Bluegrass in Baltimore: The Hard Drivin' Sound and Its Legacy

by Tim Newby

McFarland & Company (series)

With an influx of Appalachian migrants who came looking for work in the 1940s and 1950s, Baltimore found itself populated by some extraordinary mountain musicians and was for a brief time the center of the Bluegrass world. Life in Baltimore for these musicians was not easy. There were missed opportunities, personal demons and always the up-hill battle with prejudice against their hillbilly origins. Based upon interviews with legendary players from the Golden Age of Baltimore Bluegrass, this book provides the first in-depth coverage of this transplanted-roots music and its broader influence, detailing the struggles Appalachian musicians faced in a big city that looked down on their "poorest example of poor man's music."