If Bill Monroe was the Father of Bluegrass, Lester Flatt is surely one of its disciples. Born on this day (June 19) in 1914 in Overton County, Tennessee, Flatt teamed up with banjo virtuoso Earl ...

When Bill Monroe came up with bluegrass–“this high, lonesome sound,” as people called it at the time–banjo players used the clawhammer style. They flailed with their fingers and hands to play chords.

Popular music in North America entered a revolutionary stage in the 1940s, and a handful of recordings from the decade document the shift into music that was more virtuosic than what had come before.