on Buddy, Roll on
• I Wonder Where You Are Tonight
• Orange Blossom Special
• Fiddler Roll Call / Down Yonder
• Soldier's Joy
• Grey Eagle
• Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

• Rocky Road Blues
• Kentucky Waltz
• Footprints in the Snow
• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Mother's Only Sleeping
• Blue Grass Stomp
• My Rose of Old Kentucky
• Blue Grass Breakdown
• Can't You Hear Me Callin'
• Girl in the Blue Velvet Band

• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Footprints in the Snow
• New Mule Skinner Blues
• Uncle Pen
• In the Pines
• I'm Working on a Building
• Gotta Travel On
• Scotland
• Molly and Tenbrooks
• I'm Sitting on Top of the World
• I Saw the Light
• My Sweet Blue-Eyed Darlin'

• Molly and Tenbrooks
• True Life Blues
• I'm on My Way Back to the Old Home
• Highway of Sorrow
• Old Ebenezer Scrooge
• Memories of You
• Rawhide
• Can't You Hear Me Callin
• Letter From My Darling
• Sittin' Alone in the Moonlight
• Big Mon
• Get Down on Your Knees and Pray
• Used to Be
• Scotland
• Travelin' This Lonesome Road
• Heavy Traffic Ahead
• Little Cabin Home on the Hill

• My Rose of Old Kentucky (take 2)
• Blue Grass Breakdown (instrumental) (take 2)
• Blue Grass Breakdown (instrumental) (take 3)
• Sweetheart You Done Me Wrong (take 2)
• Sweetheart, You Done Me Wrong (take BD1)
• Sweetheart, You Done Me Wrong (take BD2)
• Sweetheart, You Done Me Wrong (take 3)
• The Old Cross Road (take 2)
• The Old Cross Road (take BD2)
• The Old Cross Road (take BD3)
• The Old Cross Road (take 3)
• The Old Cross Road (take BD1)
• That Home Above (take BD)
• Remember the Cross (take 2)
• Along About Daybreak (take 2)
• Little Community Church (take 2)
• Little Community Church (take BD)
• Along About Daybreak (take BD)
• Molly and Tenbrooks (take 2)
• Shine, Hallelujah, Shine (take 2)
• I'm Travelin' on and On (take 2)
• Can't You Hear Me Callin' (take 4)
• Can't You Hear Me Callin' (take 3)
• Can't You Hear Me Callin' (take BD)
• Can't You Hear Me Callin' (take 2)
• Travelin' This Lonesome Road (take 2)
• Blue Grass Stomp (instrumental) (take 3)
• Blue Grass Stomp (instrumental) (take BD)
• Blue Grass Stomp (instrumental) (take 2)
• The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band (take 3)
• The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band (take 2)

• Mule Skinner Blues
• No Letter in the Mail
• Cryin' Holy Unto My Lord
• Six White Horses
• Dog House Blues
• I Wonder If You Feel the Way I Do
• Katy Hill
• Tennessee Blues
• Shake My Mother's Hand for Me
• Were You There?
• Blue Yodel No. 7
• The Coupon Song
• Orange Blossom Special
• Honky Tonk Swing
• In the Pines
• Back Up and Push
• The Great Speckled Bird
• No Home, No Place to Pillow My Head
• New River Train
• Once I Had a Darling Mother
• On the Banks of the Ohio
• Weeping Willow Tree
• Just a Song of Old Kentucky
• Don't Forget Me
• I Am Thinking Tonight of the Old Folks

• Time Changes Everything
• I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky
• Toy Heart
• Live and Let Live
• Old Joe Clark
• Columbus Stockade Blues
• Drifting Too Far From the Shore
• Somebody Touched Me
• Jimmy Brown the Newsboy
• I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
• Devil's Dream
• Highway of Sorrow
• Roll On Buddy, Roll On
• (We're Goin') Just Over in the Gloryland
• Fire on the Mountain
• The Long Black Veil
• I Wonder Where You Are Tonight
• Dusty Miller
• Midnight on the Stormy Deep
• Sally Goodin'
• Walls of Time
• I Haven't Seen Mary in Years
• With Body and Soul
• Walk Softly on My Heart
• My Last Days on Earth

• My Sweet Blue-Eyed Darlin'
• Gotta Travel On
• Scotland
• Cryin' Holy Unto the Lord
• I'm Blue I'm Lonesome
• I'm on My Way to the Old Home
• Uncle Pen
• Raw Hide
• On and On
• White House Blues
• Wheel Hoss
• Roanoke
• Blue Moon of Kentucky (live)
• A Good Woman's Love
• Big Mon
• Lonesome Road Blues
• I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky
• Big Sandy River
• Kentucky Mandolin
• With Body and Soul
• Kentucky Waltz
• Southern Flavor
• Fiddler Roll Call / Down Yonder
• I'm Working on a Building
• My Last Days on Earth

• New Mule Skinner Blues
• Uncle Pen
• Walking in Jerusalem
• On and On
• White House Blues
• Happy on My Way
• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Scotland
• Midnight on the Stormy Deep
• Kentucky Mandolin
• Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine
• The Lee Weddin' Tune
• Kentucky Waltz
• My Last Days on Earth
• My Sweet Blue Eyed Darlin'
• Southern Flavor

• Out in the Cold World
• Roane County Prison
• Goodbye Old Pal
• In Despair
• Molly and Tenbrooks
• Come Back to Me in My Dreams
• Sally Jo
• Brand New Shoes
• A Lonesome Road
• I Saw the Light
• Lord, Build Me a Cabin in Glory
• Lord Lead Me On
• Precious Jewel
• I'll Meet You in the Morning
• Life's Railway to Heaven
• I've Found a Hiding Place
• Jesus Hold My Hand
• I Am a Pilgrim
• Wayfaring Stranger
• A Beautiful Life
• House of Gold
• Panhandle Country
• Scotland
• Gotta Travel On
• No One but My Darlin'
• Big Mon
• Monroe's Hornpipe

• Orange Blossom Special
• Uncle Penn
• Footprints in the Snow
• Bluegrass Breakdown
• I Saw the Light
• Shady Grove
• Shenendoah Breakdown
• Mule Skinner Blues
• Prison Song
• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Can't You Hear Me Callin'
• Nine Pound Hammer

• Foggy Mountain Top
• What You Give in Exchange for Your Soul?
• Watson's Blues
• Soldier's Joy
• Where Is My Sailor Boy?
• You Won't Be Satisfied That Way
• Kentucky Mandolin
• East Tennessee Blues
• Midnight on the Stormy Deep
• Lonesome Moonlight Waltz
• Banks of the Ohio
• Fire on the Mountain
• Chicken Reel
• Turkey in the Straw
• Memories of You
• Have a Feast Here Tonight
• Paddy on the Turnpike

• Girl in the Blue Velvet Band
• Toy Heart
• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Rocky Road Blues
• Blue Yodel No. 4
• Kentucky Waltz
• Summertime Is Past and Gone
• Will You Be Loving Another Man
• I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling
• Molly and Tenbrooks (The Race Horse Song)

• On My Way Back Home
• I've Lived a Lot in My Time
• Footprint in the Snow
• The Old, Old House
• Ebenezer Scrooge
• Wayfaring Stranger
• Blue Moon of Kentucky
• Close By
• Foggy Mountain Breakdown
• Shuckin' the Corn
• Rocky Road Blues
• Mule Skinner Blues
• Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms

Born: 1911-09-13

Died: 1996-09-09