Bill Monroe

William Smith Monroe grew up the youngest of eight children in Rosine, Kentucky, playing the mandolin — an instrument his older brothers had abandoned for guitar and fiddle. He moved to Chicago in 1929 to work at an oil refinery, playing music on the side, and by the late 1930s was performing with his brother Charlie as the Monroe Brothers.

When the partnership dissolved, Monroe formed the Blue Grass Boys in 1939 and spent the following decade developing the music that would be named for his home state. The classic lineup arrived in 1945–48 when Lester Flatt (guitar, tenor), Earl Scruggs (banjo, with a revolutionary three-finger picking style), Chubby Wise (fiddle) and Howard Watts (bass) joined. This configuration — high lonesome singing, Monroe’s precise mandolin chops, Scruggs’ cascading banjo — crystallized bluegrass as a distinct form.

“Blue Moon of Kentucky” (1945) was his signature in waltz time; Elvis Presley’s 1954 Sun recording of the same song, slowed and converted to 4/4, marks the moment country music and rock ‘n’ roll first cross. Monroe was fiercely protective of the form he had created and occasionally litigious about credit, but his influence on American roots music — from country to folk revival to newgrass — is foundational. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.