The Dilemma: You want to expand your musical knowledge, but your eyes glaze over at the mere mention of broken-down trucks and errant wives.

People You Can Impress: fans of both country and western

The Quick Trick: Check and see what the musician is packing. Country music generally involves a heavy guitar sound (acoustic and/or electric). If you’re going to play bluegrass, though, you’ll need a fiddle, a mandolin, or a banjo—and preferably all three.

The Explanation:
Bluegrass and country (to a lesser extent) are both descendants of Appalachian folk music, which remained largely unchanged from the 18th century until the 1920s, when mountain musicians began flocking to cities and were influenced by other popular styles. The recording industry referred to the resulting mix of folk ballads, blues, and gospel as “hillbilly music”—a name it tactfully dropped in favor of “country” in 1949.

By that point, though, a lot of people felt country music had drifted too far from its roots. In the late 1940s, a band called The Blue Grass Boys, fronted by Bill Monroe, led a return to folk standards and traditional instruments such as the fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. Monroe, who is universally regarded as having invented bluegrass music and is talked about in hushed, reverent tones by bluegrass musicians everywhere, was infl uenced both by the traditional music played by his uncles and by African American folk music of the South.

Since the emergence of Bill Monroe, country and bluegrass have had wildly different trajectories. Country music adopted influences from the tunes of the Western United States and became a multibillion-dollar industry based on guitar melodies, fusion with other popular styles, and slick production values. Meanwhile, bluegrass became the underground music of traditionalists, the 1960s folk scene, and rockers in search of their roots.

But there has certainly been some crossover between bluegrass and the wider world of pop country music. Monroe is in the Country Music Hall of Fame, after all—and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And before the Dixie Chicks became the richest women in country, they were a banjo-pickin’, foot-thumpin’ bluegrass trio.

There’s No Tear in My Beer
Although known today as the semiofficial musical medium of sentimentality, country once had a different reputation. In fact, the style became all the rage in the 1920s in part because it was less maudlin than other popular music.