Here’s a couple of names for you… Kenny Baker and Randall Franks. Anyone who follows bluegrass knows of Kenny Baker, widely regarded as among the finest fiddlers to ever play the music, and certainly the chief exemplar of Bill Monroe’s sound. The Kentucky native spent a total of 25 years with Monroe, in a series of stints, and recorded both with Bill and on his own. Few epitomize bluegrass fiddle the way Kenny did, and he is studied and admired as much now as when he was alive and in his prime.
But how about Randall Franks – is that a familiar name? It should be. He’s been involved in bluegrass and fiddle music since he was in his teens. Randall became a Blue Grass Boy in 1984, during a time when Baker had stepped away from Monroe, and was close with both men who mentored him closely as a young fiddler. But most people know Franks from his acting career which followed, where he played Officer Randy Goode in the NBC/CBS TV series In The Heat of The Night, with Carroll O’Connor.
Randall has remained involved in fiddle music, appearing as MC each year at the Grand Master Fiddler Championship, and in a number of charitable and educational endeavors, in addition to his comedy, writing, performing, ministry, and motivational speaking.
Recently Franks has been sharing some of the material he has collected through his career online, including this latest, a telephone interview he did with Kenny Baker in 2006 for his syndicated newspaper column. Though it is, of course, only an audio recording, Randall has put together a variety of photos to accompany the wealth of information Kenny shared in their wide ranging discussion, about his life, career, and music, the various artists who had influenced him through the years, and how he approached playing the fiddle with Bill Monroe.
Since we lost Kenny Baker in 2011, it’s a voice we don’t hear much anymore, but thanks to Randall Franks, we can recall it again in this roughly 50 minute video.
Enjoy…
Many thanks to Randall Franks for sharing this publicly on video. It offers a wonderful look at a true bluegrass hero, and though the audio quality isn’t superb – recorded before digital phone technology reached today’s levels of fidelity and convenience – fans of the man will still want to listen.
Randall Franks has a good many videos of this sort online, which are available from his YouTube or Rumble page.
Noted Missouri banjo player, and former Blue Grass Boy, Lonnie Hoppers, died on November 17 at home in his sleep. He was 89 years of age.
Lonnie was a member of Bill Monroe’s band from September 1962 until January of the following year, after having done some fill in work over the previous few years while he was in the Army. As it happened, he was to also record with the Blue Grass Boys during these few months in two different sessions for Decca Records, cementing his place in bluegrass history.
A session on November 23, 1962 included Monroe’s cuts of Big Sandy River and Baker’s Breakdown with Kenny Baker on fiddle, Joe Stuart on guitar, and Bessie Lee Mauldin on bass. Another studio day on December 10 yielded a number of gospel numbers included on I’ll Meet You In Church Sunday Morning, released in 1964.
Born Lonnie George Hoppers on July 25, 1935 in Goodson, MO, he took up the banjo while still in school, finding his first gig at 17, playing at the Lake of the Ozarks resort on the Osage River with The Lee Mace Ozark Opry. After leaving Monroe, he moved to Kansas City where he started playing with a young guitarist, Dan Crary. The two performed together for about a decade, promoting themselves as a new kind of bluegrass.
Hoppers and his wife Charlene returned to the Ozark region in 1978 and he began playing at Silver Dollar City in Branson with Horse Creek, and in other theaters with The Plummer Family Show, as the region was fast developing into a tourist draw for music lovers. The attention Branson was receiving in the early 1980s brought a number of film and television production companies to town, and Lonnie was chosen to appear in a number of their projects.
Lonnie released a solo banjo record in 1982, Pickin’ For Fun, on the Dungeon label. Playing with him were Dale Sledd on guitar, Larry Sledge on mandolin, Mark Pearman on fiddle, and Brenda Chambers on bass.
In 1984 he launched his own group, Lonnie Hoppers & New Union, with who he continued to perform for many years. He reunited with Crary in 2000 for a one-off album, Lonnie Hoppers, Dan Crary and their All-American Band, for Pinecastle Records, which is still available online. With Crary on guitar and Lonnie on banjo, Dale Hopkins and Jamie Haege played fiddle, John Moore was on mandolin, and Marlon Collins on bass.
Lonnie and Charlene also hosted a bluegrass radio program in Bolivar, MO for a time, and he served as an endorsing artist for Grundy Banjos, made in Australia by Laurie Grundy. A Lonnie Hoppers signature edition was also created and is still marketed by Hawthorn Banjos as the Hoppers Tradition.
He leaves behind many family members, including Charlene, and a great many friends both from the music world and from his activity with his church.
Visitation is scheduled for Friday, 12:00-2:00 p.m. at the Cantlon-Otterness & Viets Funeral Home in Urbana, MO. Graveside services will follow at 2:00 at the Pleasant Ridge Cemetery, with Pastor Ryan Pendergraft officiating.
Former Blue Grass Boy banjoist, Bill Simpson, 90, of Oakboro, NC, passed away on September 18, 2024.
In a 2017 interview, the multi-instrumentalist shared with me his history in music. “At twelve years old, my Uncle Jim taught me to play the guitar.”
Simpson began playing with a classmate and cousin. In ninth grade, the trio entered an FFA talent competition playing Poison Love in three part harmony on their guitars.
“We won County and won first at District. He took us to State and we got second place. Allen Shelton won first. His picking really impressed me.”
At age 17, Simpson started concentrating his musical efforts on the five string banjo.
“One weekend when we got snowed in, I tried to make my banjo sound like Earl Scruggs. I liked Scruggs’ style.”
Learning the three-finger style of picking when most local banjoists used two, Simpson shared his knowledge of the banjo with several youngsters in his region of central North Carolina interested in learning that method of playing.
“I taught Terry Baucom. He would come in overalls. He wasn’t old enough to drive, maybe 12 years old. Lloyd (Bauc’s father) would bring him every Saturday.”
Working in Charlotte, Simpson would pass where the Coliseum was being built on Independence Boulevard.
“Bill Price and I decided to go to the first show in the Coliseum. It was a country show with a host of Grand Ole Opry stars that included Ferlin Huskey, Roy Acuff, Ray Price, Minnie Pearl, Kitty Wells, Connie Smith, and Bill Monroe. They brought the whole crowd!” Simpson recalled.
“We paid to go in and went back stage. Bill was back stage tinkering with his mandolin.”
When the Father of Bluegrass found out that the pair picked and had their instruments in their car, he was immediately interested since he was short of band members.
“He only had Joe Stuart on fiddle and Bessie (Lee Mauldin) on bass. He said, ‘Get them out and tune them up.’ We didn’t have no idea that we’d end up playing with him on stage. We played the whole show. I was scared to death. I took a break and people started hollering. They really liked it.”
Following the impromptu show, Monroe asked the young boys about becoming a part of his band, the Blue Grass Boys. They agreed with a few stipulations.
“It took me a couple of weeks to get my business in order,” the newly hired musician stated. “Monroe had us meet him in Hiawasee, GA, at 4:00 on a Friday. We practiced for three hours and played the show at 7:00.”
Driving his ’51 Pontiac, Simpson followed his new employer to his 400 acre farm outside of Nashville. One of the first things that he had to do was join the musician’s union.
“Monroe doubled my salary, paying me $90 a week.”
Traveling in a nine passenger Cadillac, Monroe drove it down sawmill roads hauling Simpson with him to chase foxhounds. His boss man had other passions, too.
“Monroe loved mules. He’d drive across Kentucky to see mules.”
Simpson was introduced to a whole different lifestyle while traveling on the road. “We sang the Opry in the fall of 1956. I was off the farm and dumbfounded with the routine. We played in night clubs. One woman broke a beer bottle and got into a fight with another woman. That wasn’t my thing. I wanted to play bluegrass gospel. I’ve tried to live a clean life.”
While picking with Monroe, Simpson played auction sales, school houses, and even in a courthouse.
“We played in the judge’s stand,” he remembered.
Playing in places like Hazard and Harlan, KY, and all over TN, Simpson decided to quit while the band was performing in Michigan.
“We were almost to Canada. I was the baby in our family. Mama really missed me and said that she was coming to get me. I left Monroe because Mama wanted me to come home.”
Simpson returned with her to North Carolina, married, and had four children. He continued to play music locally and worked on banjos. His vocation as an expert machinist provided him the means to build banjo parts and do luthier work, particularly in the area of banjo rims and tone rings. He built wooden tone rings for many pickers to replace the heavy ones traditionally found inside banjos made in the 1970s. His banjo bridges made from maple, ebony, and other hardwoods, are regarded as some of the best by many area banjoists.
Ben Greene, banjoist and longtime member of Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road, paid homage to his pickin’ pal. “He was a genius on fixing and working on instruments, and always had time to spend with you. He was a good friend. He will certainly be missed.”
A graveside service to honor his life will be held on Sunday, September 22, 2024, at 3:00 p.m. in the Oakboro Cemetery. The family will receive friends at the Oakboro Cemetery located on Hwy 205 (north of Oakboro), from 2:00 until 3:00 p.m. prior to the service.
Fiddler Bobby Hicks, surely among the most celebrated and enduring musicians to ever play bluegrass music, has died from complications of heart disease. After suffering a heart attack on Saturday (8/10), he underwent surgery to install a pacemaker yesterday, and passed away in his sleep at about 3:30 a.m. this morning. He was 91 years of age.
From early days with Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys, through a time playing pop country in Las Vegas, to his memorable stint with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, few did as much to define bluegrass fiddle as thoroughly, and with more joy and spirit, than Bobby Hicks.
Born Robert Caldwell Hicks, July 21, 1933 in Newton, NC, young Bobby first discovered the fiddle in the hands of Smoky Graves, several years after learning to play the mandolin and guitar as a boy. His family played traditional mountain music growing up, and he was pulled into it quite naturally. Once his brother tired of Bobby’s mandolin playing and put him out of their band, he dedicated himself fully to fiddling.
It was after the family moved to Greensboro when he was 12 that Bobby tried his first fiddle contest, placing first in the North Carolina State Championship. He continued on the convention and contest circuit for the next several years, winning his share as he became a fine player. In 1953 his first professional gig came along, playing fiddle for Jim Eanes, where he also got his first taste of recording in Nashville. Not long after he went to work for Benny Jarrell & the Flint Hill Playboys, and country singer Bob Williams.
But Bobby’s fate was sealed when he was asked to play bass on a run of North Carolina dates with Bill Monroe in ’53. As those shows were being completed, Bill asked him if he wanted the job full time, which meant a move to Nashville. Once he realized what a strong fiddler his young bass man was, Bill moved him to that position. During this time Hicks recorded a number of Monroe gems, Wheel Hoss, Roanoke, and Cheyenne, which remain standards to this day.
The Korean War took Hicks away from music for a two-year hitch in the Army from 1956-58. But he rejoined Monroe upon his return, and recorded several more classic tunes with the band. His fiddle appears on most of the tracks on Bill’s Bluegrass Instrumentals record, released in 1965, though most had been recorded in the late ’50s. There we hear Bobby on Stoney Lonesome, Tall Timber, Brown County Breakdown, Panhandle Country, Big Mon, Scotland, Monroe’s Hornpipe, and the cut of Wheel Hoss he had done in 1953. Many of those were double or triple fiddled alongside Charlie Cline, Gordon Terry, Kenny Baker, and Vassar Clements.
What an explosion that album created in bluegrass!
Following that time with Monroe, Bobby took a job with country star Porter Wagoner, where he remained for a few more years in Nashville. Low pay prompted a move to Las Vegas where he quickly found work with country singer Judy Lynn, who kept him in the band for the next seven years. He also developed and performed his own solo show there in Vegas.
But the call of home, and his mother’s poor health, brought him back to Greensboro, where Hicks found ready work with a number of local groups, and teaching private students. His reputation with Monroe also led to studio fiddling opportunities, and he took time to record his solo project, Texas Crapshooter.
Things changed again in 1981 when Ricky Skaggs, then pursuing a career in country music, asked Bobby to join his touring band. Of course, Skaggs exploded onto the country scene with hit after hit, many of them pulled from the catalog of artists like Jim Eanes, The Stanley Brothers, and Flatt & Scruggs. That same year found Hicks caught up in the excitement over the first recording by the Bluegrass Album Band, with Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, J.D. Crowe, and Todd Phillips. He was included in the first five records they made together while continuing with Ricky.
In 2004, he said goodbye to Skaggs and the road life, at which point he was 71 years old. But Bobby continued to perform with band near his home, now in western North Carolina. He continued to play his fiddle, as well as banjo and guitar, up to the very end.
Banjo player and bandleader Lincoln Hensley tells us that he had been traveling to visit Hicks regularly, and he always wanted to play and sing. Their last get together in person was just a few weeks ago.
Though he didn’t often show it, Bobby was a fine singer, and a top notch banjo picker as well. During Ricky’s country days, Hicks would often be called on to play banjo on songs like Highway 40 Blues and Country Boy.
Here he is a few months ago with Lincoln and the Tennessee Bluegrass Band singing We Could.
A member of the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, Hicks was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017.
Bobby’s widow Cathy says that she is planning a private service, after which Bobby’s ashes will be scattered among the mountains where they live. A public Celebration of Life will be announced at a later date.
Farewell to Bobby Hicks. A bluegrass life, lived to the fullest. We aren’t likely to see his kind again; a true bluegrass hero.
The 244 acre property owned by Bill Monroe for more than 40 years in Goodlettsville, TN is listed for sale, including the home he lived in until his passing in 1996. Unless a private sale can be arranged, the property is currently set to be turned into an exclusive 21-home estate community, The Reserve at Mandolin Hills, already approved by Sumner County.
Listing agent Brian Swain with Benchmark Realty says that plans to start construction on the new development could begin within 90 days. The owner’s preference is to sell the entire lot, with two homes and a stable, as is, in a single transaction, but is apparently open to consider parceling it into smaller pieces.
The property includes the original cabin from the early 20th century where Bill lived, and his 8-stall barn, plus the large house built after his passing. Though approved for a subdivision, there is no obligation for a new owner to go through with that plan. The lot is located about 15 miles from downtown Nashville.
With a $12 million listing price, it’s a steep ask, but one hopes that this important piece of bluegrass history could be preserved intact.
Tom Gray is inducted into the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Hall of Fame – photos by Barb Diederich
Iconic bassist, Tom Gray, was inducted into Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Hall of Fame in Bean Blossom, IN last month. In the ceremony, coinciding with Uncle Pen Fest, Gray was inducted along with the late great fiddler, Vassar Clements. As part of his induction, Gray performed on stage with the Country Gentlemen Tribute Band.
He explained, “The Hall of Fame and Museum in Bean Blossom was established by Bill Monroe long before there was any hall of fame or museum established by IBMA. I was deeply honored that they would put me in their hall of fame. The committee chose two people to go in this year. One was Vassar Clements, famous fiddle player, who passed away several years ago. The other inductee was me! I was so shocked and humbled. I’m just a bass player.”
This interviewer stressed that there is no such thing as “just a bass player.”
Gray acknowledged the statement.
“It is a necessary part of the music. I always try to take on a role of doing more than just providing rhythm and stating the chord in the moment. I like to find notes that I can play that will lead you into the next chord or announce the next line or verse of a song.
I was deeply influenced when I was young by the bass playing of George Shuffler, who played very aggressively when he recorded with the Stanley Brothers in the early 1950s. I wanted to be like George. I was encouraged to do so by some of the band leaders I played with in my career, namely Buzz Busby and John Duffey, with whom I was a band mate with in the Country Gentlemen in the 1960s and the Seldom Scene in the 1970s and ’80s.
I did get somewhat of a unique role in redefining the way the bass could be played in bluegrass. I was so honored that they would choose to put me in their hall of fame.”
Gray was thrilled to join his former band mate, John Duffey, who was already in Bill Monroe’s Hall of Fame. The bass man got to the tour the museum for the first time while at the site for his induction.
“It was Bill Monroe’s own property. It was interesting that he chose that site for his museum. He was originally from Kentucky, and spent most of his life near Nashville, TN. He could have chosen to put it in Nashville where all those other museums are, but he really liked Bean Blossom. He had a warm spot for it.
I really enjoyed seeing all the photos and mementoes, their instruments, and the clothing they wore. I had not gone to Bean Blossom too many times. All those years that I was playing with John Duffey, he refused to do business the way Monroe did it. John always insisted on a firm contract spelling out how much we would be paid and when. Bill liked to have people who were willing to see how much money came in at the gate and accept what Bill dispersed once the festival was over.
I did play Bean Blossom once with Bill Clifton. He accepted those terms and had a deep respect for Monroe and the other artists who agreed to be paid that way. In later years, I did get to play Bean Blossom with other acts that I was with including Eddie & Martha Adcock, Darren Beachley & the Legends of the Potomac, and the Country Gentlemen Reunion Band. The Reunion Band was a bunch of former members of the Gentlemen which included Eddie Adcock, Jimmy Gaudreau, Randy Waller, and me.
All the people at Bean Blossom were so kind, friendly, and generous. The new owner, Rex Voils, was a gracious host to me and my wife, Barb. He put us up in Bill Monroe’s old homestead and we slept in Bill Monroe’s bed.
They asked me to supply a photo. They used one taken by my daughter at her farm. They enlarged that, put it in a frame and it is now hanging in the museum. I’ve promised to give them some more artifacts such as the necktie I wore with the Country Gentlemen when we played Carnegie Hall. We all wore pleated black ties with hand painted images on it.”
Voils, Operations Manager of Bill Monroe’s Music Park, explained the Hall of Fame selection process. “The selection of inductees is made by our 20 plus board members. We induct two members annually, one living and one deceased. We narrow it down to three candidates and then vote. Tom was a real nice man and so appreciative. He knew Bill Monroe.”
Regarding the ceremony, Gray was thankful.
“It was all done on the stage at Bean Blossom during Uncle Pen Days on September 23, 2023. Historian, Ken Hydinger, gave a biography of the accomplishments that I have had. Then I performed a 90 minute show with the Country Gentlemen Tribute Band. Their current bass player, Kyle Windbeck, has a fine bass and he let me play his. I joined the band along with Mike Phipps, David Propst, Lynwood Lunsford, and Darren Beachley. Mike Phipps, who does such a good job sounding like Charlie Waller, asked me for a list of songs I would like to play. They were so well prepared.
Before I completed the list, I called up Darren and asked, ‘Would you be able to sing John Duffey’s verses to The Young Fisherwoman?’ That was one of my favorite songs I did with the Country Gentlemen. It has seven verses and three choruses that are all different from each other, so that’s a lot of words to memorize. Darren did it very well and allowed me to play some backup bass that I recorded with Country Gentlemen. It was a very good event.”
Voils added, “That performance brought back a lot of old memories.”
Next year’s inductees will be the Lewis Family and the late James King.
This set of reflections on bluegrass from George Gruhn is a contribution from Alan Goforth, a professional journalist, author, and aspiring screenwriter in suburban Kansas City. He writes about music regularly, including covering the annual Folk Alliance International conference. He earned a master’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism.
Bill Monroe did more than create a new musical style when he introduced bluegrass. He also touched off a lively discussion that continues today. Although musicians and fans know bluegrass when they hear it, asking them to define it can generate a range of responses.
“The simple way to define bluegrass is to look at the template that Bill Monroe laid out with his band – Earl Scruggs on the five-string banjo, Lester Flatt playing guitar and singing, Bill Monroe playing mandolin and singing harmony, Chubby Wise playing fiddle, and Howard Watts on bass,” said Jeff Burke, general manager of The Station Inn in Nashville. “You hear all kinds of influences in Monroe’s music, including Scottish, Irish, and blues. I don’t know if he called it bluegrass because Kentucky is the Bluegrass State or because he knew how much blues was in it.”
However, the instruments alone do not define bluegrass, said George Gruhn, chairman and CEO of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville. “The instrumentation typically does include mandolin, five-string banjo, guitar, bass, and fiddle, and it may or may not include a dobro,” he said. “But you can play the same instruments as Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys and not be bluegrass.”
The musical beat provides a clue.
“Old-timey and bluegrass are played differently,” he said. “Bluegrass is played on the offbeat. The rhythmic pattern is distinctly different from old-timey. A good number of blues notes are thrown in, and there are lots of solos. There is singing with the band doing backup. There is a lot of improvisation, but that’s true of old-timey as well.”
“Bluegrass and old-timey are as different as baroque is from Beethoven. It’s not the same, and just because you use those instruments does not make it bluegrass. You can do it in country music, and you can do it in rock music. There are folks who use that instrumentation and do things that are distinctly not bluegrass.”
Gruhn agrees with Burke that the blues influenced Monroe and the birth of bluegrass.
“Defining bluegrass may not be the easiest thing to do, but it definitely has blues notes in it,” he said. “Bluegrass typically uses a blues scale and a blues beat, and the way it’s played has that ornamentation. Bill Monroe was influenced by black blues and he admitted that. It has that certain flavor.”
Bluegrass also is recognizable by the way in which vocals interact with instruments.
“They are not doing a verse and then an instrumental — they are just singing along with the music,” Gruhn said. “That’s something you see with bluegrass. When they sing, that’s a vocal break, and the rest of the band is doing lead stuff while you’re doing that. They back off and are playing backup to the singer. Then they do instrumentals, and each one does instrumental pyrotechnics, which the old-timeys don’t do. Bluegrass is a distinctly different form of music.”
At the same time Monroe was putting his stamp on the mandolin, Earl Scruggs and others were defining bluegrass banjo.
“Snuffy Jenkins influenced Earl Scruggs and Don Reno to do three-finger picking,” he said. “If Don had not gone into the Army, it is likely that he would be the one who became famous, because he and Earl had similar styles. Buit when he got out of the Army, Earl already was well-established. Don didn’t want to be seen as an Earl clone, so he came up with a completely new style of his own. Technically, he was a more sophisticated musician than Earl ever was.”
Monroe combined the mandolin, finger picking, and other sounds to create bluegrass.
“Bill had that sound in mind and was playing those chopped chords,” Gruhn said. “When he got onto the Opry, he wasn’t playing bluegrass. The very first show was in August 1945 when he introduced bluegrass with Earl and Lester, and it was completely different music than it had been even weeks before. That’s what bluegrass is. So it actually is definable. It’s not this nebulous concept.”
In the end, however, Gruhn, like other serious musicians and fans, knows that simply enjoying bluegrass is far more important than attempting to pin down its definition.
“I was born on August 21, 1945, which was about the time Bill Monroe did his first bluegrass show,” he said. “I knew in the womb that I would like bluegrass, so I arranged for it to be there when I was born.”
George Gruhn drawing upon decades of experience to give his own guitar line a distinctive sound
George Gruhn, chairman and CEO of the legendary Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, set out to earn a doctorate in animal behavior, not become an authority on stringed instruments. But plans can change.
“To a large extent, what I do is a hobby that got out of hand,” he said. “I will be 78 in August, and I still come to work six days a week and do fun stuff.”
Bluegrass players will be happy to learn that Gruhn has no plans to slow down. Later this year, he will begin producing guitars of his own design in a factory near Nashville.
“It’s a little unusual at age 78 to be starting a new company,” he said. “I am looking for something that is not terribly bluegrassy. I have acoustic guitars on which you can play standard acoustic music, but you also can play electric arrangements, even without a pickup. If you want to play Chuck Berry tunes on the guitar and make it sound right, it will do it, but it doesn’t look like a Martin, Gibson or Fender. They will have the Gruhn name.”
After a lifetime in the industry, he knows exactly what sound he is looking for, and the market niche he wants to fill.
“It is my opinion that the world is not begging for another clone of Martin, Fender, and Gibson,” Gruhn said. “It’s gotten to the point where Martin has a trademark on its name but not really anything else. They don’t truly have a signature sound anymore, because there are numerous other companies that effectively make clones. They don’t say Martin on them, but they look like a Martin, feel like a Martin, and sound like a Martin. It’s hard to make a better Martin than Martin, but a lot of people are trying to capitalize on Martin-Fender-Gibson type guitars.”
The same is true of Fender electric guitars.
“Telecaster and Stratocaster may seem to have a distinctive sound,” he said. “But you can’t blindfold yourself, listen to somebody play a Tele vs. any one of a dozen different clones and say, ‘oh, that’s the sound of a Telecaster.’ You may say it’s a Tele-type guitar, but it may not actually be a Fender. Effectively, these companies no longer have what I consider to be a signature sound that is recognizable as unique and distinctive to them. They may have been the first one to do it, but at this point they don’t have a sound that is distinctive to their brand.”
Gruhn said his guitars will have a recognizable sound of their own.
“I have designed a guitar that looks, feels, and sounds distinctively different enough that I can tell it blindfolded from any other acoustic guitar,” he said. “It has a sound that is equally powerful from the open string all the way to the 22nd fret. It’s fully balanced all of the way up. The harmonic response is strong such that you can play lead, rhythm, melody, harmony – you name it. It’s complex, but it does not sound like a Martin or Gibson. It is its own distinct tone.”
The new Gruhn model acoustic guitars will start at $2,500, with more expensive versions depending on wood selection, ornamentation, and electric pickup options.
Thanks to a long term loan from the Grand Ole Opry, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum now has the bronze sculpture of Bill Monroe made by Steve Shields on display in their lobby.
An official unveiling ceremony was held on Friday, May 12 at the Museum, where the local Owensboro, KY press got their first look at this historic piece, commissioned by the Opry to celebrate their 70th anniversary in 1995. The piece was presented to Monroe on October 13, 1995 as part of a very special star-studded tribute that night.
The sculpture is approximately double life size, and in its new home in the lobby of the Museum, will surely be the first thing seen when visitors enter the building.
Executive Director Chris Joslin is delighted to have it on display in the Hall.
“If there was a Mt. Rushmore of the Grand Ole Opry, Bill Monroe would be one of its most recognizable faces. Although the Opry has launched many careers, I can think of no other artist who has had more of an impact on American music than Bill Monroe. The Grand Old Opry recognized this by creating this iconic sculpture to celebrate the career of one of its most important artists. To many, Bill Monroe was bigger than life, and this artifact captures the spirit of the man who created bluegrass music. It’s only fitting that it lives, for a season, here at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum.”
Opry Director of Archives and Content Management, Emily Frans, shared the Opry Entertainment Group’s commitment to bluegrass music.
“The Grand Ole Opry is delighted to celebrate and support the mission of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum with a loan of a Bill Monroe sculpture from the Grand Ole Opry Archives. This loan represents our mutual commitment to preserving and presenting the remarkable musical legacy of Bill Monroe and bluegrass music that coalesced on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium in the mid-1940s. As the music of Bill Monroe continues today as a powerful genre of music performed on the Opry stage and around the globe, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum serves as a remarkable resource for bluegrass music historians, scholars, musicians, and fans alike.”
The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum is open in Owensboro, KY from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and from 1:00-5:00 p.m. on Sunday. You will find more information about visiting on their official web site, where you can also learn about the many programs, concerts, and other events hosted there, as well as how you can support their mission to preserve and promote the music handed on to us by Bill Monroe.
On this September 13, Bill Monroe’s 111th birthday – a number as strong, standup, and straightforward as the man himself – we celebrate him for many good reasons.
We celebrate Bill as the “Father of Bluegrass” probably the only individual yet to create a distinctive genre of popular music; as a powerfully innovative virtuoso mandolin player; and as a compelling vocalist whose melody lines and high harmonies still thrillingly define “the high, lonesome sound.”
But Bill Monroe is also arguably the first great autobiographical singer-songwriter in country music history, recording what he called “true songs,” even before his friend and fellow American music great Hank Williams, Sr., who is well known for such compositions.
Why don’t we celebrate this distinction? Indeed, why do many bluegrass fans seem unaware of this extra dimension to Monroe’s tremendous talent?
For countless centuries, creative persons have drawn upon their direct experiences for subject material. From poets elevated to ecstasy by new love, or plunged into despair by love lost, to master painters fashioning self-portraits, the deeply personal has been used to express the universal. Indeed, accomplished artists connect their lives with ours. What mattered to them, matters to us.
Such is the case with Bill Monroe. No one needs to know the stories behind his most personal songs to enjoy them. They have the genius of universality. We instinctively relate to them on a powerfully direct level. But as a Monroe biographer, I can say that the more you know about the circumstances that gave rise to Bill’s “true songs,” the more they can delight you and touch your heart.
I can also say that I’ve taken heat when my revelations have involved his most passionate love songs. (One of my critics decried what he called my “tabloid job on Bill.”)
So let me illustrate using just two brief examples — both non-romantic yet deeply moving.
As I documented in my book Can’t You Hear Me Callin’: The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass, Bill had terribly poor vision as a child. (Indeed, as an adult he was probably functionally blind in one eye). As a result, he responded intensely to sound – especially music.
As the last of J.B. (James Buchanan) and Malissa Monroe’s eight children, Bill spent his formative years alone in the Monroe house with his mother as she did her endless chores. He well recalled how she would sing as she worked and, when sitting down for brief rests, play the fiddle or harmonica.
In October 1921, when Bill was 10 years old, Malissa died of a painful nerve ailment. She was laid out in the house briefly for visitation viewing, then taken for burial to the cemetery there in Rosine, Kentucky. For a visually-impaired child who closely associated his beloved mother with her music its absence must have been crushing.
When we know this, we understand exactly why Bill began his true song Memories of Mother and Dad with these words:
“Mother left this world of sorrow
Our home was silent and so sad …”
Revealed in their precise autobiographical power, “silent and so sad” are not simple descriptive words but beautifully poignant.
In January 1928, J.B. Monroe was laid to rest next to Malissa. By then, most of their children were married and had families or had moved away to find jobs. The teenaged Bill was employed by an elder brother, Jack, tending and transporting crops in spring and summer, and cutting and hauling timber in autumn and winter. And he was taken in by Malissa’s brother Pendleton Vandiver – Bill’s now-famed “Uncle Pen.”
Pen’s cabin was on Tuttle Hill, overlooking the railway depot area of Rosine. Jack’s home was adjacent to the depot below, with a horse barn behind it. In summer, Bill would of course work as long as there was daylight, finally returning the horses to their stalls. As he unhitched, rubbed down, and fed and watered the animals – and looked forward to his own supper and rest – he could hear Uncle Pen on the hill above him, sitting on his porch, playing the fiddle. As Pen rocked the bow back and forth, and played different sections of a tune, it sounded to Bill like a conversation.
And that is precisely why Bill Monroe composed the chorus of Uncle Pen as:
“Late in the evening, about sundown
High on the hill above the town
Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lord, how it would ring
You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing …”
Knowing the backstory of Uncle Pen gives us an additional uplift of joy and appreciation for Bill’s life and times.
So why is Bill Monroe not widely known and celebrated as an accomplished autobiographical singer/songwriter?
As I mentioned above, many of his most powerful songs issued from his romantic relationships. Some writers have believed that to reveal these experiences constitutes an invasion of Bill’s privacy. I maintain that it’s appropriate, even fitting, to examine the lives of artistic giants for clues to their work. And that includes Bill Monroe. Of course, such examinations must be made with compassion.
(Incidentally, it’s interesting how little complaint is made about writers who examine the life of Hank Williams, Sr., a life which involved considerable interpersonal drama and tragic drug use. And if biographies of rock stars don’t contain intimate details, and lots of them, their readers are apt to feel cheated.)
But, I think, there’s a greater reason why Bill Monroe is not hailed as a pioneering singer/songwriter. And it’s from the mixed blessing of the concept (which still persists) of bluegrass-as-folk-music.
It was a huge boon for our music, almost a saving grace, to be brought into the great Folk Revival of the 1950s and ’60s. This was not simply a marketing ploy but an appropriate recognition. Bluegrass is generally performed on acoustic, folk-style instruments, without percussion or keyboards. And a vibrant folk content runs through its core repertoire.
For example, Flatt & Scruggs were the first bluegrassers to become national folk music stars. Earl Scruggs’ banjo renditions of Cripple Creek, Sally Ann, and Reuben’s Train frequently brought these numbers for the first time to audiences outside the South. And Monroe had retained the ancient modal scales in much of his music, and staunchly kept the fiddle alive as a country music lead instrument against the tide of electric guitars and pedal steels.
Bluegrass undeniably benefited from distinguished folklorists who further strengthened the bluegrass-folk connection by documenting its traditional roots.
But in my view, that’s proven to be a two-edged sword. Although academic or academically-influenced books and articles cut open a path for bluegrass to share the popularity of folk music, they often severed away an appreciation of bluegrass as a modern, constantly-created art form.
Simply put, if you elevate Bill to the level of a preserver of tradition (and well he should be), you risk ignoring — or at least being unprepared to appreciate — his legacy as a formidable creative artist.
Bill Monroe not only gifted the world with the wondrous music called bluegrass: He often laid bare his heart and soul in the process, even if the world hasn’t always known that. It’s a part of his immense legacy and it deserves celebration — not only on his birthday but every day.
[Richard D. Smith plays mandolin, is the author of Can’t You Hear Me Callin’: The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass, and a frequent contributor to bluegrass publications. The views expressed are his own and do not represent an editorial position of Bluegrass Today.]
Earlier this month during the 25th annual Podunk Bluegrass Festival in Goshen, CT, the winners of their Podunk Songwriters Contest were announced for 2022.
First prize went to Stan Keach and Jeff Trippe for Can’t You Hear It Callin’, a song about Bill Monroe’s 1923 Loar-signed Gibson F-5 mandolin. The lyrics imagine that the instrument is lonely sitting behind the glass at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Nashville, and calls out at night, hoping to make music once again.
Stan and Joe put together this video in celebration of their win, a recording of the song set against classic images of Bill and his legendary instrument.
As first prize winners, Keach and Trippe accepted a cash award of $200, a Podunk Bluegrass Festival T-shirt, one four-day camping ticket for two to the 2023 Podunk Bluegrass Festival, an award certificate, and airing of their song on radio.
Second place went to Old Guys by Dennis Sheridan, and third to The Mountain by Patrice Webb. They also received a cash award, tickets for next year at Podunk, an award certificate, and airing of their song on the radio.
