IBMM – Finish The Film

The International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, KY has launched a fundraising drive to collect the funds necessary to complete their feature-length documentary on the Father of Bluegrass in time for showing at their Bill Monroe Centennial Celebration at the Museum in September.

Museum Executive Director Gabrielle Gray estimates that $50,000 will be required to pull all the footage together into finished form, and is delighted to note that more than $7,500 was raised during the kickoff of their Finish The Film campaign at ROMP, the IBMM’s annual riverfront festival this past June.

Gray says that the film project has been underway since 2003, collecting archival footage and shooting interviews with over 250 early bluegrass pioneers concerning Monroe and the bluegrass scene at the start.

“This collection represents the only comprehensive video archive of the bluegrass music genre. It contains stories of lifelong friendships, lives and loves and fortunes made or broken, musicianship that became virtuosic and astoundingly popular, and the shared joy and surprise of being integral, founding partners of what has become an internationally acclaimed art form whose practitioners and fans number in the tens of millions.

Among those interviewed for the documentary project are Bill Monroe’s band mates–those living of the original 155 legendary members of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys at various points throughout his 65-year performance career.”

A number of premium gifts are offered for donations of $100 or more, including tickets and accommodations for the Centennial Celebration, September 12-14. Full details are available online.

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.