A.P. Carter didn’t write most of these songs in the strict sense. He collected them, reshaped them, and put his name on them, and that’s how a huge chunk of the old-time and bluegrass repertoire came down to us. The Carter Family recorded them in the late 1920s and 1930s with Maybelle’s guitar and Sara’s lead voice, and bluegrass bands have been pulling from that well ever since. Wildwood Flower, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Foggy Mountain Top — these are the bones of a jam.

Use this list as a starting point if you’re filling out your repertoire or looking for the next standard to learn. They sit easy in standard keys and most work at any tempo, from a porch sing to a fast bluegrass break. Click any song to get the chord chart, lyrics, recordings to listen through, and a short history of where the song came from.