If there is a single savior of Celtic music, Alan Stivell is probably it. Since the end of the 1960s, he has done more to revive interest in the Celtic (specifically Breton) harp than anyone in the world and, in the process, almost singlehandedly made the world aware of native Breton Celtic music. Since 1971, he has been recording albums of... [+] Read More

Yes No

Alison Krauss helped bring bluegrass to a new audience in the '90s. Blending bluegrass with folk, Krauss was instantly acclaimed from the start of her career, but it wasn't until her platinum-selling 1995 compilation Now That I've Found You that she became a mainstream star. Between her 1987 debut Too Late to Cry and Now That I've Found You, she... [+] Read More

Yes No

Buddy Spicher broke into country music in the mid-'50s, when he joined the band backing Audrey Williams (widow of Hank) mid-tour, replacing Dale Potter late in 1957 or early in 1958. He started out in Wheeling, WV, and ended up in Nashville. For the rest of the 1950s and most of the 1960s, the country fiddle virtuoso was on the road, playing in... [+] Read More

Yes No

David Grisman is normally associated with the bluegrass wing of country music, but his music owes almost as much to jazz as it does to traditional American folk influences. Because he couldn't think of what to call his unique, highly intricate, harmonically advanced hybrid of acoustic bluegrass, folk, and jazz without leaning toward one idiom or... [+] Read More

Yes No

Though she did not become a big name in bluegrass music, during the '80s Emma Smith garnered a small but devoted following thanks to her interesting, perceptive songs and powerful mountain voice. Born Emma Lee Maggard in Hindman, Kentucky, she began playing guitar as a youth. She married in her late teens and set up housekeeping in Hazard,... [+] Read More

Yes No

Larry Sparks has said that he's the youngest old-timer around, and the self-description is an apt one. Emerging from the Stanley Brothers' Clinch Mountain Boys band, Sparks carried on with the sounds created by bluegrass music's first generation. His style was no knock-off, however; it had a distinctively bluesy tinge anchored by Sparks' own... [+] Read More

Yes No

A major cult figure among progressive bluegrass aficionados, Peter Rowan participated in a number of adventurous projects in the late '60s and '70s before embarking on a highly productive solo career. Primarily a guitarist, Rowan also sang, yodeled, and played various members of the mandolin family. He was born in 1942 and grew up in Weyland,... [+] Read More

Yes No

By the time he was in his midthirties, Kentuckian Ricky Skaggs had already produced a career's worth of music. At age seven he appeared on TV with Flatt & Scruggs; at 15 he was a member of legendary Ralph Stanley's bluegrass band (with fellow teenager Keith Whitley). None of his '80s peers, male or female, had better musical credentials than... [+] Read More

Yes No

The McPeak Brothers were a popular bluegrass trio from Wytheville, VA, comprised of banjo/guitar player Dewey, bassist/guitarist Larry and guitarist/lead vocalist Mike. Their older brother Udell broke into music first when he joined the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers during the 1950s. In 1963, he, Dewey and Larry formed the first version of the McPeak... [+] Read More

Yes No

The avant-garde banjo sylings of Tony Trischka inspired a whole generation of progressive bluegrass musicians; he was not only considered among the very best pickers, he was also one of the instrument's top teachers, and created numerous instructional books, teaching video tapes and cassettes.

A native of Syracuse, New York,... [+] Read More

Yes No

As country music swung back toward traditional styles in the 1980s, an inheritor of the soulful honky tonk style of Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard rose to the top of the business and notched hit after barroom hit. Sometimes he was known simply as "The Voice." Born in Woodland, AL, Vern Gosdin idolized the Louvin Brothers and the Blue Sky Boys... [+] Read More

Yes No