[Note: This material is copyrighted by David E. Wunsch, and may not be reproduced without his permission. If you have any corrections or comments, contact David at dewunsch@ieee.org or me at lylelofgren@visi.com.]

Bluegrass began in about 1938, when Bill Monroe organized the Bluegrass Boys. Bluegrass music as a genre didn’t yet exist, because it wasn’t yet named. Older songs and tunes couldn’t have been “Bluegrass” when they were written; there was yet no Bluegrass. We have come to call songs and tunes “Bluegrass” if they are, or have been, recorded by a “major” bluegrass band (say Bill Monroe or the Stanley Brothers or Reno and Smiley). This poses the question: What is a “major” Bluegrass band? It is my opinion that a “major” bluegrass band should meet the following criteria:

1. The band must use approximately Bill Monroe's instrumentation. Which is: 5-string banjo, picked Scruggs style, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and upright bass, all acoustic. No keyboard, no drum, no electrics, no brass, no woodwinds, and no accordion.
2. No less than 4 players nor more than 6.
3. The band should have used the same name for more than 3 years.
4. The band should have recorded, released and sold more than 3 CDs (or equivalent) or more than 30 songs and tunes. (No, I don't know how to check on this.)
5. The band should have total CD (or equivalent) sales of more than 25,000. (No, I don't know how to check. There is probably a way.)
6. Band should have been paid for live performances in at least 4 states. (Nor this either.)

There is much room for argument about the proper criteria. There are probably other equally serviceable (or better) lists of criteria than this.

Below is a short list of songs, randomly picked from my memory. It is probably less than 1% of today’s still growing list of Bluegrass songs and tunes, but I think it’s more or less typical. For each song in this list, I looked up some major bluegrass band that has recorded the song, and listed the band here. Most of the tunes listed have also been played and recorded by other major bluegrass bands (sometimes dozens or more), as well.

In the column headed “Original Type of Music” usually I put how I would classify the original type of music, using today’s classifications. In some cases I have shown both how I would classify it today, and how I would have classified it when it was written.

Quite a few of the songs I’ve listed were recorded by the Carter Family in their era, 1927-1941. The Carter Family was NOT a bluegrass band; for one thing bluegrass hadn’t yet been invented nor named, nor did the Carters use what has come to be the proper bluegrass instrumentation. Most of the Carter Family songs were NOT written by A. P. Carter (even though he copyrighted them)! A. P. (or Ralph Peer} apparently knew the value of copyrights, even if many of his hillbilly contemporaries didn’t. Most Carter Family songs are listed (for example) in the book Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society, (copyright 1940) by H. M. Belden (ed.), and were collected in about 1909, by Prof. Belden and his students at the University of Missouri, 10 to 18 years before the Carters started to record in 1927. I have a copy of this book.

Several web sites list every song the Carter Family recorded (282 total). See, for example, wwbnews.worldwidebluegrass.com/article32.html  and  wwbnews.worldwidebluegrass.com/article34.html. The recorded Carter Family songs were a favorite source of Bill Monroe, The Stanley Bros, Flatt and Scruggs, Reno and Smiley, and other early bluegrass bands.