POPLAR BLUFF, MO-- Luke Medley is a master of the Bluegrass bass fiddle. He not only plays them, he makes them too. He's an architect of sorts, still working to design and build the perfect bass ...

Bluegrass, which sounds as old as the hills, actually was invented in the 1940s by Monroe, Scruggs, Flatt, Chubby and a handful of other Southern boys. They played acoustic string instruments (fiddle, ...

Back and forth, their bows glide across violin strings; hands noodle over fingerboards. But for all the effort, the students can't quite keep the rhythm. "I can tell we've had two weeks off. That was ...