J.D. Crowe & The New South
In a sense, this album did for bluegrass what bebop did for jazz: it intellectualized the music. Banjo picker J.D. Crowe, guitarist Tony Rice, Dobro player Jerry Douglas, fiddler-mandolinist Ricky Skaggs, and bassist Bobby Slone injected a jazz sensibility into the proceedings. The rigid rhythmic patterns of bluegrass picking were softened and complex scales were introduced, allowing the soloists more flexibility in how they improvised. Earlier bands such as the Seldom Scene and the Country Gentlemen had laid the seeds of progressive bluegrass by adding material from other styles. Crowe followed suit, including a pair of Gordon Lightfoot songs and a Fats Domino number, but took bluegrass a step further by expanding the musical horizons.--Marc Greilsamer