Chapter 10: Bluegrass
Bluegrass music is a distinct subgenre of country and western music, but its foundations lie much deeper in Appalachian folk traditions and the musical heritage of the British Isles. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, settlers from England, Ireland, and Scotland, particularly those from Northern Ireland and the Scottish Lowlands, migrated to the mountainous regions of the southern United States, especially in areas like Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
These communities brought with them a rich and varied musical culture that included narrative ballads, folk songs, and instrumental forms used in social dancing such as reels, jigs, waltzes, and round dances. The fiddle, central in both Celtic and Appalachian traditions, quickly became the backbone of the region’s emerging musical style. Over time, these traditions adapted to the American context and were accompanied by a variety of acoustic instruments, including the guitar, dulcimer, harmonica, autoharp, and especially the banjo. By the 1930s, Southern string ensembles had expanded to include upright bass and steel guitar, giving rise to a fuller and more dynamic sound.
However, the story of bluegrass cannot be fully understood without recognizing the crucial role of African American musical traditions, particularly the Black banjo tradition of Kentucky and the Carolinas. The banjo itself is an African-derived instrument, with likely ancestors such as the akonting, a three-stringed gourd-bodied lute played by the Jola people of Senegal and the Gambia. Like the banjo, the akonting features a drone string played with the ball of the thumb, producing a repeating tonal foundation, while melodies are performed with downward strokes of the index fingernail. This technique closely resembles what American musicians later called clawhammer, frailing, or thumping, styles documented in nineteenth-century banjo manuals and preserved in the playing of African American musicians in the Appalachian region.
Throughout the nineteenth century, Black musicians across the South played the banjo in both solo and ensemble settings. By the turn of the twentieth century, hundreds of Black banjoists were still performing what DeFord Bailey, an African American harmonica player and one of the early stars of the Grand Ole Opry, referred to as Black hillbilly music. The banjo’s centrality to Black musical culture was further reinforced by its prominence in minstrel shows, which, despite their racist caricatures, introduced the instrument to mainstream American audiences. Over time, however, many urban African American musicians distanced themselves from the banjo, in part due to its association with minstrelsy, turning instead to instruments like the guitar. Nonetheless, the influence of Black banjo techniques and aesthetics remained deeply embedded in the rural string band tradition that gave rise to bluegrass.
Bluegrass music specifically descends from Southern mountain string bands, ensembles that typically included fiddle, guitar, upright bass, banjo, and occasionally mandolin. These groups provided music for barn dances, community gatherings, and eventually for radio broadcasts during the 1920s and 1930s. Stations such as WLS in Chicago, with its National Barn Dance program, and WSM in Nashville, home to the Grand Ole Opry, helped introduce this music to a national audience.
Many of these early string bands adopted colorful names that reflected local flavor and humor. Acts like Dr. Humphrey Bates and the Possum Hunters, Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters, and Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers helped define the genre’s early sound. The Skillet Lickers were especially influential, recording 88 tracks for Columbia Records between 1926 and 1931. Songs like “Skillet Licker Breakdown” and “Down Yonder” exemplify the rhythmic intensity and instrumental virtuosity that laid the foundation for bluegrass.