All Aboard: Bluegrass Train Songs

19 songs

The rails that run through the bluegrass canon

Behind Bars: Bluegrass Prison Ballads

16 songs

Lockup ballads from the bluegrass tradition

Bluegrass Animal Songs

29 songs

Horses, dogs, pigs, birds — the bluegrass barnyard

Bluegrass Cheating Songs

57 songs

Infidelity, betrayal, and the long black veil tradition

Bluegrass Cowboy Songs

15 songs

The cowboy strand of the bluegrass repertoire

Bluegrass Disaster Songs

30 songs

Songs about train wrecks, mining disasters, and floods

Bluegrass Farming Songs

18 songs

From sharecroppers to "Maggies Farm"

Bluegrass Gambling Songs

20 songs

Cards, horses, and the rambling gambler

Bluegrass Gospel: The Deep Cuts

30 songs

Songs that deserve more attention

Bluegrass Heartbreak Songs

25 songs

The broken-heart canon every picker should know

Bluegrass Love Songs

60 songs

The other kind — songs where love is going well

Bluegrass Mining Songs

25 songs

Songs from the coal-camp tradition

Bluegrass Mourning Songs

54 songs

Songs written for someone specific who has died

Bluegrass Murder Ballads

12 songs

The dark side of the canon — lockstep with the tradition

Bluegrass Songs About Cabins

18 songs

Log-cabin imagery in the bluegrass tradition

Bluegrass Songs About Children

13 songs

The 19th-century tradition of dying-child and orphan ballads

Bluegrass Songs About Hard Times

73 songs

Working-class songs of struggle and survival

Bluegrass Songs About Heaven

50 songs

Gospel songs about the afterlife and meeting God

Bluegrass Songs About Kentucky

14 songs

From Bill Monroes pasture grass to Harlan County coal

Bluegrass Songs About Mortality

20 songs

First-person reckonings with death and aging

Bluegrass Songs About Rivers and Seas

58 songs

The Ohio, the harbor of love, the river of salvation

Bluegrass Songs About Tennessee

17 songs

From the Smokies to Nashville to Memphis

Bluegrass Songs About the American West

14 songs

When the repertoire heads west of the Mississippi

Bluegrass Songs About the Seasons

15 songs

From the first whippoorwill to deep winter

Bluegrass Songs About Virginia, West Virginia, and the Blue Ridge

16 songs

The Carters, the Stanleys, Hazel Dickens, and the Blue Ridge tradition

Bluegrass Songs of Sorrow & Loneliness

22 songs

Blue-mood ballads from the canon

Bluegrass War Songs

12 songs

Civil War ballads and folk-revival protest songs

Bluegrass Weather Songs

44 songs

Rain, snow, and the storms that wreck the harvest

Drinking Songs Beyond the Standards

17 songs

Deeper cuts from the moonshine canon

Family Songs from the Deep Canon

20 songs

Songs about kin from the deep canon

Heartbreak Songs You Probably Don’t Know

80 songs

Deep cuts from the heartbreak shelf

Highway Songs in Bluegrass

14 songs

The traveling-music canon

Home Songs Beyond the Front Porch

24 songs

Deeper cuts on the homecoming tradition

Homecoming Songs in Bluegrass

24 songs

The homecoming canon

Lesser-Known Bluegrass Outlaw Songs

18 songs

Bandits, escapees, and broadside ballads

Lesser-Known Bluegrass Rambling Songs

65 songs

Hobo songs, runaway songs, and the deep rambling canon

Lesser-Known Bluegrass Road & Highway Songs

21 songs

Hitchhikers, truckers, and the deeper road canon

Lockup Ballads You Probably Haven’t Heard

18 songs

Deeper cuts from the chain-gang canon

Moonshine, Whiskey & Bluegrass

18 songs

Liquor, moonshine, and the bluegrass canon

Mother & Dad Songs in Bluegrass

20 songs

Family songs from the bluegrass canon

Mountain Songs the Canon Forgot

22 songs

Songs from the high holler tradition

Murder Ballads from the B-Sides

20 songs

Dark cuts the canon overlooked

Outlaws, Bandits, and Bluegrass

19 songs

Songs of the lawless side of the tradition

Songs from the Blue Ridge

19 songs

The Blue Ridge canon

The Bluegrass Gospel Canon

27 songs

A starting jam-friendly repertoire

The Rambler’s Bluegrass Songbook

25 songs

The wandering songs in the canon

Train Songs Off the Beaten Track

22 songs

Deep cuts from the railroad canon

1980s Bluegrass

56 songs

The traditional revival era: J.D. Crowe, Bluegrass Album Band, Doyle Lawson

1990s Bluegrass

74 songs

Alison Krauss's commercial breakthrough + the Lonesome River Band era

Bluegrass in the 1940s

15 songs

Bill Monroe's original Bluegrass Boys era

Bluegrass in the 1950s

25 songs

Flatt & Scruggs, Stanley Brothers, the Osborne era

Bluegrass Rock & Pop Crossovers

13 songs

Beatles, Dead, CCR, Tom Petty, Springsteen — rock songs bluegrass bands play

Classic Country for Bluegrass Pickers

20 songs

The Hank-Cash-Merle canon for bluegrass pickers

Crooked Bluegrass Tunes

17 songs

Tunes with irregular phrasing — extra beats or measures

Essential Appalachian Old-Time Tunes

60 songs

The southern Appalachian fiddle-and-banjo repertoire

Essential Folk-Revival Songs

34 songs

Dylan, Seeger, Guthrie's bluegrass adjacency

Essential Jamgrass Songs

7 songs

Greensky, Yonder, Salmon territory

Essential Outlaw Country Songs

11 songs

Willie, Waylon, Townes territory

Full-On Mash

49 songs

The hardest-driving tunes in the jam

Lesser-Known Americana Songs for Bluegrass

60 songs

Deeper folk-Americana material

Lesser-Known Classic Bluegrass Songs

60 songs

The 1970s-80s era beyond the standards

Lesser-Known Classic Country Songs for Bluegrass

60 songs

Deeper country material bluegrass bands pick up

Lesser-Known Modern Bluegrass Songs

60 songs

Modern bluegrass beyond the obvious hits

Lesser-Known Old-Time Songs

60 songs

Deep cuts from the old-time tradition

Lesser-Known Traditional Bluegrass Songs

60 songs

Beyond the first-generation canon

Modern Bluegrass Standards (Post-2000)

77 songs

First-released after 2000 — the contemporary canon

Second-Generation Bluegrass Standards

14 songs

Second-generation standards

Singer-Songwriter Songs in the Bluegrass Repertoire

58 songs

Prine, Townes, Lightfoot, Guy Clark, and the writers bluegrass borrowed

Songs from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

9 songs

Bluegrass-canon songs from the 2000 Coen Brothers soundtrack

The 1960s Bluegrass Revival

25 songs

When the second generation took the music to college campuses

The Americana Songbook

16 songs

Gillian Welch, Old Crow, Avett Brothers territory

The First-Generation Bluegrass Canon

29 songs

The Monroe-Stanley-F&S core

The Greatest Bluegrass Songs Ever Recorded

30 songs

The recordings that built the music

The Newgrass Canon

16 songs

The progressive bluegrass canon

The Old-Time Canon

26 songs

Pre-bluegrass mountain music

Where Newgrass Started: The 1970s

18 songs

New Grass Revival, John Hartford, Old & In the Way

A.P. Carter and the Carter Family Songbook

12 songs

The Carter Family's bluegrass-canon songs

Carter Stanley: The Songwriter

18 songs

The Stanley Brothers' songwriting voice

Essential Bob Dylan Songs Bluegrass Pickers Play

13 songs

The Dylan canon, bluegrass jam edition

Essential Hank Williams Songs (Bluegrass-Friendly)

9 songs

The country-canon Hank that bluegrass pickers play

Essential Hazel Dickens Songs

11 songs

The first lady of bluegrass songwriting

Essential John Hartford Songs

13 songs

The newgrass songwriter's canon

Essential Norman Blake Songs

9 songs

A guitar legend's songwriting catalog

Essential Ralph Stanley Songs

11 songs

The other Stanley brother's songwriting catalog

Essential Tim O’Brien Songs

9 songs

A modern bluegrass songwriter's standards

Essential Townes Van Zandt Songs

7 songs

The bluegrass-loved Townes canon

The Bill Monroe Songbook

24 songs

The father of bluegrass's core repertoire

Alison Krauss & Union Station Recordings

23 songs

The bluegrass act that crossed into country and pop

Bill Monroe at the Microphone

13 songs

The Father of Bluegrass on his own songs

Doc Watson Recordings

29 songs

The flatpicking legend

Larry Sparks Recordings

22 songs

From the Stanley Brothers band to his own long solo career

Tony Rice’s Defining Recordings

25 songs

The defining performances on the flat-pick guitar canon

Bluegrass Banjo: Your First Songs

20 songs

First-jam banjo repertoire

Bluegrass Guitar: Your First Songs

25 songs

Your first jam-ready repertoire

Easy Bluegrass Songs to Sing

23 songs

First-jam singing repertoire

Easy Fiddle Tunes for Beginners

49 songs

49 beginner-difficulty instrumental tunes

Intermediate Fiddle Tunes

60 songs

60 intermediate-level instrumental tunes

The Next Step on Bluegrass Banjo

24 songs

Stretch repertoire after the basics

The Next Step on Bluegrass Guitar

23 songs

The next step after the easy repertoire

Bluegrass Fiddle Tunes in A

64 songs

A-key instrumental tunes — old-time and bluegrass favorites

Bluegrass Fiddle Tunes in D

56 songs

D-key instrumental tunes — the fiddler's home key

Bluegrass Fiddle Tunes in G

61 songs

G-key instrumental tunes — bluegrass's native key

Modal Fiddle Tunes

27 songs

A modal, D modal, and minor-key tunes — the older, more haunting side

The Bluegrass Jam Standards

30 songs

What to learn before walking into a jam

Advanced Fiddle Tunes

35 songs

The harder bluegrass and old-time tunes

Blue Highway Recordings

10 songs

The vocal-led modern traditional band since 1994

Bluegrass Album Band Recordings

42 songs

The all-star traditional-revival project of the late 1970s

Bluegrass and Old-Time Reels

60 songs

Sixty reels — the backbone of the dance-fiddle tradition

Bluegrass Breakdowns & Showpieces

46 songs

Fast Scruggs-style breakdowns and flashy fiddle-and-banjo showpieces

Bluegrass Brother Duets

86 songs

From the Monroe Brothers to today's Crowe Brothers

Bluegrass Hornpipe Tunes

8 songs

Hornpipes — dotted-rhythm tunes from the Celtic tradition

Bluegrass Rag Tunes

17 songs

Ragtime-influenced instrumentals

Bluegrass Songs from the Old Ballad Tradition

15 songs

Child ballads and 19th-century Appalachian material that bluegrass adopted

Celtic Tunes in Bluegrass

19 songs

Irish, Scottish, and Cape Breton tunes that crossed over

Country Gentlemen Recordings

29 songs

The DC-area band that opened bluegrass to new material

Crossover-Era Women in Bluegrass

62 songs

Dolly, Emmylou, Linda Ronstadt, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch

Del McCoury Band Recordings

20 songs

From Bill Monroe alumnus to bluegrass elder statesman

Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Recordings

11 songs

Tight vocal-gospel bluegrass since 1979

Flatt and Scruggs Recordings

46 songs

The 1948 split from Monroe that defined bluegrass's second voice

Founding Mothers of Bluegrass

35 songs

The Carter Family, Ola Belle Reed, Hazel Dickens, Alice Gerrard

Hot Rize Recordings

19 songs

Tim O'Brien's pioneering progressive bluegrass band

Instrumental Bluegrass Waltzes

9 songs

Bluegrass and old-time waltzes in 3/4

J.D. Crowe & the New South Recordings

19 songs

The Kentucky band that launched Tony Rice and Ricky Skaggs

Jimmy Martin Recordings

22 songs

The King of Bluegrass

Lonesome River Band Recordings

30 songs

Sammy Shelor's long-running traditional bluegrass band

Modern Women in Bluegrass

15 songs

Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, I'm With Her, Della Mae, Sister Sadie

Ricky Skaggs Recordings

39 songs

The Kentucky boy who went country, then came back to bluegrass

Seldom Scene Recordings

15 songs

The DC progressive bluegrass band that wrote the modern rulebook

Slow Bluegrass & Old-Time Instrumental Tunes

53 songs

Air-like fiddle tunes and slow tempos for late-jam moments

Songs from “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”

14 songs

The 1972 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band triple album that bridged generations

Swing & Jazz Tunes in Bluegrass

12 songs

Jazz standards and swing tunes the dawg-music side plays

Texas Fiddle Tunes

14 songs

Texas-style fiddle tunes — bluesy, swing-influenced