Bill Monroe - part 5

1) Introductions by President Jimmy Carter & Bill Monroe - the White House/Washington DC – 8/7/80
2) Georgia Rose - the White House/Washington DC – 8/7/80
3) Rawhide - the White House/Washington DC – 8/7/80
4) My Last Days on Earth – Smithsonian Institute/Washington, DC – 2/6/82
5) Baltimore Breakdown – Artscape/Baltimore, MD – 7/21/85
6) Wolf Trap Blues – Artscape/Baltimore, MD – 7/21/85
7) Brown County Jamboree Barn – Berkshire Mountain Festival/Duanesburg, PA – 7/26/85
8) One Finger Blues – Great American Music Hall/San Francisco, CA – 8/21/89
9) Come Hither to Go Yonder – the Brickhouse/State College, PA – 2/2/90
10) Goodbye Old Pal – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
11) Sugarloaf Mountain – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
12) Dark as the Night, Blue as the Day – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
13) I’m On My Way Back to the Old Home – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/29/90
14) Northern White Clouds – Ziggy’s/Winston-Salem, NC – 12/31/93
15) Big Mon – Ziggy’s/Winston-Salem, NC – 12/31/93
16) In the Pines – Cherokee Bluegrass Festival/Cherokee, NC – 8/26/94
17) Southern Flavor - Cherokee Bluegrass Festival/Cherokee, NC – 8/26/94
18) You’re Causing Me Trouble – Cherokee Bluegrass Festival/Cherokee, NC – 8/26/94
19) Tombstone Junction – Fallgrass @ the Dunfey Hotel/San Mateo, CA – 11/12/94
20) Wayfaring Stranger – Fallgrass @ the Dunfey Hotel/San Mateo, CA – 11/12/94
21) I’d Love to Be Over Yonder – Jekyll Island, GA – 12/31/94

Bill Monroe - V5
The last installment of our look at the music of Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys swims around in the later world he created, a world where bluegrass had become a respectable art form and not just an out-of-date novelty of country music no longer prominent on the Country Charts, which sadly had become fact by the late 50's. The Great Folk Revival/Scare of the 60's helped re-establish Bill as the father figure within the sport and helped gain him a new, younger audience that would stick with him long after the healthy glow of the folk boom wore off. But it wasn't until the 80's when Bill gained the recognition and kudos he deserved, his legacy clearly present while playing for President Carter at the White House, the pride obvious in his speech. It was a different world than that when he first formed the Bluegrass Boys in the 40's and after some hard work and re-adjustment he had finally found his place in it.

Most of the songs written during this time were instrumentals, gems such as Jerusalem Ridge, Northern White Clouds and Southern Flavor all as distinct and picturesque as anything he'd ever written with lyrics, maybe more so...the prospect of the great beyond was obviously weighing heavy on his creative process and he was getting much more experimental with mandolin tunings, sometimes to ominous effects; just listen to My Last Days on Earth which is also the name of the box set released by the marvelous Bear Family Records that chronicles this same period in his career that we are today but with the official releases as well as some radio stuff. Actually Bear Family Records has done this with all points in Monroe's career, as well as other important country/roots artists and is the gold standard in box set collections. My Last Days on Earth is an ominous instrumental, not just flirting with the great beyond or questioning it but embracing it, using it as his muse, which was evident in this era. I'd Love to Be Over Yonder, Wayfaring Stranger, Tombstone Junction, I'm On My Way Back to the Old Home, Goodbye Old Pal, Come Hither to Go Yonder, My Last Days on Earth are just a sampling of the titles referring to looming darkness and the great hereafter, and what I think made his music at this time even more substantial and real, thus effective. It came from a wholly personal perspective and so set this period apart from the others.

Bill Monroe passed on September 9th, 1996 and left behind a substantial catalog of material, we have only scratched the surface here with our 5 part series. Be sure to check out material from all points in Bill's illustrious career, the Music of Bill Monroe is a great over-all sampling from his whole career. The Bear Family series can pinpoint different eras, separating his career into 4 parts with a comprehensive book to accompany, and the Columbia Box serves up his early career with the Bluegrass Boys ably. There's also a great new book about Bill's recording sessions called The Music of Bill Monroe (Music in American Life) by Neil Rosenberg and Charles K. Wolfe as well as a plethora of books written about or by various Bluegrass Boys, although I am beginning to question why Peter Rowan hasn't written one yet, his path is every bit as picturesque and twisted as Bill Monroe's, or even Warren Zevon (that's right, I said it).

I do hope you've enjoyed this series, but now it's time to get back to producing mix shows for a while, although some spotlight themes for the future here on Black Mountain Underground includes looks at the unreleased material of Gillian Welch, a collection from The Band post-Robbie, Bob Dylan's late 90's output and the coda for our Bill Monroe series, a look at Bill's many collaborations with various artists through his career which includes his brother Charles, the Seldom Scene, Peter Rowan, Hazel Dickens and of course the great Doc Watson.

As always, thank you for listening. Tell your friends about Black Mountain Underground, and see you next time!
Kris

Additional Links:
-Bill Monroe's 100th Birthday celebration-

Here's a link to an alternative version of Wayfaring Stranger, a free download provided by the Florida Folklife Program.
Recorded: 29 May 1993 by the Florida Folklife Program 1993/Florida Folk Festival (Old Marble Stage), White Springs, Florida (S 1576, tape D93-25)

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Bill Monroe - part 4

1) Roll On Buddy, Roll On – 1967/Bluegrass Time - Decca
2) It Makes No Difference Now – 1967/Bluegrass Time - Decca
3) Cold Rain & Snow – Univ. of WI/Madison, WI – 2/13/67
4) The Walls of Time – Univ. of WI/Madison, WI – 2/13/67
5) Heavy Traffic Ahead – Univ. of MI/Ann Arbor, MI – 3/25/67
6) Jimmy Brown the Newsboy – Univ. of MI/Ann Arbor, MI – 3/25/67
7) Used to Be – Univ. of MI/Ann Arbor, MI – 3/25/67
8) Crossin’ the Cumberland – UCSB/Santa Barbara, CA – 5/15/67
9) Cotton-Eyed Joe – Osaka, Japan – 12/13/74
10) Footprints in the Snow – Grand Opera House/Wilmington, DE – 3/6/75
11) Get Up, John – Grand Opera House/Wilmington, DE – 3/6/75
12) Mary Jane, Won’t You Be Mine – Nuggets Studio/Nashville, TN – 5/4/76
13) Jerusalem Ridge – Nuggets Studio/Nashville, TN – 5/4/76
14) You Won’t Be Satisfied that Way – Eugene, OR - 1977
15) Y’all Come! – Eugene, OR - 1977
16) The Road to Columbus – Jonathon Swift’s/Cambridge, MA – 3/23/77
17) Meet Me in the Moonlight Alone (the Prisoner’s Song) – Jonathon Swift’s/Cambridge, MA – 3/23/77
18) Sunset Trail – Great American Music Hall/San Francisco, CA – 10/78
19) Swing Low> I’ll Fly Away> I Saw the Light – Great American Music Hall/San Francisco, CA – 10/78

Bill Monroe - part 4
This is the last of the great 'Folk Boom' era in Bill Monroe's bands' history, churning out a class of Bluegrass Boys that went on to further the art of Bluegrass after Bill's time on earth had ended, and even while he was still here. Bill found himself with some financial problems towards the late 50's, country radio hits were less frequent as Nashville changed. It was around this time that audiences of young boomers starting taking great interest in all things folk, gaining Bill a steady audience that stayed with him until the end. Members of his band had been changing since very early on but now new members were very much connected to this new audience and Bill took to the college circuit for the first time in the early 60's, taking with him the young talents of Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, Bill Keith and fiddlers Kenny Baker, Richard Greene and Byron Berline (who later recorded with the Stones), amongst others, ushering in a new era for the bluegrass Boys. Representative of this era is the album 'Bluegrass Time' originally issued on Decca records in early 1967 but recorded with many of the different members since a few years before that. One of Del McCoury's first recording sessions with Bill on 1/28/64 resulted in the first song of today's show, Roll On Buddy, Roll On.

Today we also heard a healthy sampling of some dates from the college circuit as well as a visit to Osaka, Japan and the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, DE in the mid 70's. We also heard two cuts from an in-studio performance Bill and the Boys did in Nashville in 1976, broadcast later on the CBC in Canada and released on vinyl up north, now out-of-print: the new instrumental Jerusalem Ridge and Mary, Won't You Be Mine, otherwise known as My Little Sweetheart of the Mountains. Rounding out the 70's on today's show were a few different cuts from a show with little information, recorded in Eugene, OR sometime in 1977, and a visit to the infamous Jonathon Swift's in Cambridge Massachusetts also in 1977. We ended things today at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA in October of 1978 with Bill Monroe's famous spiritual medley that he often ended his show with. That’s one of the things I remember most about seeing Bill Monroe the handful of times that I did, the sing-along at the end. In a previous BMU episode I joked about a ‘trick’ that Bill did at a festival I saw where he raised his arms into the air and a parting of clouds left free a ray of sunlight at the end of this medley, the crowd ohhing and ahhing and rising to their feet, with even a few tears around me...this was actually not a joke, I’ve seen it first hand twice, once at Telluride and once at Winterhawk in the late 80’s, and the Winterhawk show was where I got his signature, the story posted on part one of this series. I talk a bit about how this influenced a Gillan Welch show in a review of said event I wrote for Jambands.com a few years back. Next time we'll finish out the chronological study of the bluegrass Boys material with visits to the White House, the Smithsonian Institute and Ziggy's (near Raleigh) amongst others...see ya!

LINKS:
Bill Monroe inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970.
Photos of Bean Blossom in 1978
Gene Lowinger's photography
Portrait of a Bluegrass Fiddler
Interview with Wayne Lewis
Kris Kehr News/Info
Listen to Kris Kehr on Bandcamp
Listen to Kris Kehr on Archives
Download Kris Kehr on itunes
Kris Kehr on Facebook
Kris Kehr on Youtube
Kris’s Music Blog/Podcast Black Mountain Underground
Julie’s Myspace page

Bill Monroe - part 3

1) Watermelon Hanging on the Vine/Introductions>
Panhandle Country – Oak Leaf Park/Luray, VA – 7/4/61
2) Sweetheart of Mine (Can’t You Hear Me Callin’) – Oak Leaf Park/Luray, VA – 7/4/61

3) Linda Lou – Oak Leaf Park/Luray, VA – 7/4/61

4) Cotton Fields – 6/1/61/Bluegrass Ramble - Decca

5) Journey’s End – 1961/Bluegrass Ramble - Decca

6) Brakeman’s Blues – New York University/NYC – 2/8/63

7) Shady Grove – New York University/NYC – 2/8/63

8) Mary at the Home Place – Barre, VT – 10/64

9) On the Old Kentucky Shore – Barre, VT – 10/64

10) There’s an Old, Old House – Sunset Park/West Grove, PA – 8/23/64

11) Gotta Travel On – Sunset Park/West Grove, PA – 8/23/64

12) I Cried Again – the Bluegrass Cellar/Nashville, TN – 1965

13) I Live in the Past – the Bluegrass Cellar/Nashville, TN – 1965

14) Long Lonesome Day – Bean Blossom, IN – 11/7/65

15) Traveling This Lonesome Road – 1965/the Original Bluegrass Sound - Decca

16) I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky – 1965/the Original Bluegrass Sound - Decca

17) Fire on the Mountain – (Tut Reel #45) DJ Convention/Nashville, TN – 1966

18) Bluegrass Part One – Tex Logan’s’ House Party/Madison, NJ – 6/20/66

19) Willow Garden – Tex Logan’s’ House Party/Madison, NJ – 6/20/66
20) True Life Blues – Tex Logan’s’ House Party/Madison, NJ – 6/20/66

Bill Monroe - part 3

These shows are getting more and more fun to produce as we move ahead in chronological bluegrass time mainly because of how the source quality improves and you can hear more of what's going on in the recording, although alot of the 50's stuff and earlier is very listenable thanks to the digital tape trading revolution. But the sound quality isn't the only thing evolving here, much like Furthur/Grateful Dead these days, who have been employing younger, musically talented fans as part of the band because of their years honing their own voice in Dead cover bands, Mr. Monroe began hiring the young pickers who grew up listening to bluegrass as fans who had come into their own, fluent in the language he devised. I think I mentioned before how with the change of the social makeup during the 60's came a similar change in the average bluegrass festival audience, and these young new additions helped the cause, along with the folk boom happening in full force by this time. The very first multi-band multi-day bluegrass festival is credited to Carlton Haney's Bluegrass Festival in Fincastle, VA started in 1965, but shorter events such as the Brown County Jamboree in Bean Blossom, IN, New River Ranch in Rising Sun, MD and a myriad of folk festivals featuring bluegrass on the bill go back to the early 50's.

Some of these events were largely what I like to call folding chair events, looking much like how it sounds...prim, somewhat uptight out in the crowd, decidedly less so backstage to varying degrees. As the young boomers started discovering the music that influenced then current musical heroes such as Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukenen, David Bromberg and many others (you used to be able to see rock's roots fairly easily) they also discovered a wonderful atmosphere of kind folks getting down in there own way, which is really all the kids wanted out of life…camping, communal jams, real-life song trading, the general handing down of tradition the folkie way which is an organic human thing dating way back, and this new crowd definitely took that tradition to a new place. David Grisman had been traveling the south and east, tape deck in hand as representation of this new generation of fans learning this language. Grisman met Jerry Garcia at a Bill Monroe show, the one in Sunset Park in 1964 we heard from today, and later with former Bluegrass Boys Peter Rowan and Vassar Clements took bluegrass to a whole other level, producing a live album that became the highest selling of all time, influencing more but also leading the trail back that we're on now.

Garcia’s' other band had these fans who loved taping everything and took to the folk/bluegrass events in much the same way, and thanks to them the quality and quantity of recorded shows began to rise rather nicely for all kinds of cool stuff, including legendary artists such as Bill et al. David Grisman is king taper in a few ways, he founded his record label, Acoustic Disc, on the popularity of his private recordings with Jerry, (he put a new Jerry album out 10 years after his death) and even sells a recording of Bill Monroe he made himself around this time. Today's show underlines this rise in tape quality, as I previously stated I’m having a harder and harder time choosing, or should I say removing songs from the list of what I’ve compiled. I’ll probably do another Bill Monroe show at some point in the future just to use these great tracks. Sometimes I wished Black Mountain Underground could go longer than 58 minutes and it used to periodically, but I want to keep these shows intact for broadcast on Homegrown Radio (Mondays 2 10AM).

It doesn’t hurt Bill’s legacy that his bands' line-up continually evolved, creating historical musical eras which jump-started fan bases for former members’ post-Bill projects, in turn swelling other’s legacies and thus influence on instrumentation, the music genre and music as a whole. Bela Fleck as banjoist would never had existed they way he has had Bill not pushed for evolution of the instrument within his own band over time. Scruggs style, Bill Keith style, Richard Greene or Vassar Clements styles and many more created different ideas and personalities, sub genres within, which only broadened bluegrass' importance to us all over time. The Bluegrass Boys were a legacy, an institution within the music business that young players aspired toward, much like aspiring young comics and SNL in the television business, eventually moving on and creating some great things on their own, others with not such a positive experience. It’s interesting the Monroe family hasn’t taken better charge of Bill’s legacy, with a new Hendrix album coming out every year still, but I suppose that’s why the Monroe Archive Project came into existence, it’s a heady legacy that cries for illumination.

Bill Monroe really is the real deal, a maverick troubled artist with giant balls of steel and talent to match. The music he synthesized and produced has been chiseled in granite, as indelible, complex, urgent and beautiful as the very face of humanity itself, speaking clearly and joyously from the window of the soul. As indelible as Chuck Berry's guitar or Miles Davis' trumpet, Bill Monroe's mandolin has remained that constant and rung true through all of time's changes in and outside of his world; a twisted, defiant and noble voice that is purely original and not meant to be mimicked but rather heard and understood, or at least respected and reckoned with. Bill was both performer and teacher, a professional proverbial fire starter, a rare breed in folk and bluegrass anymore.

But the art he left behind is something else as well, possessing an almost unearthliness that kind floats up there away from the passage of time still shining down just as brightly as when it was new and certainly with the tenderness and caring of love bringing it all to emotional life. I really love bluegrass with all it’s quirks- honest bluegrass, not the white-washed kind I spoke of before. I've found there are 2 kinds in the music business, the ones that make stuff happen and the ones who wait for the phone to ring. Music is an art at it’s highest offering, and like anything else there are leaders and followers, people who blaze a path and others who re-create every step of that path along the way, copy it. An artist is at his best when his team are all on the same page, moving things forward towards the same end goal, and Bill knew how to pick his team. It was said he kept a little book with names from every area he traveled, just in case the inevitable happened and a banjo player was urgently needed somewhere far away from home...

Some Notable Bluegrass Boys 1961-66

Kenny Baker/fiddle - 1957 to '58, 1962-'63, 1968- 7/77 & then 9/77 to 1984, jeesh - a Bluegrass Boy longer than anyone, Bill said of him "Kenny knows bluegrass music - there's never been a better one."
(This awesome photo of Kenny to the left was taken by my friend Scott Elmquist at Christopher Run Bluegrass Festival outside Mineral, VA around 2000 - copyright Elmquist)

Del McCoury/guitar, banjo - 2/63 - first subbed on banjo then was later asked to join on guitar and lead vocals for about a year before going on to become Del McCoury.

Bill Keith/banjo - 3/63 to 12/63 - Bill brought with him a new style of bluegrass banjo to the band, invented cool new tuners that he still sells for Beacon Banjos and is a kind, encouraging bluegrass elder and amazing player.

Buddy Spicher/fiddle - 1961 - Born in Dubois, PA, played with Hank William's widow Audrey, Asleep at the Wheel and on Dylan's Nashville Skyline as well as with Bill's band.

James Monroe/guitar, bass - 1964-'71 - son of the father, went on to form his own band.

Sandy Rothman/guitar, banjo - 6/64 - went on to play and record in one of the more influential modern acoustic string bands, the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band.

Peter Rowan/guitar - 10/64 - went on to do so much after leaving the Boys, most notably Old & In the Way and a string of studio albums for Sugar Hill, also his long standing collaboration with guitarist Tony Rice.

Lamar Grier/banjo - 9/65 - father of guitar great David Grier

Richard Greene/fiddle - 2/66 to 3/67 - Bill Monroe on Mr. Greene - "Richard is adding a lot to Bluegrass. It's hard to keep him from adding too much"

Byron Berline/fiddle - 3/67 to 9/67 - fiddler/soon after became the wildman responsible for the fiddle on Country Honk and others by the Rolling Stones, played with Doug Dillard until starting his own band in 1996. Also runs his own fiddle business. I was lucky enough to see him at a small club with a glowing red fiddle as part of the great band California.

Roland White/guitar - 5/21/67 to 2/69 - Brother of the late great Clarence and co-founder of their band the Kentucky Colonels and later the White Brothers, he also played in the Grammy-winning Nashville Bluegrass Band

NOTES ON SONGS:

I think it’s kinda interesting there are two songs about someone named Linda Lou here, or anywhere really, one of them from West Virginia and the other from Kentucky. If you find these kinds of things interesting and you haven’t already, pick up a copy of the book 'Can’t You Hear Me Callin’ by Richard D, Smith, very good. Stories abound from the boys on the Bluegrass Breakdown (Bill's infamous bus that made it’s rounds within the jamband scene for years later on) about Bill’s many stops at the pay-phone, everybody on board watching as the father tags up with the next town/friend in the booth yards from on board. The book makes no mention of any Linda Lous in the index, and once I wrote a song called Dear Stephanie because my pal Q and I were in a diner in western Ohio being served breakfast by a waitress with Stephanie emblazoned on her chest tag, and we got in a discussion about how few 'Stephanie’ songs there were…not the same with old Linda Lou, and I would really love to know why that name was so prevalent with Bill...

If you’re a picker or just a bluegrass enthusiast you might be aware of just how powerful twin fiddles are up close. I have been lucky enough to be onstage with Coleman and Anthony from Hickory Project during a Garcia Grass gig this past year, and when they harmonized together on fiddle, the beauty to me spun up higher and higher towards the ceiling, like a spirit or a sunburst, kinda hard to describe but very noticeable. Listen to Tex Logan and Richard Greene play together on the last track, True Life Blues from the party at Tex’s house in 1966. It reminds me of the first time I heard ‘In My Room’ by the Beach Boys at a respectable volume, the instruments (in the Beach Boy’s case it’s their voices) blended, melded together quite organically to become one completely separate thing, an over-whelming, indescribable beauty that lifts up…check it out, that party from 1966 was recorded so nicely, what sounds like two great mics placed in a good spot and recorded directly to a reel-to-reel recorder. Check that whole recording out sometime if you get a chance, about as good as Bill and his boys get. Bill Monroe didn't invent the concept of twin fiddles, it dates back to pre-recording mountain fiddling but Bill, like Bob Wills and Western-Swing, put it to good use.

There’s a spot on the tape after Bill’s first set when they let the young-uns up to pick, a band that includes David Grisman and Jody Stecher, and Peter Rowan. It was clear were young Pete Roans (as Bill called him) was headed, in retrospect and perhaps at the time. Both Grisman and Pete represented this new generation even to Bill, and Peter has gone on to do so many wonderful things with bluegrass music, his personality shining through on every note he plays and sings. I’m a big fan, obviously, I’ve been lucky enough to see him in many configurations (besides Bill’s band) over the years and he’s an obvious bridge between the traditional world and that new, young crowd that had started filling in the audience at festivals in the early 60’s.

Next time on Black Mountain Underground we continue with this era, Peter Rowan played in Bill's band from 10/64 to 3/67 and we’ll go beyond that a bit, stretching out through the 70’s. But check back on the last installment of this series, we’ll look at some of the great collaborations Bill has taken part in over his whole career, with a note-worthy stop at a afternoon festival workshop in Roanoke, VA in 1965 with young guitarist side-kick Peter Roans, as well as a lot of other great artists.

Links:

Lyrics to the songs on Bluegrass Ramble

the Banjo Hangout

a book about Bean Blossom

a book about Bill

download some of these shows Here

Some history on Bill..

Some more history on Bill..

and yet more historical perspective...

Sam Bush ponders the future of Bluegrass

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Listen to Kris Kehr on Archives
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Kris Kehr on Facebook
Kris Kehr on Youtube
Kris's Music Blog/Podcast Black Mountain Underground
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Bill Monroe - part 2

1) Introductions /Bile Them Cabbage Down - Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 9/19/54
2) I Ain’t Broke (But I’m Badly Bent) - Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 9/19/54
3) The Little Girl & the Dreadful Snake - Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN - 9/19/54
4) I’m Knocking On Your Door - Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 9/19/54
5) I Bowed My Head & Cried - New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD – 5/8/55
6) When the Golden Leaves Begin to Fall - New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD – 5/8/55
7) Tall Timber - New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD – 5/8/55
8) When the Cactus are in Bloom - New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD – 5/8/55
9) Uncle Pen – Town Hall Party/Compton, CA - 12/24/55
10) Put My Little Shoes Away – Town Hall Party/Compton, CA - 12/24/55
11) Cheyenne – Town Hall Party/Compton, CA - 12/24/55
12) Highway of Sorrow -New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD – 5/13/56
3) Rubber Dolly-New River Ranch/Rising Sun, MD – 5/13/56
14) You Better Treat Your Good Man Right - Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 4/13/58
15) In Despair - Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 4/13/58
16) The First Whippoorwill – Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 4/13/58
17) Truck Drivin’ Man– Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 4/13/58
18) Sittin’ On Top of the World– Brown County Jamboree/Bean Blossom, IN – 4/13/58
19) Sally Joe – 1957/’Knee Deep in Bluegrass’ (Decca)
20) Roane County Prison – 1957/’Knee Deep in Bluegrass’ (Decca)
21) Out in the Cold World – 1957/’Knee Deep in Bluegrass’ (Decca)
22) Bluegrass Stomp – 1960/’The Great Bill Monroe’ (Harmony Records)
23) My Rose of Old Kentucky – 1960/’The Great Bill Monroe’ (Harmony Records)
24) Bluegrass Breakdown – 1960/’The Great Bill Monroe’ (Harmony Records)

Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass Boys 1958-59
Left to Right: Bill Monroe, Bobby Hicks, Bessie Lee, Gordon Terry, Jack Cook, Buddy Pennington. photo by unknown

Bill Monroe part 2 - Here's the second installment of our look at Bill Monroe's live and out-of-print musical legacy, continuing where we left off at the end of the 1940's in part one. The 1950’s found Mr. Bill Monroe and the boys chugging along, writing future classics, releasing hits on the country charts and performing everywhere, continuing building his reputation as a showman and deepening his catalog of bluegrass in ways AP Carter would be proud. This time saw the loss of his star bluegrass boys Lester & Earl and the beginning of endless changes but also saw his legacy cemented in great studio recordings for Decca, Harmony and Vocalion and later Columbia and of course MCA at the end all with a consistent sound amidst an ever-an evolving line-up. In the 1950's we visit some of the classic folding chair events like New River Ranch and Bean Blossom, and finish things off with some nice vinyl transfers of his 1957 Decca release Knee Deep in Bluegrass (I'm sure Decca employed someone to think up album titles and design the artwork for albums released through the 50's, I would love to see a doc about such a person) and also tracks from 1960's The Great Bill Monroe on Harmony Records, paving the way to part 3 as we plunge head first into the turbulent 60’s. The 60’s would bring their changes and an new breed of pickers such as Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements, Del McCoury, Bill Keith & Richard Green, not to mention young folks, long hairs and the like starting to dot the audiences between the folding chairs or raising dust off on the side near the vending...bluegrass music and it's audience was starting to change a little. It bridged the ever widening social gap that was underlined not just by the Vietnam War but by a new generation tired of fitting into their parents ill-fitting shoes, two sides of the fence still brought together by an artistic statement, this time Bill Monroe's indelible one. It can still bridge that gap today, Del McCoury's shows in particular.

Bluegrass remains ageless, and is many things to many people. To many it's guide-lines are etched in stone, rules never to be broken or even bent. Others fly right past some of the rules, often combining elements very popular to an energetic crowd. It is hard to say what, if any thing about bluegrass music is 'valid' or not, I'm not one for the purist approach although I do respect that for it's touchstone. In this day and age their are so many individual forms of it, personal interpretations, that it is, like blues, a deep-rooted blueprint riddled with old ghosts and forgotten pathways to be walked by the artist on any given day. the artist.

And so you can purchase bluegrass tablature that is perfectly written, you can take lessons learning how to play JUST Blackberry Blossom or Under the Double Eagle from a local prominent former touring ace for $75 a half-hour, you can purchase every instructional dvd that musicians' friend has to offer, and some or most of that can bring you incredible happiness, which is awesome. Or you can take it's beauty and look at it in a completely original and new way, work on that real hard and then maybe inspire thought and emotion from an audience. I guess it's really your choice, as a performer.

So to me, bluegrass is an artform. Personally, I love playing bluegrass, I discovered it as a Deadhead in the 80's as I've said before, and I continue to appreciate how it brings folks together. I have been frustrated in the past to learn how much experimentation has been cut put of the mix within the bluegrass establishments, though competition judging. There have been small instances of progressivism in bluegrass band competitions in the past but over time the right leaning choir has sung strongest, leaving many current bluegrass artists indistinguishable from one another. That could not have been what Mr. Monroe had in mind...

Fortunately there have been the Flecks and Trishkas and the Sam Bush's keeping things moving forward, lending legitimacy to a more experiential bluegrass approach within the traditional community and leading way for the jamgrass community to take stock, with an eager generation right behind. Eventually the Tellurides and the Bumper Shoots and the Hardly Strictly's led way to a broader sense of what bluegrass is overall and let many more ways of speaking the language in under the tent, although I still personally prefer the small, down-home festivals for pure bluegrass goodness, from the stage right on down to the parking lot- less serious-minded, more fun-loving, mason jars, smiles....I think if you are asserting your power to protect a artform from growing into something you don't approve of, you are just swimming upstream and against the current for selfish reasons, and unfortunately listening to your own muted heartbeat will never replace that voice of the people as they walk along on their path, speaking their language, taking what they've seen before and using it in new ways to continue the great human creative trip. Gillian Welch is a good example of someone who has walked that path and came round the other side, having established her own nation and created her own accent for the language that is hugely accepted at large, becoming an icon of sorts. We'll get to Gillian Welch, her influence and her unreleased work in an upcoming Black Mountain Underground but for now we will continue our trek through Bill Monroe's America on the trail he blazed.

Producing these first two episodes of Bill Monroe's music was relatively simple, there wasn't a whole lot out there and I chose the best of what there was, quality-wise. The 78 transfers in V1 were no-brainers, the Opry tracks were a little harder to clean up, and some of the early 50's era stuff was a bit of a pill to clean up as well, it sometimes effected which tracks I ended up using. As we move forward towards part 3 we have many more source options to choose from, and so time may slow down a bit to include more of what's there. I want to paint a decent picture of these time periods and put things in perspective somewhat, but the fact that there is only so much quality recorded material out there available to me for these earlier time periods kind of dictates the setlist to some degree and we'll have less of that as time and BMU moves forward because, they might have long hair, but them hippies know how to wield a set of mics and a record button and so we have a lot of great material from the 60's on.

Bluegrass continues to be a guiding force in my life, I am fortunate enough to play mandolin in a band project called 'Garcia Grass', a group of like-minded individuals playing the music of Old & In the Way. But bluegrass isn't as obvious as that to me, it's not about playing it perfectly (someone else's idea of what perfect is, anyway) and being giving a trophy, it's the smiles, the singing along, the dancing...is there any greater compliment to a musician than to have their audience feel the groove and move, letting the mind wander with the body, embracing everything thrown at you from the stage in a symbiotic mutual trust with the band and the total stranger next to you, twirling them around in the dirt next to the stage?? I think not...I'm lucky in that regard, I feel so great when I see people moving to the beat.

Well I've rambled enough now, I hope you're enjoying the shows and commentary here on the blog, I try to make it easy to avoid the commentary if you wish to do so, it's just my point of view. I'm obviously just a guy with an interest in music and a computer but everyone has their own perspective and taste, I hope you're finding something for yourself here at Black Mountain Underground, I know I am. These one hour shows are re-broadcast weekly on Homegrownradionj.com every Monday at 10AM and Fridays at 1PM old & new, so check in regularly there and listen to BMU and all the other wonderful programming the present. Have a great Christmas/New Years!

Kris

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