Search - Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Band :: Early Years

These are the songs that introduced bluegrass music to the world. The 14-song collection spans the band's first three incarnations, and thus, is useful as a tool to measure Monroe's incredible progress between 1945 and 1949 (although the songs are not sequenced chronologically). Four cuts come from 1945, with Tex Willis (guitar), "Stringbean" Akeman (banjo), and Sally Ann Forrester (accordion!) joining Monroe's hot mandolin and Chubby Wise's lonesome fiddle. "Kentucky Waltz" stands out from this session. The eight recordings from 1946 and 1947 introduce Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs to the fray and find the Boys in peak form---for this band or any other band. "Blue Moon of Kentucky," "Toy Heart," the gospel "Wicked Path of Sin," Jimmie Rodgers's "Blue Yodel #4," and the instrumental "Blue Grass Breakdown" are definitive statements of the genre. The final two tracks feature Mac Wiseman on guitar and on one lead vocal. A worthy single-disc alternative to Columbia's concurrent two-CD package. --Marc Greilsamer