YEAR
1997
INDUCTED BY
Emmylou Harris & Ricky Skaggs
CATEGORY
Early Influences
The Father of Bluegrass music and an idol to none other than Elvis Presley.
Before Bill Monroe, country music was dismissed as unsophisticated backwoods music. Monroe legitimized the form with his frank, heartrending lyrics and gift for storytelling.
Bill Monroe
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Holly George Warren
Truth be told, Bill Monroe was not much of a fan of rock & roll.
Yet Monroe’s own powerful music — the gospel, blues and old-timey string-band blend that he and his ecstatic mandolin transformed into bluegrass – helped to give birth to the rock & roll sound.
“It was a Bill Monroe song that was the first-ever rockabilly song,” Carl Perkins declared recently in his South by Southwest keynote address.
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