GUEST, et al., This subject is always interesting to me since I've played and studied bluegrass music for more than forty years now. Many people offer opinions that bluegrass music was around or at least developing prior to Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys of 1946 - 1948. This point of view often seems logical until one consults the large body of academic research on the origins of bluegrass music. Scholars agree that what we call bluegrass music began at the end of 1945 with Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Chubby Wise, Earl Scruggs and Howard Watts. Scholars also point to September 17, 1946, in Chicago, as the first commercial recording of a bluegrass song.

I don't mean to claim that scholars are infalable or that opposing views are automatically invalid but I think any opposing opinion needs a significant body of research accompanying it in order to be taken seriously.

There is an interesting Mudcat thread called Genealogy of Bluegrass and some related threads where we've talked about the orgins of bluegrass music and what generally defines the idiom. The comments there are only opinions but may help to shed some light on the issue.

      - Mark