BG was not the brainchild of a producer, it was created by touring musicians. The contributions of the producers were mainly choice of material, and minor additions in instrumentation, such as drums and session musicians. There was a snare drum on many F&S recordings, but never on live ones.
The infamous Monroe electric sessions took place in March and April of 1951. There was one or two electric guitars, a barely audible drummer, electric organ on two gospel numbers, but no steel guitar. Between the two there was one session with Bluegrass instrumentation. One of several motives for this was the plans to issue an album of songs associated with Jimmie Rodgers. An album in those days consisted of four 78 rpm singles (which later became 2 EP´s and, still later, a 10" LP.). And 8 songs were recorded, 3 of them at the BG session mentioned above. Apparently the remaining 5 numbers called for a different setup.
Those sessions were a disaster, mainly because Monroe had no feel for the material. E.g., Peach Picking Time stayed in the can for 13 years, some of the numbers were never issued by Decca/MCA. Miraculously, the company didn't drop him; seems he was kept on for sentimental or symbolic reasons. Still, on a number of of occasions the producers "suggested" songs that weren't suited for Monroe's voice or for BG treatment, like Four Walls, and A Fallen Star. I don't believe Monroe ever performed Danny Boy on stage, but it had beautiful guitar work by Bennie Williams.
The odd, and sad, thing, is that Decca never really understood Monroe's potential on the "folk" market in the 60's. They didn't know how to market Bluegrass Ramble, and, with possibly his best band after the Columbia years, they cut only one duet with Monroe+Peter Rowan.
I believe you're overlooking the significance of the smaller labels, like County, CMH (H for Heritage!), Rounder, Sugar Hill, Rebel, and Gusto. The Osborne Brothers possibly had the most commercially appealing sound of the older acts, yet they were dropped in 1975 (as was Lester Flatt from RCA). They went to CMH, and according to a friend of mine, who knew Bobby O, sold better on that label.
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