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Bluegrass Boom: How Artists Like Billy Strings Have Helped the Genre Go Mainstream

How bluegrass artists like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and Zach Top have helped lead the once-niche genre to mainstream success on tour and in sales.

Thanks to arena-filling phenomenon Billy Strings and rising mainstream country stars Zach Top and Molly Tuttle, the genre is “going through an upward cycle,” says Ken White, executive director of the Nashville-based International Bluegrass Music Association. Elvis Presley turned Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” into a foundational rock ‘n’ roll anthem in 1954; hippie inheritors like New Grass Revival, including Bela Fleck and Sam Bush, gave it new life in the ’70s, as did Leftover Salmon and String Cheese Incident with their Grateful Dead-style jam-band approach in the ’90s. Tim O’Brien, a veteran bluegrass singer and mandolinist, says he’s suddenly getting interest from younger stars who want to collaborate on songwriting — like singer-songwriter Solon Holt, who signed with Universal Music Publishing Group last year.

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