Music of Kentucky

This article is a supplemental part of the Music of the United States series.

Roots music: before 1940

1940s and 50s

1960s and 70s

1980s to the present

African-American music

Native American music

Latin, Tejano, Hawaiian, Cajun, Puerto Rican and other immigrants

Music of Kentucky is heavily centered around Appalachian folk music; that genre of music—and its associated descendents, especially bluegrass music in the 1940s—has largely developed in Eastern Kentucky. Bill Monroe, the most influential inventer of bluegrass, was from Kentucky.

Musicians from Kentucky include Steven Curtis Chapman, J.D. Crowe, Lionel Hampton, Jackie Dee Shannon, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dwight Yoakam, Ricky Skaggs, The Judds, John Conlee and Rosemary Clooney.