<<I have always felt very close to Bluegrass music, though it is completely outside my youth or any real experience. My family left SW VA in 1810. Do you know when Bluegrass music started? >> I have also felt there was something special about Bluegrass music. I hear it more with my soul than ears. It got is name from Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass boys. Bluegrass boys from the KY bluegrass. I think they started about 1929. It evolved out of hillbilly music. I was listen to a Bluegrass audio feed on Primestar and noticed how Irish the fiddle tune was. It is clearly Scot-Irish in sound and some have compared the high pitched banjo to the high sound of the bagpipes. I have followed it for 20 years and thought there was something special about the people who were attracted to it. I don't think music was so uncommon in the pioneer era. There was no radio, TV, stereo, etc. and singing and music was one of the few entertainments. Hoedowns, shingdigs, etc. would have been the only entertainment. It seems to be true that recorded/broadcast country music started in Bristol. The Carter's were from Scott Co. My father knew A.P. When my father went to D.C. with other farmers to meet with FDR's New Dealers to etablish the tobacco price support program, they played country music in the Old Williard hotel lobby. (I wonder if that made them 'lobbyist' )<g> Bluegrass is very special music and its birthplace is SW VA, E.KY with roots in Celtic culture. -eddie "Toto, I don't think we are in NH any more."