Bluegrass DVD's and Music Videotapes

Below is a selection of Bluegrass DVD's and videotapes that feature live bluegrass music performances, such as concert footage and other bluegrass artist and band performances, as well as commercial movie releases that feature bluegrass music.

If you are interested in viewing Bluegrass Lesson DVD's, tapes, tabs and books (i.e., bluegrass guitar, banjo, mandolin, doboro, fiddle, etc. instructions and lessons), then click here.

The Legend Lives On - A Tribute to Bill Monroe	The father of bluegrass music is feted by peers, protégés, and spiritual descendants in this Bluegrass DVD concert film, set in Nashville and featuring 15 artists and groups performing Monroe's classic songs. The two-disc The Legend Lives On reaches deep into the heart of Monroe's canon with Ricky Scaggs's cover of Uncle Pen. Sparks fly with the populous Del McCoury Band's take on John Henry, Charlie Daniels's propulsive Rockin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms, and Marty Stuart's Rawhide. Soloist Tim O'Brien is superb on the stark Highway of Sorrow.
Gillian Welch - The Revelator Collection	Rarely have an artist and a visual approach been as well matched as they are in this hour-long bluegrass music DVD package of videos and concert performances featuring bluegrass music singer-songwriter Gillian Welch and her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Welch's rootsy, all-acoustic music is pure, plain, and simple, old-sounding if not especially old-fashioned; fittingly, both the three videos and nine live songs here ("Revelator" is seen and heard in both formats), all from 2001, are in black and white and similarly free of props, effects, or any other kind of artifice. Most of the material is her own, with covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt, and bluegrass legend Bill Monroe rounding out the program. Not the liveliest or most uplifting music around, perhaps, but Welch fans will, well, revel in this tasteful presentation of her work.
Gospel Bluegrass Homecoming 1	Bluegrass music was born in the hills of Appalachia in the early part of the 20th Century and gradually made its way into the pews of churches all throughout America. Along with gospel music, it has become a unique and treasured American art form. Now the legends of bluegrass music join voices and instruments with the best in gospel music for a remarkable two-part series hosted by Gospel Music Hall of Famer Bill Gaither and contemporary bluegrass banner-carrier, Marty Stuart.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Farther Along	The Circle continues with all three award-winning Will The Circle Be Unbroken volumes highlighted on this new DVD. Legendary country group Nitty Gritty Dirt Band brought their friends and family together for a special celebration of their acclaimed, Grammy-perennial Will The Circle Be Unbroken collaborative albums. Taped for airing March 2003 on Public Television
Bluegrass Music Roots	It was back in 1964. New York City filmmaker, David Hoffman, age 22, was headed down with his new 16mm hand help camera (weight 49 lbs!) to spend three weeks driving the backcountry around Madison County, North Carolina, in the center of Appalachia, with the 82 year old founder of the pioneer Asheville Mountain Music and Dance Festival, Bascom Lamar Lunsford. The resulting film, "Bluegrass Roots" lets you hear and experience the hard scrabbling, dirt road real people sounds that dominated the back country of the southern mountains 40 years ago. It presents a string of the most extraordinary singers, players and dancers the BlueGrass Mountains had to offer. Many later became famous. Some were never heard from again. Most of the songs are classics, including Lunsford’s own tune, "Mountain Dew." When this film aired on Public Television in 1965, TV Guide gave it a full-page positive review, because Americans had never seen a documentary on the roots of Bluegrass and Country music. Today, the dirt roads and the moonshine counties are largely modernized, and Bluegrass Roots, stands as a record of a uniquely talented group of people at a time just before the coming of television, changed them.
That High Lonesome Sound	Preserving a musical culture that has all but vanished from the hills of Appalachia, this compilation of films by musician-documentarian John Cohen offers a rich portrait of rural life in the early 1960s. Old practitioners of the "high lonesome" sound of bluegrass still retained the remote flavor of the region, so Cohen's films are now rare and cherished time capsules, beginning with "The High Lonesome Sound," an impressionistic portrait of Kentucky singer- guitarist Roscoe Holcomb and the hard-scrabble life that inspired his music. The second film, "The End of an Old Song," is a similarly moving portrait of balladeer Dillard Chandler, while "Sara and Maybelle" captures the reunion of two sisters from country music's pioneering Carter Family. Even though Cohen's verité methods are crude (resulting in minimal use of synchronized sound), his techniques are well suited to his subjects, qualifying these films as musical anthropology that will enthrall any student of music or rural American history
Bluegrass Summit Performance-A Tribute to Don Stover	This exciting concert video documents an evening of powerful music and high emotions. These performances are featured: "One Morning In May" (Bill Keith/Jim Rooney Band); "Reuben's Train," "Black Jack Davey," "Always On A Mountain," "House Of The Rising Sun" (Chesapeake); "Swept Away," "Waiting For A Train," "Going To The West," "Things In Life" (Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum); "Three Minutes Ago," "Black Diamond" (Béla Fleck and Tony Trischka); "Tragic Romance," "What A Friend We Have In Jesus," "Hide You In The Blood Of Jesus" (Don Stover and Friends).
17th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festi	Considered one of the country's most progressive annual bluegrass festivals, the Telluride festival has grown to be a premier world event since the first one in 1974. In recent years, the festival has expanded to include musicians who play jazz, rock, country, folk, pop, world, celtic, newgrass, as well as bluegass, sometimes blending different styles. The festival embraces the celebration of music in one of the country's most spectacular settings—San Juan Valley.