Bill Monroe
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This is not some dim and distant memory of days gone by. Even though the father has passed on, the child lives. Bluegrass music is alive and well all over the world and the Bean Blossom Festival is, perhaps, its beating heart.. In fact, if you’re in the area on march 24th & 25th, you can stop in at the Bean Blossom Springfest. And, if you want the really big show, you need to know that the 35th Annual Bill Monroe Memorial Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival will take place this year from June 12th through the 17th.
All this began, rather unceremoniously, on September 13, 1911, in Rosine, Kentucky when little William Smith Monroe sang his first note. It was a high tenor, I’m told. Growing up in a musical family, young Bill wanted to learn to play the guitar but the instrument was already taken by a brother so he picked up the only thing left, a mandolin. He learned to play it at the age of 10 but he played it not in the traditional manner, but in a hard driving, lead guitar style that he developed on his own. He adapted also, a lot of the stylings of the fiddle, after hearing the expert playing of his uncle, Pendleton Vandiver. Uncle Pen would come for visits and would play the fiddle for hours. Later, when both of his parents had died, Bill went to live with Pen and the influence continued. Another great influence was a black blues player, Arnold Schultz. Bill played with both of them at various local functions.
When Bill was 18, he went to work for the Sinclair Oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana with his brothers, Charlie and Birch. They all lived together in East Chicago, Indiana at the time. During the depression, Charlie and Birch lost their jobs at Sinclair and the three formed a trio to play dances and parties. They were also able to land a gig playing on WJKS Radio in Gary, six nights a week – for 11 dollars. The Monroe Brothers, as they were now billing themselves, also worked road shows for the WLS Barn Dance out of Chicago. Birch left the group in 1934 but the Monroe Brothers continued entertaining and landed a touring job with the Texas Crystals company.
In 1935, he married Caroline Brown and in 1936, Bill and Charlie teamed up with another laxative maker, Crazy Water Crystals. With them, they did the Crazy Barn Dance on WBT Radio. They also began making recordings on RCA’s Bluebird label where they laid down some 60 tracks. The two brothers finally split in 1938. Charlie stayed at RCA and formed a band called the Kentucky Pardners. Bill, in turn, went to station KARK, Little Rock, Arkansas and formed the Kentuckians.
Things didn’t go well in Little Rock and Bill moved on to Atlanta and changed the name of the band to the Blue Grass Boys. They auditioned for Judge Hay at the Grand Ole Opry in 1939 and were hired on the spot. Bill Monroe was a member of the Opry ‘til the day he died.
A lot of string bands were popping up during those years and there really wasn’t much to distinguish one from the other. But in 1945, that was all about to change. A banjo picker by the name of Earl Scruggs and a singer/guitarist named Lester Flatt joined the Blue Grass Boys. Scruggs’ three-finger picking style has become the standard for 5-string banjo players the world over and is one of the most distinctive characteristics of bluegrass music. Flatt’s mellow baritone voice also provided a great counterpoint to Monroe’s high tenor.
Flatt and Scruggs left the band in ‘48 and formed their own group, The Foggy Mountain Boys. They too were a top notch bluegrass group and shared the spotlight with Bill Monroe but never took it away from him. He kept his band together and staffed it with some of the finest musicians he could find. They were guys like Mac Wiseman, Carter Stanley, Sonny Osborne, Chubby Wise, Dave "Stringbean" Akeman, Vassar Clements and many others. The plaque given to Bill Monroe when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970 reads: "The Father of Bluegrass Music. Bill Monroe developed and perfected this music form and taught it to a great many names in the industry."
He was elected to the Nashville Songwriters Association Hall of Fame in 1971. In ‘86, he was recognized by a US Senate Resolution for "his many contributions to American culture and his many ways of helping American people enjoy themselves." In 1988, the Kentucky General Assembly declared his song, "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" an official state song.
The International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame honored him in 1991 and he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences in ‘93.
At one of his last appearances at the Grand Ole Opry, in 1995, Opry President, Hal Durham said the Bill Monroe was "the epitome of the stately, Southern gentleman . . ." Funny, that’s exactly the same phraseology used by a long-time denizen of the Bean Blossom Festivals with whom I spoke recently. She spoke of him in glowing terms and with undisguised awe in her voice as she described seeing and hearing him there and the way he would walk around and talk with folks, making them feel he was one of them. But, at the same time, they knew he was something set apart and someone to be held a little bit higher.
Perhaps his greatest tribute is his legacy, the music he invented, the influence it’s had on so many people and on so many other forms of music. Bluegrass is gaining strength and popularity and it’s doing it solely on its own merits. It doesn’t have large record distribution systems and a lot of radio stations that play it. It just has fans. It has real people who love real music – real county kinda music -- and, I hate to say it but they’re not getting much of that out of Nashville these days. Monroe, himself once said of bluegrass music: "It’s got a hard drive to it. It’s Scotch bagpipes and old-time fiddlin’. It’s Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It’s blues and jazz and it has a high lonesome sound. It’s plain music that tells a story. It’s played from my heart to your heart, and it will touch you." And touch us it has.
The Father of Bluegrass suffered a stroke in April of 1996 and was hospitalized. On September 9th, just four days shy of his 85th birthday he passed away. His huge funeral was held at the Ryman Auditorium, the former home of the Opry and he was laid to rest, where it all began, in his home town of Rosine, Kentucky.
Cal Adams
When you drive through the gently rolling hills and covered bridges of Brown County, Indiana, it’s easy to imagine yourself being transported back to a simpler, more tranquil time. And when you pull onto the grounds of Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival Park, you know you’re there. The air is filled with the sounds of down-home mountain music. It comes from the stage, from the campground and from little groups that form and re-form in the parking area and everywhere around the site. There is a fellowship which is born of love of the simple, yet complex music pioneered by the old Country Gentleman, Bill Monroe.
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