fitzy - Posted - 12/10/2013:  23:54:53

Fairly new to bluegrass mandolin and was wondering is there CD s. That every mandolin player shoul. Have? I know there is thousands but a few artists and names please.

alubin - Posted - 12/12/2013:  08:15:33

Bill Monroe. I'm fairly new to bluegrass mandolin too, but if there's one player to start with, it's Monroe.

UsuallyPickin - Posted - 12/13/2013:  08:29:35

For Bluegrass Instrumentals Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe and the more modern Noam Pikelny Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe. Monroe plays on the original and Ronnie McCoury plays on the reboot. Either one is a treat. For duet work guitar and mandolin try the self titles Skaggs and Rice and for a more modern iteration check out the C. Thile and M. Daves recording Sleep With One Eye Open. For a full band any of The Bluegrass Album Band recordings which feature Doyle Lawson on mandolin ... Volume 6 is all instrumentals 1 through 5 is mostly vocal based songs. One More suggestion is 50 years of Del McCoury with Ronnie McCoury featured on mandolin. R/

fitzy - Posted - 12/13/2013:  13:33:40

great lads thanks, have all the chris thile stuff. bill monroe for sure,will check out the others, have ordered sam bush and david grisman cd should have next week,

Muscle Tone - Posted - 12/14/2013:  05:51:42

quote:

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Originally posted by alubin

 

Bill Monroe. I'm fairly new to bluegrass mandolin too, but if there's one player to start with, it's Monroe.

 

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I second the Bill Monroe suggestion. It's very important to listen to him if you're new to mandolin because he laid the foundation for the mandolin's role in bluegrass music. There's a great two CD set of his recordings called Anthology. It has alot of his classic mandolin tunes spread out throughout the set. I learned a lot just from listening to that. I highly recommend it.

Ben Venuti - Posted - 12/14/2013:  18:45:28

If you want to start at the beginning - Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, Flatt and Scruggs, The Osbourne Brothers, Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys, Jim and Jesse, Reno and Smiley, --that's a good start on first generation bluegrass bands. These bands were there at the start, are all accepted as classic traditional bluegrass(even by Bill) and most interestingly and refreshingly they are all quite different from one another. Seems that the founders were a bit more open minded than some that came behind them.
Next step might include -The Country Gentlemen, Larry Sparks, The Seldom Scene, JD Crowe and the New South, Doyle Lawson
then you take a great big step to New Grass Revival which 40 years ago, give or take, pretty much set the tone for what we call bluegrass today. What's fun is to get familiar with the musicians in these bands. Many of them started with one band and then went on to form or front other bands. Peter Rowan started with Bill Monroe and then went on to form things like Seatrain with Dave Grisman ---it's a pretty interesting evolution.

abinigia - Posted - 12/15/2013:  08:58:25

Bill Monroe's "Master Of Bluegrass" which came out late in his career, 1980 I think, is all instrumentals and one I recommend. Another essential player is Herschel Sizemore. The album I have of his is called  "Bounce Away w/original Rebecca".

fitzy - Posted - 01/03/2014:  03:09:28

im after getting a good selection of music now, my favourite one by far,,,sam bush and david grisman,,HOLD ON WERE STRUMMING, absolutely top class, if anybody knows of any other cds of this kind please let me know,

ErikForGod - Posted - 01/20/2014:  06:35:26

Ohh my....anything by Bill Monroe. The "Red Allen / Frank Wakefield and "The Kentuckians" recordings are really good as well. You get to hear Franks rendition of "Catnip" and also "New Camptown Races" on there It's a Smithsonian Folkways recordings....they also have a few really good recordings of Bill Monroe as well...all recorded by Ralph Rinzler. The Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza is another good one, also anything with Adam Steffey, Ronnie McCoury is a good bet as well. Good solid bluegrass stuff there!