16 All-Time Greatest Hits
16 All-Time Greatest Hits is the 11th compilation album by American bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and his band, the Blue Grass Boys. Released by Columbia Records in August 1970, it features 16 songs recorded for the label between 1945 and 1949, all of which were previously released as singles or B-sides. 16 All-Time Greatest Hits is the fourth album released by Columbia covering Monroe's late-1940s output for the label, and is made up entirely of tracks featured on two compilations released by its subsidiary Harmony Records already: The Great Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys and The Original Blue Grass Sound.
Background
Columbia Records issued 16 All-Time Greatest Hits as its fourth compilation for Bill Monroe in August 1970. The album features 16 tracks recorded by Monroe and his band during their time on Columbia between 1945 and 1949, eight each previously featured on the compilations The Great Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys and The Original Blue Grass Sound. The tracks include ten by the "classic bluegrass band" featuring guitarist and vocalist Lester Flatt, banjo player Earl Scruggs, fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Howard "Cedric Rainwater" Watts; the other six include two by the 1944–1945 lineup of guitarists Tex Willis and Curly Bradshaw, banjo player David "Stringbean" Akeman, Wise, Watts and accordion player Sally Ann Forrester, and four by the 1949 lineup ofguitarist and vocalist Malcolm "Mac" Wiseman, banjo player Rudy Lyle, Wise and bassist Jack Thompson.