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Blue Grass Boys
William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, who named their group for the bluegrass of Monroe's home state of Kentucky. He described the genre as "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound." Early life 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, James Pendleton "Pen" Vandiver, were both musically talented, and Monroe and his family grew up playing and singing at home. Bill was of Scottish and English heritage. Because his older brothers Birch and Charlie already played the fiddle and guitar, Bill was resign ...
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Rosine, Kentucky
Rosine () is an unincorporated community in Ohio County, Kentucky, Ohio County, Kentucky, United States. Bill Monroe, ''The Father of Bluegrass'', is buried in the community and 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 communities are Horse Branch, Kentucky, Horse Branch, and Beaver Dam, Kentucky, Beaver Dam; and the nearest major cities are Owensboro, Kentucky, Owensboro and Bowling Green, Kentucky, Bowling Green. The community sits at an elevation of 429 feet. At one time, Rosine was a thriving community with several stores, a school, a pickle factory, and a bat mill that milled bats for the Louisville Slugger bat factory. Demographics Schools There are no schools in Rosine, so students from Rosine attend Horse Branch Elementary School, Ohio County Middle School, an ...
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Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-finger style of playing was radically different from the traditional way the five-string banjo had previously been played. This new style of playing became popular and elevated the banjo from its previous role as a background rhythm instrument to featured solo status. He popularized the instrument across several genres of music. Scruggs' career began at age 21 when he was hired to play in Bill Monroe's band, the Blue Grass Boys. The name "bluegrass" eventually became the eponym for the entire genre of country music now known by that title. Despite considerable success with Monroe, performing on the Grand Ole Opry and recording classic hits such as "Blue Moon of Kentucky", Scruggs resigned from the group in 1946 because of their exhausting t ...
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Scottish Americans
Scottish Americans or Scots Americans (Scottish Gaelic: ''Ameireaganaich Albannach''; sco, Scots-American) are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Scotland. Scottish Americans are closely related to Scotch-Irish Americans, descendants of Ulster Scots, and communities emphasize and celebrate a common heritage.Celeste Ray, 'Introduction', p. 6, id., 'Scottish Immigration and Ethnic Organization in the United States', pp. 48-9, 62, 81, in id. (ed.), ''The Transatlantic Scots'' (Tuscaloosa, AL:University of Alabama Press, 2005). The majority of Scotch-Irish Americans originally came from Lowland Scotland and Northern England 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. Today, the number of Scottish Americans is believed to be around 25 million, and celebrations of ‘ Scottishness’ can be seen through maj ...
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Pendleton Vandiver
James Pendleton Vandiver (1869–1932) was a Kentucky fiddler, born there shortly after the American Civil War. He was the uncle to bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, who immortalized him in a song, " Uncle Pen".Dawidoff, Nicholas, ''In the Country of Country'' (1997) p. 87 Monroe used to hear his uncle playing fiddle on the hilltop where he lived, while Monroe put away his mules at night. He later said that Vandiver was "the fellow that I learned how to play from." Vandiver played fiddle at local square dances and social events, and his nephew backed him up, playing mandolin. Monroe's parents had both died by the time he was 16, and he lived part of the time with his Uncle Pen, in his two-room hilltop house in Rosine, Kentucky. Vandiver had been crippled earlier, and he made some money with his music. Bill Monroe's biographer, Richard D. Smith writes, "Pen gave Bill more: a repertoire of tunes that sank into Bill's aurally trained memory and a sense of rhythm that seeped into his ...
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Bill Monroe Farm
The Bill Monroe Farm is a historic farm attributed to being the birthplace of Bill Monroe, creator of the bluegrass music genre. The farm is 1,000 acres (4.0km²) and is located near Rosine in Ohio County, Kentucky. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. With Location The property is in Rosine in Ohio County, Kentucky, and is about 2 miles to the west of where U.S. Route 62 and Kentucky Route 1544 meet. Buildings The main house, the Bill Monroe Homeplace is a 1,000 square feet (93 m2) building built in 1920. It was built on the site of a saddlebag log cabin which burned in 1916, which was the birthplace of Bill Monroe and many of his siblings. The 1920 building incorporated the original chimney and hearth of the log cabin. The Charlie Monroe House was originally built in 1945 or 1946 and was regarded as non-contributing in the National Register listing. It is described by Paul McCoy as being built by Charlie Monroe using wooden clapboards an ...
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Poa Pratensis
''Poa pratensis'', commonly known as Kentucky bluegrass (or blue grass), smooth meadow-grass, or common meadow-grass, is a perennial species of grass native to practically all of Europe, North Asia and the mountains of Algeria and Morocco. Although the species is spread over all of the cool, humid parts of the United States, it is not native to North America. The Spanish Empire brought the seeds of Kentucky bluegrass to the New World in mixtures with other grasses. In its native range, ''Poa pratensis'' forms a valuable pasture plant, characteristic of well-drained, fertile soil. It is also used for making lawns in parks and gardens and has established itself as a common invasive weed across cool moist climates like the Pacific Northwest and the Northeastern United States. When found on native grasslands in Canada, for example, it is considered an unwelcome exotic plant, and is indicative of a disturbed and degraded landscape. Taxonomy ''Poa pratensis'' was one of the many speci ...
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Honorific Nicknames In Popular Music
When describing popular music artists, honorific nicknames are used, most often in the media or by fans, to indicate the significance of an artist, and are often Pantheon (gods), religious, Kinship terminology, familial, or (most frequently) Imperial, royal and noble ranks, royal and aristocratic titles, used metaphorically. Honorific nicknames were used in classical music in Europe even in the early nineteenth century, with figures such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart being called "The father of modern music" and Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach "The father of modern piano music". They were also particularly prominent in African-American culture in the post-American Civil War, Civil War era, perhaps as a means of conferring status that had been negated by Slavery in the United States, slavery, and as a result entered early jazz and blues music, including figures such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie. In Culture of the United States, U.S. culture, despite its Republicanism, republ ...
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Bluegrass Music
Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ... that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Like Country music, mainstream country music, it largely developed out of Old-time music, old-time string music, though in contrast, bluegrass is traditionally played exclusively on Acoustic music, acoustic instruments and also has roots in traditional English, Scottish, and Irish Ballads, Irish ballads and dance tunes as well as in blues and jazz. Bluegrass was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe, including 5-string banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt. Monroe characterized the genr ...
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Mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. There are of course different types of strings that can be used, metal strings are the main ones since they are the cheapest and easiest to make. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass. There are many styles of mandolin, but the three most common types are the ''Neapolitan'' or ''round-backed'' mandolin, the ''archtop'' mandolin and the ''flat-backed'' mandolin. The round-backed version has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued togethe ...
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Guinness Publishing
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the book was co-founded by twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter in Fleet Street, London, in August 1955. The first edition topped the best-seller list in the United Kingdom by Christmas 1955. The following year the book was launched internationally, and as of the 2022 edition, it is now in its 67th year of publication, published in 100 countries and 23 languages, and maintains over 53,000 records in its database. The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in ''Guinness World Records'' becoming the primary international authority ...
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Colin Larkin (writer)
Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited the ''Guinness Who's Who of Jazz'', the ''Guinness Who's Who of Blues'', and the ''Virgin Encyclopedia Of Heavy Rock''. He has over 650,000 copies in print to date. Background and education Larkin was born in Dagenham, Essex. Larkin spent much of his early childhood attending the travelling fair where his father, who worked by day as a plumber for the council, moonlighted on the waltzers to make ends meet. It was in the fairground, against a background of Little Richard on the wind-up 78 rpm turntables, that Larkin acquired his passion for the world of popular music. He studied at the South East Essex County Technical High School and at ...
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Encyclopedia Of Popular Music
''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music'', which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.''The Times'', ''The Knowledge'', Christmas edition, 22 December 2007- 4 January 2008. It was described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". History of the encyclopedia Larkin believed that rock music and popular music were at least as significant historically as classical music, and as such, should be given definitive treatment and properly documented. ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is the result. In 1989, Larkin sold his half of the publishing company Scorpion Books to finance his ambition to publish an encyclopedia of popular music. Aided by a team of initially 70 contributors, he set about compiling the data in a pre-internet age, "relying instead on information gleaned from music magazines, individual expertise ...
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