What's your favorite Blugrass band?

[Cricket]

I love listening to orginal bluegrass favorites, but I love Old Crow Medicine Show. They are a new band, but they have that bluegrass style that can be found in older records. Their songs range from hard loving women to drinking nights to love ballads. Well worth a listen. They are very talented, and I tend to shake my head in disbelief in how gifted they really are.

 

[Fedora64]

Flatt & Scruggs

 

[freebird]

Hot Buttered Rum String Band,Doyle Lawson, the Country Gentlemen, Flatt & Scruggs, Ricky Skaggs, too many to list really

 

[Atterbury Dodd]

I'm not really into most Bluegrass, I'm more into the Old-Time string bands--pre Bluegrass. I see some here have listed The Skillet Lickers as Bluegrass; they would more correctly be labeled Old-Time, even though the Skillet Lickers were influential to early bluegrass. Hoyt Ming and His pep Steppers were also Old-Time.

As far as Bluegrass I like:
Doc Watson--I've seen him perform, it's really something. I guess he might really be more Old-Time than Bluegrass.
Chubby Wise
Kenny Baker

Now, my Old Time favorites that actually got relatively well known are:

Luke Highnight's Ozark Strutters (they recorded a few times in the 1920's)

Grinnel Giggers--early 30's

Absie and Apsie Morrison (only recorded together a few times in the early 30's and latter in the 60's as very old men)

Charlie Pool and the North Carolina Ramblers

Freeny's Barn Dance Band

The Leake County Revelers

There was a bunch of great old-time fiddlers out here where I live that never made the big time but were great.

 

[miles_archer]

Ralph Stanley and handsome rake miles_archer

As you can see in the pic Ralph Stanley, like Alisson Krauss is very approachable and very wee. I would rate his energy level as bellow Sonny Rollins and Buddy Guy but higher than B.B.King in the category of musicians over 75 I have seen in concert. I saw Old Crow Medicine Show back in 2002 opening for Ricky Skaggs in Atlanta and was not impressed. I have to admit that since then they have gotten much better and have become a guilty pleasure for me. I even cover their song Wagon Wheel which people really seem to respond to.

 

[jared]

My dad started me off at a very young age listening to all the Flatt and Scruggs records that we had. His dad had left five or six of their records to him, along with a Scruggs model Vega banjo, and when I was about 13, I started learning how to play our old 5-string. I was taught at a very young age to remove my hat when mentioning the name of Lester Flatt, and later on, when I got around a little more, I devoured everything ever recorded by Doc Watson and Tony Rice. Doc Watson's old-timey blues eventually led me to start playing guitar a few years later.

(I love how Tony Rice still wears a suit to perform. Where all the younger guys are wearing western button-ups, trucker hats, have rags hanging out of their pockets, and have to wiggle around on stage in order for them to be able to play right; Tony Rice typically wears a double-breasted, peak-lapel suit, and remains absolutely motionless while he plays, except for his signature smirk after one of his flawless breaks. There just seems to be a more professional air about him.)

Aside from them, I enjoy listening to Dan Tyminski, Ron Block, Josh Williams (formerly with Rhonda Vincent and the Rage), Jerry Douglas, Adam Steffey, Brian Sutton...
The list just goes on.

 

[KY Gentleman]

Welcome to the Lounge, Jared.

 

[jared]

Thank you very much, KY Gentleman.

 

[Daoud]

Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass doing "House of the Rising Sun" - it doesn't get any better than that. Unless it's Red Herron, Merle Travis and Joe Maphis doing "Give the Fiddler a Dram."

The Freight Hoppers out of Bryson City, NC were an amazing band, on a more contemporary note- I understand they're sort of back together, but haven't heard anything recent from them.

I lean towards the opinion that there isn't any BAD bluegrass.

 

[KY Gentleman]

Anyone not familiar with Larry Sparks ought to give him a try.
The real old time style players who flailed or played clawhammer are fun to listen to also. Wade Ward was probably the best, Uncle Dave Macon was likely the most famous.

 

[miles_archer]

Commonwealth Pride!

As a Lexington KY native I am very glad to see so may Kentuckians posting on this thread. Virginia has Thomas Jefferson, Mississippi has Elvis, we have Mr. Bill Monroe.

 

[jared]

Definitely Larry Sparks. I positively love his album "The Last Suit You Wear". Also, Bradley Walker. His voice is like a cross between Braid Paisley and George Jones. If you haven't heard of him, look up "Shoulda Took That Train" off of his latest album "Highway of Dreams".

And speaking of famous clawhammerin', don't forget Grandpa Jones.

 

[carouselvic]

Bluegrass article

http://tinyurl.com/csddmw

 

[K.D. Lightner]

All of the above.... and all Moutain Music!

Here in Iowa, we have a program on PBS called Old Time Country Music that has a lot of bluegrass artists on it. I listen to it each and every week.

karol

 

[KeyGrip]

After reading this, I realized that I don't have any pure bluegrass groups in my collection. The closest I get is folks like Slim Cessna and 16 Horsepower. I'm going to look for some of the names mentioned here.

 

[shortbow]

Greatest Bluegrass song of all time?

"Angel Band" by the Stanley Brothers.

 

[RainLikeGravel]

The Earl Brothers

Hi, I can't recommend them enough:

THE EARL BROTHERS

Check out their 3 albums on cdbaby dot com. To my taste, the 2004 and 2006 albums with John McKelvy on vocals are the thrilling ones.
A new band with THE ancient tone!

Thomas

http://www.earlbrothers.com/
http://cdbaby.com/found?allsearch=the+earl+brothers&submit=

 

[dawgvet]

Y'all need some of the southern influence. Try some IIIrd Tyme Out as they have been IBMA group of the year multiple times. Talk about a live concert experience! Also give Mountain Heart a listen. I have to agree on Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, too. Ricky Skaggs is the current cornerstone for the genre after Big Mon's passing and Dr. Stanley is getting on in years.

 

[dr greg]

the family way

The STONEMAN FAMILY, obscure but great

 

[KY Gentleman]

The Osborne Bros., Cousin Emmy are some great "old school" bluegrass acts.
The Whites or The White Family albums are also very good.