Neil V. Rosenberg met the legendary Bill Monroe at the Brown County Jamboree. Rosenberg's subsequent experiences in Bean Blossom put his feet on the intertwined musical and scholarly paths that made him a preeminent scholar of bluegrass music.

Rosenberg's memoir shines a light on the changing bluegrass scene of the early 1960s. Already a fan and aspiring musician, his appetite for banjo music quickly put him on the Jamboree stage. Rosenberg eventually played with Monroe and spent four months managing the Jamboree. Those heights gave him an eyewitness view of nothing less than bluegrass's emergence from the shadow of country music into its own distinct art form. As the likes of Bill Keith and Del McCoury played, Rosenberg watched Monroe begin to share a personal link to the music that tied audiences to its history and his life—and helped turn him into bluegrass's foundational figure.

An intimate look at a transformative time, Bluegrass Generation tells the inside story of how an American musical tradition came to be.

| Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction Prologue Summer 1961 Meeting Monroe: June–July 1961 Bean Blossom: 1961 House Band: July–August 1961 Meeting the Audience: July 1961 Playing the Five: 1953–June 1961 Letters to Home: August 1961 Meeting the Regulars: August 1961 Bloomington: July–August 1961 Fall 1961 Monroe Again: September 1961 Autumn Work: September–October 1961 Stepping Up: October 1961 Connections: October 1961 White House Blues: October 1961 End of the Season: November 1961 Cannonball Blues: December 1961 Spring 1962 Meeting Marvin Hedrick: January–June 1962 College Kids: March 1962–May 1962 Summer 1962 Back to the Jamboree: July–August 1962 Folk in Bloomington: July–September 1962 Fall 1962 Mocking Bird Hill: September 1962 Folk and Country: October 1962 College Folk, Bluegrass, Banjo Necks: November 1962 Spring 1963 On the Road: January–March 1963 Spring Pickin': April 1963 Reno & Smiley: April 1963 Stonemans, Banjo Contest: May 1963 Summer 1963 Meeting Ralph Rinzler: June 1963 Ralph Fires Birch: June 1963 A Business Model: June–July 1963 Bobby Hits the Barn: June 1963 Two Country Sundays: July 1963 Conversations with Ralph: July 1963 Week 6 and the Letter: July–August 1963 Mandolin Sunday: August 1963 Berkeley Bluegrass: August–September 1963 Marvin Takes Over: August–September 1963 Fall 1963 Back to the Barn: September 1963 Monroe Day: September–October 1963 Bluegrass HQ: October–November 1963 Bean Blossom Hop: November 1963 Last Report to Ralph: November–December 1963 After the Jamboree: 1964–1967 Afterword Recordings, Bibliography, and Notes Recordings Notes Bibliography Credits Index | Bluegrass Print/Media Person of the Year from the International Bluegrass Music Association — the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)
|Neil V. Rosenberg is the professor emeritus of folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He is the author of Bluegrass: A History and coauthor of Bluegrass Odyssey and The Music of Bill Monroe.