99 years ago today

[Don P]

Lloyd Loar signed Bill Monroe's mandolin. When we think of a mandolin it is probably that shape in our mind.
I was out at the farm today for a music festival. Wayne Henderson and friends were playing a set and the mandolin player got Wayne to tell the story about his mandolin. Wayne spotted what was to become the back of the mandolin hanging on a wall with a deer head attached to it. He knew he had to have that piece of quilted maple for a mandolin in the Loar, Gibson F-5 style. I had to get a better look, the picture doesn't even begin, the figure rolls around and flashes with every movement. A person could get lost in that grain.

[kantuckid]

A local guy helped us on the sawmill recently (to catch up on his drinking) for two days. He played and traveled with Dr. Ralph Stanley for ~ 3 years playing the mandolin. He's also a very talented carpenter but has mostly used up his serious employment chances as all know him to be a no-show sort of guy now, sad but true.  :(

FWIW, I sawed a big fallen maple, maybe 10 yrs ago thats got quilted grain and stacked in my barn now.

[Resonator]

Bill Monroe's mandolin has a dramatic and exciting story all unto itself.

It currently resides in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, and is arguably the most revered mandolin in all of bluegrass and country music history. It was the favorite mandolin of Monroe, and played by him on almost every recording he made from 1945, until he died in 1996. His mind was constantly creating music, and the mandolin became an extension of his hands. At the high point in his career he was writing on average a new song A DAY, with close to 1000 written in his lifetime. He was a strict task master and had a difficult personality, having a very long line of musicians come and go as "Bluegrass Boys" in his band. He also is rumored to have had affairs that had left women scorned. This leads up to a fateful day in 1985, when he came home and found someone had broke into his house, and taken a fireplace poker and smashed his cherished mandolin into 500 pieces, some nothing more than splinters. Amazingly the instrument was completely rebuilt (with undiminished sound quality) and played by Monroe. The instrument had more drama after Monroe's death, when put up for sale for 1.125 million. 2 different museums attempted to purchase the instrument, neither sale was finalized and the matter went to court. Years later the instrument was bought and then donated to the CMH museum, along with the equally historic 1928 Gibson L-5 guitar played by Mother Maybelle Carter, one of the pioneers of country music. The man who donated them said "This is where they belong, because the soul of America lives here with them."

[kantuckid]

We watched Monroe's group perform near us at the Bluegrass venue outside Clay City, KY. It's Called Meadowgreen Music Park and is a very  suitable place as it's rustic and anyone you see & hear there is right in your face, up close and personal. One of many Bluegrass music halls all over this area.
FWIW, The Kentucky Bluegrass Hall of Fame is in Owensboro, KY about 7 hours west of me. Another museum is the US23 Country Music Highway Museum in Staffordsville, KY where wife comes from along with Chris Stapleton. Yet another is the KY Country Music Hall of Fame near MT Vernon, KY.
Our regional university, Morehead State has a string program in their music dept thats strongly attached to Bluegrass music. Local radio programs feature Bluegrass programs. 

[barbender]

I can't see how a mandolin could be smashed into a thousand pieces, be restored, and not have the sound suffer. It would be all glue.

[Resonator]

I've heard (and read) the story more than once, I believe it to be true. The article I got my info from... :P
Monroe?s Cherished Mandolin Finds a Home at the Hall of Fame | CMT

[Don P]

Our regional university, Morehead State has a string program in their music dept thats strongly attached to Bluegrass music. Local radio programs feature Bluegrass programs. 

Half the proceeds yesterday went to JAM, Junior Appalachian Musicians. JAM was started by a teacher in the county and there are now chapters in 3 states. JROTC worked parking to pickup for a good 12 hours, good kids doing a great job.

[Old Greenhorn]

I can't see how a mandolin could be smashed into a thousand pieces, be restored, and not have the sound suffer. It would be all glue.

Well my Friend Bill Keith who I wrote about recently in another thread was a Bluegrass Boy with Mr. Monroe back in 63-64. Traveling with Bill I got a lot of inside stories while on the road. He told the tale of a tough and unforgiving taskmaster, but Bill was very quick to point out that it made everybody in the band extremely sharp and quick and raised each person's playing level to the highest they could get (or they got replaced without notice). He never used a "set list", he would  pick a tune on the fly and you had to figure out which tune it was by the third note and fall in, or you would get the stink eye.
When my friend Bill joined, Monroe told him him would have to be called by his middle name "Brad" because it wouldn't do to have two 'Bills' in the band. He also told 'Brad' he should hide his left hand when he tooks breaks so folks couldn't figure out the style he was playing in, which was quite unique at the time and brought in a new sound that nobody else had. Between weekend gigs, Bill would have the guys in the band chopping wood and feeding livestock on his farm "while they were resting". Whilst a person was in the band, whatever tunes they wrote belonged to Bill (his 'rule'). SO a lot of those 1000's of tunes he 'wrote' were not even his.
But he was a master and brou8ght an awful lot to the music, which he truly believed he invented. After Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt left the band he rarely talked to them with a civil tongue. It was a cutthroat business back in those days. Bobby Osbourne (I think) said touring with Bill was the worst experience of his life.
Those Lloyd Loar's from the early 20's bring big bucks even without any other connections. Chris Thiele has one he paid $250k for. But man, what a sound.
Yes, Gibson did repair that instrument, but I am sure their were a few replacement parts made.
There is a series of videos made a number of years ago Called 'Bill Monroe for breakfast' that may still be available on you tube. I don't have time to find them, but in those they had members of his band from decades before talking about their experiences with Mr. Monroe. I enjoyed them very much. My friend Bill was in one of them along with Del McCory and they talked about the day they were both hired. Del and Bill both played banjo and Mr. Monroe had them audition at the same time. Bill got the banjo gig and Del (who could hardly play guitar) got hired as a guitar player. It was one of the best stories I have ever heard in Bluegrass music about Monroe and I know it's accurate because I heard both Bill and Dell tell the story privately at separate times. They remained good friends until Bill's death. (Which is how I got to met Del, who still amazes me and I will see again in a few  days . Resonator, you should check those videos out, I am sure you will enjoy them.

[Resonator]

OG, I had never heard the account that some of Bill's songs were actually written by band members. Sounds a lot like people I've known who worked in design engineering, they would often come up with innovative ideas. Anything they created was "Intellectual Property" of the company they worked for, and they were only given a few dollars for their patent. :

I will look those videos up when I can. And WOW, you're definitely name droppin' some Bluegrass folks!  I've been a Del McCoury fan since the first time I heard him.

[kantuckid]

Name dropping: 
We share a friend named Bill Keith, but my Bill can't play a lick but he's one heck of an electrician and tech teacher I worked with.  ;D 
Del is not my favorite bluegrass musician, nowhere close in fact. I agree he and his group are skilled but not my thing. Many others too many to name here.  
 Now deceased, Dave Evans from McGoffin Co., has been one of my favorites; more modern ones I like are Sturgill Simpson from Breathitt Co, KY just south if me and Tyler Childers from Lawrence Co..
 Chris Stapleton's at his best when they sing Bluegrass. 
Females-hands down Patty Loveless wins the prize. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Geez I'm really sorry. I wasn't intending to name drop, but now I read back and see that it appears that way. In the bluegrass world things are a lot more relaxed. Yes, you get the throngs of folks at the merch tables that can be overwhelming, but backstage things are more relaxed and most of these folks are approachable, especially if you get introduced to them by a 50 year veteran of the business as his 'friend and neighbor'. 
 They are all just people. Del is a good player, businessman, showman, and he has got that rare high lonesome voice that I do enjoy. But I never really felt I as getting more than a canned conversation with him, just too many folks around him all the time. Sam Bush is very hard to get a chance to speak with because his wife generally puts up a good road block, but I slipped past it once and found him to be a sweet and very friendly guy. He was a dear friend of my buddy Bill. Jerry Douglas is one of my favorites as a person and also way up there on the skills level. I always love talking to him he has a razor sharp sense of humor and sarcasm and is funny as all get out. We sat in an empty auditorium once watching sound checks and he was making funny comments about each artist and their setups. I laughed so hard they could hear me on stage. Other folks are similar and all I found to be very nice folks. Well except for two guys that I just don't like as people. One is a cheat and treats all his band members poorly and has a reputation for not paying agreed rates and walking out on hotel bills. The other is just a rude and obnoxious person who I saw on more than one occasion berate or ridicule another performer or member of the stage crew. I don't watch or listen to those guys and I don't buy their music.
 Everybody puts their pants on the same way. Well, almost everybody. The host Band at Grey Fox is Dry Branch Fire Squad and their front man Ron is a great story teller. As this is a Bill Monroe Thread, I thought y'all might enjoy this first person account of a Bill Monroe story.

Bill Monroe Through The Crack In The Curtains (Live) - YouTube

[Old Greenhorn]

Resonator, I found the videos. This is the link for part one. You will have to find all the other parts. My favorite is the second day.
"Bill Monroe for Breakfast," Part - 1 - YouTube

[WDH]

Ron sure don't sound like he be from Upstate New York .

[Old Greenhorn]

No, He aren't. He hails from KY, but worked in OH for years and now lives in CO for the past couple of decades. He used to do long distance horse races for fun. Not sure if he is still doing it, but he is surely still a horseman.

[Resonator]

That video's good stuff!

I've heard other interviews and accounts that Bill was a very hard working man, doing his own logging as a boy. And doing everything from farming, to playing baseball, with the attitude of "Give it all you got, and then some."

There are artists who I definitely don't agree with, but enjoy listening to their music. And there are good and bad in any business, and agree at the end of the day they are just people.

[WDH]

Bluegrass has been a big part of my life but some of that high lonesome sound is difficult for me to take.  I really enjoy the contemporary bluegrass music also called New Grass.  If you want to see some of the very best musicians of our time playing some real eclectic music, listen to some of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj82KwBGR-s

Toward the end, look at the strings on Mark O'Conner's violin (fiddle).

Much more here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtiOirt_HUQ

I am a bass player, but after seeing Edgar Meyer play bass, it made me want to throw my instrument away and just quit .

Another phenomenal bluegrass musician is Sierra Hull.  She is known for the mandolin, but she is amazing on the guitar as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm134khQrfg

[WDH]

Sierra with the great Sam Bush.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aQonnNSATk

Tom, I looked for you but did not see you.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Well as it happens I was at that set for about 15 minutes, but I was working. Sierra is such  monster on that thing! Not only that, but you won't be surprised to hear that she is one of the sweetest human beings you could ever meet.
I was just about to post that same video. Go look on youtube for her and Billy strings playing together (2019 I think). They had such a fun time and played together several times over the weekend. I caught a lot of it, but not all. We have 6 stages going at the same time, it can make a man nuts, especially when I am supposed to be working at the same time.
The Telluride house band performed one of Bill Keith's signature tunes for him the year he broke his wrist while fighting cancer and they recorded it and emailed it to me to give to Bill. The usual suspects, Bela Flack, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, et al. I don't think it was ever released anywhere but I still have a copy. Wish I could share that. it comes around my player every once in a while.

Edit to add: that video was shot by one of my very good friends, Fred Robbins who did all the Creekside stage videos. If you are a big fan search youtube for "Sierra Hull Gray fox and you find find some of here workshops with other great players. Very good fun to watch. I have to avoid the rabbit hole today, I still have a lot to do. Later.

[Old Greenhorn]

I knew I had seen this someplace and I am waiting for return phone calls to finish my chores so I searched and found it. This is Bill talking about the destruction and if you stick with it you will see the mando being repaired. Over 200 pieces, they said.

Bill Monroe's Mandolin Story (Low Quality) 80's TV Show - YouTube

Bill speaks well of Gibson, but in a fit of rage some years later he scratched their logo off the headstock. I don't remember when. He was a character for sure.

[beenthere]

I really enjoy the contemporary bluegrass music also called New Grass.

Are the Punch Bros "New Grass" ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrVUUq3mWaw

[Resonator]

Yes, Punch Brothers are New Grass.
And as with so many, they learn traditional bluegrass growing up, and then take it to a different level. Music is painting pictures using sounds. Different artists use different "colors" and "brushes" to form their individual audible vision.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, they would fall in that class. They are always trying new stuff and challenging each other. Critter has monster skills and is DanG good on a banjo but with Noam in the band, you never hear him play it. He played on a few cuts of an album 2 other friends did over in France a few years ago (Lluis Gomez and Ron Cody) and his banjo work was incredible. I saw him 6 months after the album came out and he was embarrassed that I thought it was so good. He said "I was just trying to keep up with those guys". Most folks will never hear that album, but it is one of my favorites. Noam is another funny guy with a dry sense of humor and some crazy skills. Always pushing himself to work on stuff he hasn't done yet. Very hard on himself to always do better, I think. Thiele is Thiele, hard for me to get to know and I never had any time with him. When the Punch Bros. come through the area I try to get some time with Noam and Chris.

 All this talk has really helped get me in the mood. I leave for Grey Fox early tomorrow and I had forgotten how big a part of my life interacting with these artists was before the plague made the world go black. I just had another artist friend drop off promotional material for their festival in August, so I can spread it around at Gray Fox this week. Starting to feel like old times. I'm glad this thread started, it's done me a lot of good.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I screwed up bad enough in that last post that I have to fall on my sword. I had Chris Eldridge (Critter) and Chris Luquette confused. I also said it was in France, it was Barcelona, Spain. A good buddy of mine who is a very good player, but not a touring pro had gone over to record with Lluis, and Chris showed up a week or so later to do some other tunes. All that made an album and it had a bunch of Bill Keith signature tunes on it. They all were good friends and students of Bill's. I honestly don't (yet) know if Critter plays banjo.
On the new grass subject, sometimes it is someone who finds a new method to play and instrument which opens new windows. This is "Devil's Dream" from that afore mentioned session. This tune was the simple fiddle tune that Bill Keith first heard and realized he could play it note for note on the banjo. He spent a bit of time transcribing it, but the epiphany changed the way a lot of people played banjo and opened the doors for guys like Bela Fleck and all the other new grass folks. It was also the sound that got him into Bill Monroe's band and some have said turned around Monroe's career.

2017 DEVIL'S DREAM - Lluís Gómez & Chris Luquette - YouTube


Edit to add: The banjo that Chris plays in this cut is a Rich & Taylor Bill Keith Model, top tension  with a Kulish tone ring. It's fairly rare and has a special sound I never get tired of. Bill was always a top tension man, even with his Gibsons.

[Resonator]

Can't have a thread title with "99 years" in it, without playing Dave Evans. ;D

99 Years Is Almost For Life - YouTube

[kantuckid]

Dave Evans was a regular in my area near his home county. I knew a retired educator who was actively involved with signing the talent for a large bluegrass venue near me called Poppy Mountain. It features the who's/who of bluegrass and newcomers as well. He told me that in dealing with Dave who'd become a popular band in his later years and as bluegrass grew in popularity that he'd begun to ask for perks beyond higher pay such as a certain very expensive shotgun he liked. Dave was an alcoholic which probably hampered his dealings. He got what my friend called greedy and was absent from that venue for some period, then later returned. Dave died a few years back at the height of his popularity. 
Bluegrass radio is a mainstay from MSU's NPR station every weekend. Request line songs feature Dave Evans heavily and one of my favorites, his version of One Loaf of Bread is often heard along with a couple other songs of his.    
We went there a few years then after a walk from our pasture parking spot and fearing for our lives as bluegrass campers drunk and crazy on atv's actually almost hit us, we stopped going because they weren't controlling the crowds. 
It's been said the control is better but not a thing we go to anymore.
 
One aspect of bluegrass music is that musicians tend to prefer the picking over the vocal aspect in their favorite band choices as that's what they do themselves is pick and play. We tend to like best the bands that feature vocalists that we like, male or female. Don Rigsby is a favorite local BG singer of ours, who once ran the Center for Traditional Music at Morehead State, then went to performance music FT and now that program is headed by Jesse Wells a fiddle player from Johnson/Morgan counties who has been at MSU for many years. FWIW, my wife is retired from MSU.
Ricky Scaggs, also from our area, was the featured speaker at our oldest son's graduation at MSU in mid 1990's. As one of my activities back then in education was to give the GED test, I found it ironic to say the least that Ricky was a HS dropout who never finished HS, as he went on the road with music legends such as Bill Monroe, later JD Crowe, etc., instead.
 He admitted it in his speech that he was embarrassed, as I recall.
To hear one of my modern favorites, Stugill Simpson at his best IMO, listen to his acapella NPR session on YouTube. He gets away from what I like best when he's doing what I'll call "other music". Same for Tyler Childers who we prefer when he sings from his Lawrence County, KY roots.
NPR is a heavily political place, heavily taxpayer funded, that personally turns me off-except as a music venue and a few other mundane programs.      
 

[Jeff]

Have you guys doscovered Billy Strings yet?

[taylorsmissbeehaven]

Ill second Billy Strings. My neighbor had a ticket for me a couple weeks ago but I was working out of town and didnt make it back in time. Bummer!! maybe next time, Brian

[WDH]

Another of the newest generation with dazzling talent.  

[gspren]

All this name dropping has me racking my feeble mind and coming up blank. At a little mountain bar near our hunting camp I used to listen to the owner fiddle while some of his friends were picking, strumming,  etc. and he was good, I think won some state awards in maybe the 70s-80s and he was just called Chicken or mostly "Chick". If you look up the Laurel Run Lodge in Landisburg, PA it gives an AKA as "Chicks", I only remember his wifes name as Shirley. I believe they are long gone and the bar has new owners.

[Don P]

With all the talk of pork prep lately. It seems half the household was off their feed this evening. That left me and old Barney to fend for ourselves. After perusing our options;
Ricky Skaggs~Merlefest 2014~You Can't Hurt Ham - YouTube

[kantuckid]

Much is said & made about a fiddler vs. a violinist by Bluegrass lovers. I'm a Bluegrass fan from way back but I also grew up with a Mom who had been a concert violinist. She was a First Chair violinist in HS and our civic symphony in my hometown. My middle brother (4 yrs younger to the day) and I would beg her to get out her violin and play lively tunes such as Flight of the Bumblebees. The truth was that she could play anything she had before her and even better, of course if she'd practiced it. We kept the Old Gray book of Songs (and Golden book I think?) at home like many folks back then and she could ad lib many of them. 
My theory is you either can really play or not. I suspect many fiddlers are better at sawing away vs. precision playing based on her comments. What I mean is sort of like someone who can play/strum a few cords on a guitar but not much more. BTW, she had no love of country music at all which I always liked from even my pre-school years. 
Ham, I like it but get tired of it before it's gone... 

[Don P]

Much the same here. Mom and big Sis are classically trained in piano and violin. Mom gravitated to cello for awhile but mostly church and classical music. My sister mostly plays fiddle and has picked up the mandolin I think as much for the community, but can play anything. I can play the radio if you don't mind static. When I first moved up to finish the house there wasn't much more than 4 walls, a roof and generator. Dr Seuss wasn't far off with green eggs and ham :D.

[Old Greenhorn]

When I was studying banjo with a very accomplished pro player I had a lot of trouble with the complexities of the 5 string and was getting quite frustrated. On a whim, I bought a mando thinking the 4 strings would be easier for me to get some of the basic musical concepts down. I kept that secret from my teacher for a while, but finally fessed up. He was a little 'disappointed' but took it in good humor and gave me a couple of mandolin lessons and explained the theory, Tuned in fifths, etc. Same tuning as a fiddle too.
 I will never forget his words when I first pulled it out of the case. He said "Well, at least it is not a DANG fiddle!"
 I waited until he had passed before I borrowed and tried the fiddle. It only took two hours to cure me of that desire. ;D Two very long hours. :D
 I do know some really good fiddlers though and enjoy a good player greatly.