This documentary does a great job of bringing people into the world of bluegrass and more specifically into Bill Monroe’s world. It features more music than a lot of documentaries – and that’s a good thing. Instead of little chunks of songs that just leave you wanting to hear the rest of it, we get whole tracks here. Perhaps this isn’t the deepest look inside a musician’s life, but it is a great documentary. It gives one a real feeling of what bluegrass is all about – the music and the culture that surrounds it. The only real complaint here is that this is not a new documentary but rather a reissue of a video from the 1990’s. If you already have that one, you don’t need this, but for the rest of us, it’s well worth picking up.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2008  Volume 4 at lulu.com/strangesound.