More Than Rice

For all the progressive tendencies of contemporary bluegrass, which at its fringes sees virtuoso musicians take on expansive improvisations that resemble breakneck jazz, bluegrass has always been a music based on the songs and traditions of the old mountain string bands, albeit boosted and given more sonic range by electricity, amps, and microphones, the very thing that allowed it to be born into the modern world. But bluegrass quite likely never would have been anything more than the old string bands on steroids were it not for Bill Monroe, who almost single-handedly gave the new genre its shape, form, and dozens of its key songs.