Contemporary Bluegrass

It took the GQ-friendly face of George Clooney to drag bluegrass out of the hills and back onto the pop charts, eclipsing the memory of Deliverance if not entirely erasing it. Leave it to the honeysuckle-voiced fiddler Alison Krauss (and her band, Union Station) to split the difference between country and folk, marrying the best of both in the title track from Every Time You Say Goodbye. It's Union Station's Dan Tyminski supplying the high-lonesome whine of George Clooney's "voice" in the Soggy Bottom Boys' CMA Single of the Year version of "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow." And to show how far the music's traveled, Canada's the Duhks bring a little backwoods Tennessee to the Manitoba plains in "Mountains O' Things." In Next Steps, the world's best banjo player and bluegrass for the whole family — literally.

Whatever you think you know about the banjo, Béla Fleck will change your mind. Like Coltrane and Hendrix, he completely rewrote the book on how to approach his instrument; check out his range, from "The Yee-Haw Factor" to his version of Bach's "Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin, BWV 1006: Prélude." Wow. The family that plays together can amaze together, as the six-member Cherryholmes clan proves in "How Long," its home-style harmonies tight as a fiddle string. And Nickel Creek (two-thirds of which is composed of siblings) locks into a groove located somewhere between Crosby Stills & Nash-esque Americana and the Hot Club's Gypsy jazz in "Reasons Why" from their debut album, produced by Alison Krauss. In Deep Cuts, a blind man makes the fiddle sing, a massively talented duo puts the "blue" in bluegrass, and more.

Where would bluegrass be if not for the occasional fingers-on-fire Mach 3 instrumental breakdown? Blind fiddler Michael Cleveland does everything but melt the strings in the steam-powered speed demon "Lee Highway Blues" from his debut album, Flame Keeper. Clearly, former Clinch Mountain Boy (and latter-day attorney) Charlie Sizemore didn't find enough twang in Randy Travis' #1 country hit "Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart," so he gave it the mountain treatment on 2007's Good News. And awesomely all-over-the-map banjo and slide-guitar genius Tony Furtado sops up some whiskey-soaked blues with Delta music devotee Kelly Joe Phelps on "False Hearted Lover."

If, when you think of bluegrass, an image of a five-string-banjo-wielding, porch-bound mutant leaps to mind, wow, have you got another think comin'. Look: George Clooney played bluegrass. (Well, sorta . . . he was dubbed. But you get the idea.) And virtuoso hillbilly hottie fiddler Alison Krauss has won more GRAMMY® Awards (20, at last count) than any other female pop star ever. And Béla Fleck has been called "the Jimi Hendrix of the banjo." So ditch the corncob pipe and the Mr. Green Jeans overalls, set the way-back machine for "old time-y," and revel in the sounds of gold comin' out of them thar hills. From the Dixie Chicks to the Soggy Bottom Boys, the banjo to the mandolin, Nickel Creek to Yonder Mountain, just yodel and we got you covered.