  Bluegrass Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music. It has its own roots in Irish, Scottish and English traditional music. Bluegrass was inspired by the music of immigrants from the British Isles (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants in Appalachia), as well as jazz and blues. In bluegrass, as in jazz, each instrument takes a turn playing the melody and improvising around it, while the others revert to backing; this is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment. Bluegrass is distinctively acoustic in instrumentation, not using electrical instruments of any kind.  Instrumentation Bluegrass artists use a variety of stringed instruments to create a unique sound. Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass relies mostly on acoustic stringed instruments. The fiddle, five string banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin, and upright bass are often joined by the resonator guitar (popularly known by the Dobro brand name). This instrumentation originated in rural black dance bands and was being abandoned by those groups (in favor of blues and jazz ensembles) when picked up by white musicians (van der Merwe 1989, p.62). Instrumental solos are improvised, and can frequently be technically demanding.  Creation Bluegrass as a style developed during the mid 1940s. Because of war rationing, recording was limited during that time, and it would be most accurate to say that bluegrass was played some time after World War II, but no earlier. As with any musical genre, no one person can claim to have invented it. Rather, bluegrass is an amalgam of old-time music, blues, ragtime and jazz. Nevertheless, bluegrass's beginnings can be traced to one band. Today Bill Monroe is referred to as the founding father of bluegrass music; the bluegrass style was named for his band, the Blue Grass Boys, formed in 1939. The 1946 addition of banjo player Earl Scruggs, who played with a three-finger roll originally developed by Snuffy Jenkins, but now almost universally known as Scruggs style, is considered the key moment in the development of this genre. Although Jenkins in interviews has renounced his role as being the one who invented the three-finger roll, said he learned it from Rex Brooks and Smith Hammett in the 1920s.  Just give it up......Bluegrass was around before Jazz(White origins) and the Black Blues(as opposed to White Country Blues, Blues music has never been just Black), maybe they didn't use the name Bluegrass not sure about that, but Bluegrass music still preceded Jazz and Blues by quite some time. This is the most asinine, outright fabricated article I have ever read in my life. Bluegrass was around long before the mid 1940s, looong before.Where are you getting this stuff? Please stop copying and pasting unreliable, unreferenced articles from the niggapedia :rolleyes: