The South Carolina State Bluegrass Festival in Myrtle Beach, SC, is held on the third weekend of every November for a total of three days, offering the finest of bluegrass musicians. Gathering to play America's deeply entwined Bluegrass music are individuals who represent the grass-roots movement, unique to the country's history and culture. Entertaining and educating, over 1,500 travelers and local music lovers attend this bluegrass celebration every year at the
Myrtle Beach Convention Center, presented by Adam and Anderson LLC. This year the 39th Bluegrass Festival begins its first show at noon and the last show at 9:45 pm. On each of the three days, with a wide variety of talented bluegrass performers and toe-tapping mountain music that makes one jump up and dance.
A natural heartland for bluegrass music, the southern mountains of the Carolinas have always been considered fertile ground for the bluegrass music development and growth through the English and Scotts-Irish backgrounds of its people since the 17th century. With this kind of background, the term "bluegrass" did not come into play until the 1950s with Bill Monroe and his group on the Grand Old Opry, who was known as the "Daddy of Bluegrass" with his high mountain tenor voice that bluegrass music is known for today.
Considered a new form of music that sounds old, it has a background of ballads and song traditions giving it the unique mountain sound which has become one of our country's most valuable contributions to the American culture. Considered the Black music of the rural south, it eventually became the instrumental quality of bluegrass sounds we hear today, focusing on the fiddle and banjo, with the guitar appearing in the 1920s as a backup instrument.
