This is a guide to bluegrass music that traces the development of this musical genre, since its origin in Anglo-American folk tradition. Featuring writers such as Marty Stuart, David Gates, and Hunter Thompson, the selections include publications with pieces that are classics in the history of writing about bluegrass.

Like rock 'n' roll, bluegrass exploded out of a post-World War II atmosphere in which more Americans opened their ears to more different kinds of music than ever before. All around the country, musicians were searching for new sounds and approaches: country blues went fully electric in Chicago, bebop boiled over as jazz hit the hippest notes yet, and country music followed Hank Williams into newer, sexier, harder-hitting territory. The developments in bluegrass proved every bit as galvanic. In The Bluegrass Reader, Thomas Goldsmith joins his insights as a journalist with a lifetime of...