Often called the "Father of Bluegrass", Kentucky mandolinist Bill Monroe founded the Blue Grass Boys in 1938, a band that in his words played "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin' ".  The addition of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs to his band in 1945 took its popularity to a new plateau and led to recordings that aired throughout the U.S.  When Elvis Presley recorded Monroe's Blue Moon of Kentucky in 1954, the audience became world-wide.  Eventually left behind in the tsunami of rock'n'roll, his popularity revived when the form was picked up by a new generation of bluegrass aficionados epitomized by the Grateful Dead.  Monroe himself soldiered on through cycles of adulation and adversity, maintaining a series of bands through his 60-year career.