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50 free Bluegrass trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bluegrass is barely 80 years old and has a birth certificate: a 1946 line-up of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys with Lester Flatt on guitar and a young Earl Scruggs playing banjo with three fingers instead of two. Monroe, the youngest of eight, got stuck with the mandolin because his brothers already had the fiddle and guitar. Elvis's first B-side was a Monroe waltz. Flatt and Scruggs hit number one with a sitcom theme, split over Bob Dylan songs, and did not speak for a decade. These 50 questions run from the Appalachian roots and the Opry audition to the first festival in 1965, Jerry Garcia tagging along with Monroe, newgrass and the Flecktones, Alison Krauss's 27 Grammys, a Belgian film, and World Bluegrass Day. Easy questions cover the instruments and the famous names; the expert tier asks about Monroe's early bands, his fiddlers and bassists, and who actually sang the Jed Clampett theme. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation. Play it solo, or print it for a festival car-park jam.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who is known as the 'Father of Bluegrass'?
Bill Monroe
A 1960s Sing Out! profile by a young folklorist was the first to publicly call him that.
Q 02The genre takes its name from Monroe's band, known as what?
The Blue Grass Boys
The band formed in 1939; the word 'bluegrass' for the music itself only caught on in the late 1950s.
Q 03Which instrument did Monroe play?
Mandolin
As the youngest brother he got the least desirable instrument, and was made to remove four of its eight strings so he would not play too loudly.
Q 04Earl Scruggs popularised a three-finger picking style on which instrument?
Banjo
The 'Scruggs style' lifted the instrument from background rhythm to featured solos and caused a sensation at the Opry.
Q 05In which region of the United States did bluegrass develop in the 1940s?
Appalachia
Scottish and Irish settlers brought the jigs, reels and ballads; Black musicians brought the instrument Scruggs later revolutionised.
Q 06Monroe's band was named for the bluegrass of which state, his home?
Kentucky
He was born on a farm near Rosine, the youngest of eight children.
Q 07Which Flatt and Scruggs instrumental was used throughout the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde?
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
Recorded in 1949, it won Grammys in 1968 and again in 2001 for an all-star remake.
Q 08Flatt and Scruggs hit number one with the theme to which TV sitcom?
The Beverly Hillbillies
'The Ballad of Jed Clampett' was the first bluegrass recording to top the Billboard country chart.
Q 09Unlike country music, traditional bluegrass is played only on what kind of instruments?
Acoustic
Departures such as drums, piano and electric instruments gave rise to the label 'newgrass'.
Q 10Monroe famously said bluegrass has a 'high ___ sound'. Which word fills the gap?
Lonesome
He described the music as part Methodist, Holiness and Baptist, part blues and jazz.
Q 11Which star covered Monroe's most famous song as the B-side of his first Sun Records single?
Elvis Presley
Monroe gave his blessing, then re-recorded the old waltz himself at a faster tempo once the cover became a hit.
Q 12Alison Krauss has fronted which bluegrass band since 1989?
Union Station
She had signed a record deal at 14 and released a solo album before joining the band.
Q 13Monroe auditioned in 1939 for a regular spot on which radio show?
Grand Ole Opry
He impressed founder George D. Hay with a high-energy 'Mule Skinner Blues' and stayed a mainstay for over 50 years.
Q 21At what age did Ricky Skaggs play and sing on stage with Monroe?
6
A year later he was on the Martha White TV show with Flatt and Scruggs, but was told he was too young to audition for the Opry.
Q 22The term 'newgrass' comes from which progressive band of the 1970s and 80s?
New Grass Revival
They used electric instruments and songs from other genres; Béla Fleck was a member.
Q 23Béla Fleck leads which genre-blending band?
The Flecktones
He was named after Bartók, Webern and Janáček, and has won 18 Grammys.
How many Grammy Awards had Alison Krauss won by the end of 2025?
Q 14Which instrument did Lester Flatt play in Monroe's band?
Guitar
His solid rhythm style helped set bluegrass timing; he played with a thumb pick and finger pick rather than flatpicking.
Q 15Which Flatt and Scruggs band name did the Coen brothers riff on in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Foggy Mountain Boys
Flatt and Scruggs formed the band in 1948 after quitting Monroe's exhausting touring schedule.
Q 16Monroe founded an annual bluegrass festival in 1967 at Bean Blossom, in which state?
Indiana
He had bought the park in 1951; it is now the world's oldest continuously running annual bluegrass festival.
Q 17Which future Grateful Dead guitarist caravanned across the country in 1964 to tag along with Monroe?
Jerry Garcia
He was playing in the Black Mountain Boys in Palo Alto and taped Monroe's shows at Bean Blossom.
Q 18Which older two-finger style did Scruggs's three-finger picking largely displace?
Clawhammer
The older style had been popular before the Civil War, when minstrel shows first brought the instrument to white audiences.
Q 19Monroe's song 'Uncle Pen' honours an uncle who played which instrument at dances?
Fiddle
Pendleton Vandiver took the orphaned teenager in and gave him a repertoire of tunes he recorded on a 1972 album.
Q 20Flatt refused to sing songs by which writer, a factor in the duo's 1969 split?
Bob Dylan
'Columbia has got Bob Dylan, why did they want me?' he asked; Scruggs wanted a more modern sound.
27
At that point only Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and Georg Solti had more; she was the second-youngest winner when she first won in 1991.
Q 25Alison Krauss made the platinum album Raising Sand with which English rock singer?
Robert Plant
The 2007 record was the first of their two collaborations.
Q 26'Dobro' is another name for which instrument often heard in bluegrass?
Resonator guitar
Harmonica and Jew's harp also turn up occasionally alongside the core string line-up.
Q 27In a standard bluegrass harmony 'stack', which voice sits on top?
Tenor
The lead sings the melody in the middle with the baritone below; the Osborne Brothers made a high lead their trademark instead.
Q 28Which 2012 Belgian film put Flemish bluegrass musicians at the centre of its story?
The Broken Circle Breakdown
It showed how far the genre had travelled; bluegrass associations now exist worldwide.
Q 29Scruggs's 2001 Grammy came for a remake of his signature tune featuring which comedian?
Steve Martin
The all-star version also featured Vince Gill, Leon Russell, Paul Shaffer and Scruggs's two oldest sons.
Q 30Monroe died in 1996 in Springfield, in which state?
Tennessee
He had given his last performance that March, four days shy of his 85th birthday when he died.