For this outing, we begin a two-week feature traveling through the history of bluegrass music. We’re proud to now be a part of the line-up on Bluegrass Planet, an online site featuring the best in acoustic and folk music. The next two programs are dedicated to BP and the great music you can hear there.
We start with the Bristol Sessions, and sample tunes from The Coon Creek Girls, The Carter Family Jimmie Rodgers, Charlie Poole and up through Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, and Flatt and Scruggs from the early, formative days of this unique style of American music. It’s part one of our bluegrass timeline … this week on The Sing Out! Radio Magazine.

LISTEN:

Artist / “Title” / CD / Label

Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer” (excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle /
              Smithsonian Folkways
Kristin Scott Benson / “Sandy River Belle” / Second Season / Pinecastle
BF Skinner / “Oh Molly Dear” / The Bristol Sessions / Country Music Foundation
The Shelor Family / “Billy Grimes The Rover” / The Bristol Sessions / Country
              Music Foundation
The Carter Family / “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow” / The Bristol Sessions / Country
              Music Foundation
Jimmie Rodgers / “Blue Yodel #8” / America’s Blue Yodeler 1930-1931 / Rounder

JE Mainer’s Mountaineers / “Maple on the Hill” / Ragged But Right / RCA
Ernest V. Stoneman / “Sally Goodwin” / Edison Recordings 1928 / County
Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers / “If the River Was Whiskey” / Charlie
              Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers / JSP
Coon Creek Girls / “Banjo Pickin’ Girl” / Old-Time Mountain Banjo / County
Kristin Scott Benson / “Bugle Call Rag” / Second Season / Pinecastle

Bill & Charlie Monroe / “New River Train” / Bluegrass Bonanza / JSP
Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass Boys / “Mule Skinner Blues” / Mule Skinner Blues / RCA
Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass Boys / “Heavy Traffic Ahead” / Columbia Historic Edition /
              Columbia
The Stanley Brothers / “Little Maggie” / Rich-R-Tone / Revenant
The Stanley Brothers / “I’m A Man of Constant Sorrow” / 1949-1952 / Bear Family
Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs /”Foggy Mountain Breakdown” / The Mercury Sessions Volume 2 /
              Rounder
Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs / “Take Me In A Lifeboat” / The Mercury Sessions Volume 1 /
              Rounder
Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs / “You Are My Flower” / Live at Vanderbilt University /
              Columbia
Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer” (excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle /
              Smithsonian Folkways