Bill Monroe Overview

Bill Monroe was born in 1911 in Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children who worked their family's 655-acre farm and helped with mining and timber operations. His family was also musical: his mother sang and played harmonica, button accordian, and... [more]

Bill Monroe was born in 1911 in Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children who worked their family's 655-acre farm and helped with mining and timber operations. His family was also musical: his mother sang and played harmonica, button accordian, and fiddle; his brother Charlie played the guitar; his uncle played fiddle, taught young Bill timing, and brought him to the local hoedowns. On Sundays he went to church and sang gospel songs. Sometimes he hung out with African American guitarist Arnold Schultz, a master of the "thumb style" technique. The Monroe family didn't have any electricity, but they did have a battery-operated radio and a Victrola that played Bill his first crackling notes of country music. Cut to October 1939, when a tall, distinguished man in a Stetson and a necktie walked into the radio station WSM offices in Nashville, Tennessee. After Opry founder George D. Hay, otherwise known as "The Solemn Old Judge," had had his coffee, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys broke out the strings and played. They were so impressive that a week later they were on the bill for the Grand Ole Opry. For his big break at the Opry, Monroe played a tune many country fans were already familiar with: Jimmie Rogers' "Mule Skinner Blues." But no one had ever heard it played quite like they heard it that night. Monroe's version was markedly different from Rogers', with a greater emphasis on beat, a higher and faster tempo, a walking bass lines, and Monroe's high-pitched singing (a style that would come to be known as the "high lonesome sound"). Also unique was the idea of musicians taking "breaks," or solos, as in jazz. Although the music emanating from Bill Monroe's band wouldn't be defined or labeled until a decade later, this performance is universally considered the birth of bluegrass. Monroe is the only American rightly credited with inventing a musical style single-handedly. Of course, he gathered ideas and sounds from the world around him -- from hillbilly, immigrant music, and gospel -- but he converted them so completely that a new strain of music emerged under the greater rubric of country. Composer, singer, and mandolin player, Monroe was inextricably involved in the development of bluegrass. His addition of certain musicians to his band, such as Earl Scrugg with his driving banjo or Lester Flatt with his famous "G run" in 1945, defined the direction of the sound. In the '50s Monroe composed some of the signature tunes of bluegrass -- "Uncle Pen," "Roanoke," "Scotland," "My Little Georgia Rose." He also put his stamp on the future by bringing then-young talents like Mac Wiseman and Del McCoury into his band. If anyone went anywhere in the bluegrass world, they went through Monroe's ranks. For his distinctive contribution to twentieth-century American music, Monroe was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970. Monroe kept up a dizzying concert schedule til the moment he died from a stroke in 1996. Because of his integrity and strict mores, bluegrass never fell prey to the commercial pressures of Nashville '- it has remained acoustic, for example, and hasn't embraced the drums. While the style has occasionally suffered for this purism, the folk revival of the '60s brought it back to the attention of a more mainstream audience. From there it has trickled down to today. If you want to have a good weekend, get on down to a local bluegrass festival and witness the great legacy of Bill Monroe in action. [show less]