MOVIE REVIEW : ‘High Lonesome’ Captures Story of Bluegrass Music : The documentary celebrates the genre’s greatest practitioners and includes a biography of the man who started it all, Bill Monroe.

It is an indelible sound, soulful yet streamlined, often overlooked but once heard never forgotten. It is bluegrass, a.k.a. “folk music with overdrive,” as vibrant an American musical synthesis as jazz and the subject of a thorough and thoroughly entertaining documentary titled “High Lonesome” after the haunting melodies it calls its own.

Written and directed by Rachel Liebling, “High Lonesome” is an exploration of bluegrass’s roots, an almost poetic evocation of the world from which it sprang, a celebration of its greatest practitioners and a biography of the man who started it all, Bill Monroe.

This may sound like a sizable order, but because it’s been made with simplicity and care, “High Lonesome” carries it off. Liebling’s film will please the initiated and introduce the subject to the uninformed, as well as providing a chance to hear parts of more than 100 songs with evocative titles like “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and “I Wonder How the Old Folks Are at Home.”

Kentucky native Monroe is “High Lonesome’s” centerpiece and understandably so. The man who did the final combining of bluegrass’s diverse elements back in 1930, Monroe at age 83 is still playing and touring, a courtly yet indomitable legend whose trademark high country tenor voice and swift mandolin playing fingers have lost none of their emotional power.

The first of bluegrass’s components were the Scottish-Irish ballads carried by immigrants to the hills of Appalachia. Gradually added to the mix was white gospel music, and, brought in by the railroad, African American rhythms in general and the banjo, a plantation instrument, in particular.

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Pushing everything together was the Great Depression, which drove people like Monroe, one of eight children who took up the mandolin because it was the only instrument not already spoken for, to the modern, industrialized north. There, exposure on radio stations like Indiana’s WJKS (“Where Joy Kills Sorrow”) and ultimately the Grand Ole Opry led to the music’s increasing popularity.

Aside from its scintillating sound, what makes “High Lonesome” so effective is the footage the music is placed against. Writer-director Liebling scoured more than 50 archives, finding historical material (some so combustible it had to be transported in an armored car) that almost poetically evokes the physical world of chores, churchgoing and quiet beauty the music grew out of.

Of course there is rare performance footage as well, including country pioneers like Uncle Dave Macon, “the Dixie Dewdrop”; classic groups like the Stanley Brothers and Jim & Jesse; and folks like Jimmy Martin and narrator Mac Wiseman, who began as Monroe sidemen. For, as the great man likes to point out, his band has been through more than 65 fiddle players, as many on the banjo, “but there’s been only one mandolin.”

Bluegrass was nearly killed by the rock explosion, but it stayed alive long enough to inspire a current generation, like John Duffey and the Seldom Scene and Alison Krauss and Union Station, both of whom pay tribute to Monroe as the great progenitor.

“High Lonesome” seems so thorough, in fact, that it’s a bit disappointing that Liebling doesn’t find time for the classic citybilly bands of the 1960s--the Charles River Valley Boys, the Kentucky Colonels and the influential Greenbriar Boys--that provided a crucial link between Monroe and today’s gang.

Finally, though, the music wins out over everything. Everyone will have a favorite moment, from the great Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs performing with Monroe when their careers began as members of his Bluegrass Boys, to Monroe and his current band breaking into a impromptu version of “I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky” on their bus. Beautiful and spirited, these songs represent the music at its best, and we are fortunate that Liebling has packaged its history so thoughtfully.

* MPAA rating: Unrated. Times guidelines: Suitable for all ages.

‘High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Music’

Released by Tara Releasing. Director Rachel Liebling. Producers Rachel Liebling & Andrew Serwer. Screenplay by Rachel Liebling. Cinematography Buddy Squires & Allen Moore. Editor Toby Shimin. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

* In limited release at the Monica Fourplex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica, (310) 394-9741.