`The Very Best Of Bill Monroe And His Blue Grass Boys' Features 30 Years of Original Classics From the Father of Bluegrass.

Entertainment Editors & Music/Retail Writers

LOS ANGELES--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--July 26, 2002

No one could have predicted that in the new millennium, bluegrass would enjoy its greatest success. But thanks to the soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," not only has bluegrass topped the pop charts but the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe, is being rediscovered by a new generation.

"The Very Best Of Bill Monroe And His Blue Grass Boys" (MCA Nashville/Decca/UME), released August 27, 2002, brings together 22 Monroe bluegrass classics, each digitally remastered. Spanning 1950 to 1981, the compilation features recordings covered by, and influences on, everyone from Elvis Presley and the Grateful Dead to contemporary country stars Vince Gill, Allison Krauss, Ricky Skaggs and the Dixie Chicks.

Bluegrass is one of the few genres whose development can be traced to one man. Inducted into the Country Music and Rock and Roll halls of fame, recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and, in 1989, the first bluegrass Grammy, Monroe is that man. The mandolinist-singer took old-time string band music and added banjos, fiddles and overdrive to create a new American music. He then taught it to generations of Blue Grass Boys, from Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs to Vassar Clements.

After '40s stints on RCA and Columbia, Monroe made his first Decca recording in 1950, remaining with the label until his 1996 death. "The Very Best Of Bill Monroe And His Blue Grass Boys" opens with a 1954 re-recording of his timeless "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" and concludes with 1981's poignant "My Last Days On Earth." The earliest tracks are among his most famous: 1950's "New Mule Skinner Blues" (from his first Decca session) and "Uncle Pen" (#1 country for Skaggs in 1984), and 1952's "In The Pines." Recordings of other previous hits include "Footprints In The Snow" and a '70s "Kentucky Waltz." Reprised too is "Molly & Tenbrooks" from 1957, the year of "Goodbye Old Pal."

"Roanoke" has been a perennial at fiddle contests since its 1954 recording. Also from that year, The Carter Family's "I'm Working On A Building" is a Monroe favorite. While most of the tracks are originals, his covers often became vintage Monroe, including Jimmie Rodgers' "When The Cactus Is In Bloom," Hank Williams' "I Saw The Light," A.P. Carter's "Jimmie Brown, The Newsboy" and the Wilburn Brothers' "Roll On Buddy Roll On."

In 1958, "Scotland" and "Gotta Travel On" were his last country Top 30s. The '60s produced "Toy Heart," "I'm Going Back To Old Kentucky," "Walls Of Time," "Midnight On The Stormy Deep" and "Walk Softly On My Heart," which the Dixie Chicks would revive on a tribute album. Today, artists are doing exactly what Monroe did -- making the old new again.