I just noticed this thread. I'll look forward to seeing the program.

pdq said:

“...The public has broadened the term [bluegrass] to include almost any effort to p[lay [sic] acoustic music that is obviously not Classical or Pop.”

and

“I'm not sure what a late-night jam session with Tony Rice, David Grisman and Jerry Garcia has in common with Bill Monroe singing Blue Moon of Kentucky, other than the fact that many acoustic music fans are apt to like both.”

The term bluegrass was coined by people in the music industry who needed a label for the music. When in 1946 Monroe, et al., created the bluegrass musical style they were already Grand Ole Opry stars and were pooling their ideas to create their own personal brand of commercial country music. They just called it country music. This music put the Gibson Company back in the banjo business and, in the rural south, inspired a lot of people to take up instruments and follow suit. The music remained virtually unknown in the urban north until the 1960s.

The realization that the new music was something unique came from musicologists; trained scholars who specialized in the identification of musical styles and origins. This isn't the opinion of “a few purists” but the scholarly research of trained academicians. Based on the musical elements involved (not necessarily the instrumentation), scholars date the first bluegrass recording as Sept. 17, 1946 in Chicago. This was the second day of a two day recording session by Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. The first day's work is not considered bluegrass by scholars.

As for “a late-night jam session with Tony Rice, David Grisman and Jerry Garcia” all of these great musicians were bluegrass performers. In the 1960s, when young urban musicians began taking up bluegrass music as their own, Monroe often had the best of them in his band. Musicians such as Richard Greene, Bill Kieth and Peter Rowan worked with Monroe and as they absorbed Bill's music, he incorporated their ideas into it as well.

Bluegrass music isn't an anachronism. It's popularity today is greater than it's ever been. The music's popularity has grown steadily since its inception and the genre has grown as well. Monroe, et al., didn't start out to play music in a “traditional” way. They wanted to give their audiences something they'd never heard before. And while Bill continued to play those original bluegrass numbers throughout his career, he never stopped moving the music forward. He didn't rest on his hits from long ago as many country artists do, he was constantly writing new tunes and changing his style. One could argue that the so called newgrass musicians are remaining truest to Monroe's vision by moving forward with the times. Grisman and Rice are capable of performing in a wide variety of musical genre from old-timey to jazz and rock and roll. Garcia is most widely known for his work with The Grateful Dead but he started out playing bluegrass and performed it all his life as the occasion permitted.

And Monroe remains the only performer to have been elected to The Bluegrass Hall of Fame, The Country Music Hall of Fame and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

      - Mark