What if Bill hadnt invented bluegrass

[almeriastrings]

Moot point. Might be more accurate to say the BAND he put together that included Scruggs "pretty much" defined what bluegrass music was (and more controversially, "should be")... "bluegrass" itself, of course, is only called such because of Bill and the Blue Grass Boys.

Credit where it is due. No Monroe and Scruggs and what we know recognise as "bluegrass" would probably not exist.

[barney 59]

In the great race to invent bluegrass luckily Bill got there first otherwise the Soviets would have invented it!

[doc holiday]

BM55, I think your premise that the building of dreadnaughts 'is bluegrass driven' is a shaky one. If you look back at production numbers the volume high mark for Martin & Gibson was the '70s...with the folk boom... everyone from Neil Young, Joni Mitchell etc fueled the production of guitars. Like you, I'm a bluegrass afficionado, but the fact is that there are much more popular forms of acoustic music..which sell musical instruments.

[mandolino maximus]

Uncle Pen would not have been written or remembered.

More to the speculative side, it would be called "New Time" - and we'd all be debating whether no-hole flying V mandolins (love that "interview") are appropriate for classical.

[Cindy]

So was Bill Monroe the Steve Jobs of bluegrass or was Steve Jobs the Bill Monroe of computers?

[John McGann]

I can see a lot of musical visions of "It's A Wonderful Life"...right down to Monroe's influence on Chuck Berry...talk about a butterfly's wings!

[mandolino maximus]

I can see a lot of musical visions of "It's A Wonderful Life"...right down to Monroe's influence on Chuck Berry...talk about a butterfly's wings!

Every time a mandolin plays, an angel gets its wings.

[eadg145]

I'd be able to sing most of the tunes in a normal singing voice.