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Founding Women of Bluegrass – Playlist

March is Women’s History Month—so let’s celebrate bluegrass music’s founding mothers! It’s hard to pinpoint the exact year when bluegrass began, but it certainly wouldn’t have been without the contribution of the earliest female performers of the nascent genre, like Mother Maybelle Carter in the 1930s and Olla Belle Reed in the 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s, performers like Donna Stoneman, Rose Maddox, and Hazel and Alice helped cement the sound of the genre—and ensure that the female voice had a prominent place in it. In the 1970s and 1980s, some of today’s legends emerged as well—like Laurie Lewis, Claire Lynch, and Alison Brown—helping to usher in a new era of bluegrass. Enjoy this playlist of the Founding Women of Bluegrass!