The group was founded as a side project by record producer and session musician Scott Rouse in 1987, after he began experimenting with dance mixes of bluegrass and country songs, eventually applying the term groovegrass to his mix of music.
Rouse, a session musician from Boston, Massachusetts, first came up with the idea of GrooveGrass in the mid-1980s when he began experimenting with dance mixes of bluegrass songs such as Alton Delmore's "Deep River Blues".
His mixes became popular at local clubs, eventually leading to one disc jockey terming the blend of music "groovegrass".
Soon afterward, Rouse recruited several other musicians, including members of Del McCoury's band, funk bass guitarist Bootsy Collins, and bluegrass multi-instrumentalist Jerry Douglas, to perform as the GrooveGrass Boyz.
[3] They saw their most successful release in late 1996, when they put out a country version of the "Macarena", a song made popular earlier that year by Spanish duo Los del Río.