Monroe's fortunes began to improve during the American folk music revival of the early 1960s. Many college students and other young people were beginning to discover Monroe, associating his style more with traditional folk music than with the country-and-western genre with which it had previously been identified. The word "bluegrass" first appeared around this time to describe the sound of Monroe and similar artists such as Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, Reno and Smiley, Jim and Jesse, and the Osborne Brothers. While Flatt and Scruggs immediately recognized the potential for a lucrative new audience in cities and on college campuses in the North, Monroe was slower to respond.
Folk revival
Bill Monroe
Bill Monroe | Folk revival
Yes, Monroe's fortunes began to improve during the American folk music revival, associating his style more with traditional folk music than with the country-and-western genre with which it had previously been identified. Yes, his fortunes began to improve during the American folk music revival of the early 1960s. Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. His style has been closely associated with traditional folk music.
who is the original singer of you're gonna miss me when i'm gone
user
Over the years, the original has been recorded by many artists, most notably by Charlie Monroe. Lulu and the Lampshades were the first to use the cup game for percussion when performing the song
assistant
who is this mentioned person?
user
He  was an American country and bluegrass music guitarist.
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does he have siblings?
user
Yes, Bill Monroe, Bertha, Birch
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what are his single works?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
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among the above three brothers; was the first one part of any band?
user
Yes,  Blue Grass Boys
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was he also a guitarist?
user
No, he was a mandolinist.
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was he into folk music?
user
Monroe's fortunes began to improve during the American folk music revival of the early 1960s. Many college students and other young people were beginning to discover Monroe, associating his style more with traditional folk music than with the country-and-western genre with which it had previously been identified. The word "bluegrass" first appeared around this time to describe the sound of Monroe and similar artists such as Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, Reno and Smiley, Jim and Jesse, and the Osborne Brothers. While Flatt and Scruggs immediately recognized the potential for a lucrative new audience in cities and on college campuses in the North, Monroe was slower to respond.
Bill Monroe | Folk revival
Under the influence of Ralph Rinzler, a young musician and folklorist from New Jersey who briefly became Monroe's manager in 1963, Monroe gradually expanded his geographic reach beyond the traditional southern country music circuit. Rinzler was also responsible for a lengthy profile and interview in the influential folk music magazine "Sing Out!" that first publicly referred to Monroe as the "father" of bluegrass. Accordingly, at the first bluegrass festival organized by Carlton Haney at Roanoke, Virginia in 1965, Bill Monroe was the central figure. In 1964, before the Grateful Dead got together, Jerry Garcia caravanned across the country from California to tag along with Monroe.
Bill Monroe | Folk revival
Even after the folk revival faded in the mid-1960s, it left a loyal audience for bluegrass music. Bluegrass festivals became common, with fans often traveling long distances to see a number of different acts over several days of performances. In 1967 Monroe himself founded an annual bluegrass festival at Bean Blossom in southern Indiana, a park he had purchased in 1951, which routinely attracted a crowd of thousands; a double LP from the festival featuring Monroe, Jimmy Martin, Lester Flatt, and Jim and Jesse was released in 1973. The annual "Bill Monroe Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival" is now the world's oldest continuously running annual bluegrass festival.
Bill Monroe | Later years
He would often say of new bands that did not perform to his standards, "That ain't no part of nothin'." Even those who question the scope of bluegrass refer to Monroe as a "musical giant" and recognize that "there would be no bluegrass without Bill Monroe." More than 150 musicians played in the Blue Grass Boys over the nearly 60 years of Monroe's performing career. Monroe tended to recruit promising young musicians who served an apprenticeship with him before becoming accomplished artists in their own right. Some of Monroe's band members who went on to greater prominence include singer/guitarists Clyde Moody, Lester Flatt, Jack Cook, Mac Wiseman, Jimmy Martin, Carter Stanley, Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, Roland White, Roland Dunn and Doug Green; banjo players Earl Scruggs, Buck Trent, Don Reno, Stringbean, Sonny Osborne, and Bill Keith; and fiddlers Tommy Magness, Chubby Wise, Vassar Clements, Byron Berline, Kenny Baker, Bobby Hicks, Gordon Terry, Randall Franks and Glen Duncan.
Bill Monroe | Legacy and influence
As well as being an accomplished bluegrass vocalist, Bush also is an accomplished instrumentalist on mandolin and fiddle winning title of National Fiddle champion at fifteen years of age. He was a founding member of the New Grass Revival and has been called a modern day Bill Monroe, or as Sam would tell . . Sam, affectionately "Sammy", or "Mr. Entertainment", also recalls meeting Mr. Monroe as a young teen. After demonstrating his mandolin technique Monroe offered the advice: "stick to the fiddle". Sam is one of the main attractions at the annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Telluride, Colorado and plays the eight p.m.
Sam Bush | Performance
This band recorded a number of bluegrass classics, including "My Little Georgia Rose", "On and On", "Memories of Mother and Dad", and "Uncle Pen", as well as instrumentals such as "Roanoke", "Big Mon", "Stoney Lonesome", "Get Up John", and the mandolin feature "Raw Hide". Carter Stanley joined the Blue Grass Boys as guitarist for a short time in 1951 during a period when The Stanley Brothers had temporarily disbanded.
Bill Monroe | "Original Bluegrass Band" and Monroe's heyday as a star
William Smith Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the "Father of Bluegrass". The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, who named their group for the bluegrass of Monroe's home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 69 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader.
Bill Monroe | Introduction
Monroe developed a distinctive style of mandolin playing which emphasized strong syncopation and chording, and played in keys, such as E and B, seldom used by old-time and country musicians. He and his band, the Blue Grass Boys, played at the Grand Old Opry in late 1939 to popular acclaim, and other bands began to incorporate the new "bluegrass" music into their repertoires. Mandolin players in these bands took elements of Monroe's style and then added their own flavor.
Bluegrass mandolin | History
Monroe's style involved playing lead melodies in the style of a fiddler, and also a percussive chording sound referred to as "the chop" for the sound made by the quickly struck and muted strings. He also perfected a sparse, percussive blues style, especially up the neck in keys that had not been used much in country music, notably B and E. He emphasized a powerful, syncopated right hand at the expense of left-hand virtuosity. Monroe's most influential follower of the second generation is Frank Wakefield and nowadays Mike Compton of the Nashville Bluegrass Band and David Long, who often tour as a duet.
Mandolins in North America | Bluegrass and the jug band
However, he had never heard the mandolin played in the style that Bill Monroe played it. Buzz recalled:"Back in those days Monroe played pretty fast; the hottest mandolin playing I ever heard, and I haven't heard it since. His mandolin playing was heavily influenced by a jazz mandolin player named Paul Buskirk, and I haven't heard him play like that again- or maybe I was just easily impressed then."Buzz picked up the guitar first, learning chords and simple runs from his brothers, Wayne and Lemoyne, who were playing guitar-fiddle duets and singing Monroe Brothers harmonies around their community. Buzz would eventually settle on the mandolin, and his complex style was born.
Buzz Busby | Early life
After the Monroe Brothers broke up in 1939, Bill Monroe formed his own group, after a brief time called the Blue Grass Boys, and completed the transition of mandolin styles from a "parlor" sound typical of brother duets to the modern "bluegrass" style. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1939 and its powerful clear-channel broadcast signal on WSM-AM spread his style throughout the South, directly inspiring many musicians to take up the mandolin. Monroe famously played Gibson F-5 mandolin, signed and dated July 9, 1923, by Lloyd Loar, chief acoustic engineer at Gibson. The F-5 has since become the most imitated tonally and aesthetically by modern builders.
Mandolins in North America | Bluegrass and the jug band
This break from bluegrass tradition was not well received in some quarters—some thought it wasn't the way Bill Monroe meant for Bluegrass to be played. "Our reason for doing the newer-type music wasn't pretentious or irreverent or sarcastic or disrespectful," explained Curtis Burch. "We just felt like people were ready to see that you could really expand the sound, using those same instruments." (Monroe was a fan of New Grass Revival.) In 1979, they became the backup group and opening act for Leon Russell, further alienating them from the mainstream bluegrass community.
New Grass Revival | Separation from mainstream bluegrass
Monroe was born on his family's farm near Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children of James Buchanan "Buck" and Malissa (Vandiver) Monroe. His mother and her brother, Pendleton "Pen" Vandiver, were both musically talented, and Monroe and his family grew up playing and singing at home. Bill was of Scottish and English heritage. Because his older brothers Birch and Charlie already played the fiddle and guitar, Bill was resigned to playing the less desirable mandolin. He recalled that his brothers insisted he should remove four of the mandolin's eight strings so he would not play too loudly. Monroe's mother died when he was ten, and his father died six years later.
Bill Monroe | Early life
Bill Monroe was made an honorary Kentucky Colonel in 1966. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as an "early influence") in 1997. Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams Sr., and Johnny Cash are the only other performers honored in all three. As the "father of bluegrass", he was also an inaugural inductee into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1991. Monroe was a recipient of a 1982 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Bill Monroe | Legacy and influence
David McLaughlin is an American multi-instrumentalist. His mandolin prowess has helped clarify how Bill Monroe's style of playing can be applied to progressive bluegrass music.
David McLaughlin (bluegrass) | Introduction
In the 1980s, the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe took a special interest in the young band and especially the young fiddler. Monroe spent hours teaching and sharing with Franks much like Monroe's Uncle Pen had done for him. With the departure of Kenny Baker, Franks was asked to join the Blue Grass Boys. Still in school, he took off to tour from coast to coast. Though school beckoned him back, Franks continued to make appearances with Monroe up until he stopped touring. For his contributions to the work of Bill Monroe, Franks was honored by the state of Kentucky.
Randall Franks | Bill Monroe
Birch Monroe (May 16, 1901 – May 15, 1982) was an American old time and early bluegrass fiddler, bassist, dancer, founding member of the Monroe brothers, and older brother to Charlie and Bill Monroe. He grew up on a farm with five brothers and sisters before leaving it in the late twenties. Unlike brothers Charlie and Bill he chose to not pursue a career in music.
Birch Monroe | Introduction
Monroe gave his blessing to Presley's rock and roll cover of the song, originally a slow ballad in waltz time, and in fact re-recorded it himself with a faster arrangement after Presley's version became a hit. Several gospel-themed numbers are credited to the "Blue Grass Quartet", which featured four-part vocal arrangements accompanied solely by mandolin and guitar – Monroe's usual practice when performing "sacred" songs. Both Flatt and Scruggs left Monroe's band in early 1948, soon forming their own group, the Foggy Mountain Boys. In 1949, after signing with Decca Records, Monroe entered what has been called the "golden age" of his career with what many consider the classic "high lonesome" version of the Blue Grass Boys, featuring the lead vocals and rhythm guitar of Jimmy Martin, the banjo of Rudy Lyle (replacing Don Reno), and fiddlers such as Merle "Red" Taylor, Charlie Cline, Bobby Hicks, William Hicks and Vassar Clements.
Bill Monroe | "Original Bluegrass Band" and Monroe's heyday as a star
Monroe also regularly performed with flat-picking guitar virtuoso Doc Watson.
Bill Monroe | Legacy and influence
The fad died out after World War I, but enough had learned the instrument that it remained. The mandolin found a new surge with the music of Bill Monroe; the Gibson F-5 mandolin he played, as well as other archtop instruments, became the American standard for mandolins. Bowlback mandolins were displaced. The instrument has been taken up in blues, bluegrass, jug-band music, country, rock, punk, Celtic and other genres of music. While not as popular as the guitar, it is widespread across the country.
Mandolin playing traditions worldwide | United States
After the war, Monroe had a few performances with Bill. One of them include "Just a Little Talk with Jesus" at a 1948 performance in the Grand Ole Opry. Monroe played bass on tour with Bill after Howard Watts left the band. In late April 1963 he joined Bill Monroe for a performance with The Bluegrass Boys in Bean Blossom. Monroe was also manager, in the early 1960s, of Bill Monroe's country music park, the Brown County Jamboree, in Bean Blossom, Indiana. On July 3, 1969, at the Smithsonian Festival of American Culture, Monroe performed with Bill and Charlie. Birch can also be found on radio transcriptions that Charlie Monroe made in 1944 for the Noon-Day Jamboree released on County Records in 1974.
Birch Monroe | Later performances
A number of noted bluegrass musicians played with Charlie's band, including Lester Flatt, Red Rector, Curly Seckler, Fiddlin' Dale Cole and Ira Louvin. The Kentucky Pardners enjoyed considerable success as a touring outfit in the American South throughout the 1940s. Charlie signed with RCA Victor in 1946 and with Decca Records in 1950; he wrote and recorded a large body of material and continued to tour relentlessly until he announced his retirement in 1957. He moved back to his farm and, after the death of his first wife, worked in manual labor in Indiana again. He remarried in 1969. On July 3 of the same year, at the Smithsonian Festival of American Culture, he performed with Birch and Bill.
Charlie Monroe | Solo career
Tiny Moore of the Texas Playboys developed an electric five-string mandolin and helped popularize the instrument in Western Swing music. Other major bluegrass mandolinists who emerged in the early 1950s and are still active include Jesse McReynolds (of Jim and Jesse) who invented a syncopated banjo-roll-like style called crosspicking—and Bobby Osborne of the Osborne Brothers, who is a master of clarity and sparkling single-note runs. Highly respected and influential modern bluegrass players include Herschel Sizemore, Doyle Lawson, and the multi-genre Sam Bush, who is equally at home with old-time fiddle tunes, rock, reggae, and jazz. Ronnie McCoury of the Del McCoury Band has won numerous awards for his Monroe-influenced playing.
Mandolins in North America | Bluegrass and the jug band
By this time, Monroe had acquired the 1923 Gibson F5 model "Lloyd Loar" mandolin, which became his trademark instrument for the remainder of his career. The 28 songs recorded by this version of the Blue Grass Boys for Columbia Records in 1946 and 1947 soon became classics of the genre, including "Toy Heart", "Blue Grass Breakdown", "Molly and Tenbrooks", "Wicked Path of Sin", "My Rose of Old Kentucky", "Little Cabin Home on the Hill", and Monroe's most famous song "Blue Moon of Kentucky". The last-named was recorded by Elvis Presley in 1954, appearing as the B-side of his first single for Sun Records.
Bill Monroe | "Original Bluegrass Band" and Monroe's heyday as a star
He was featured on that session singing "Six White Horses", a blues-based original. He also has the rare distinction of having played mandolin on a Blue Grass Boys session, as he provided the rhythm chops on "Mule Skinner Blues" and "Dog House Blues", while Monroe played guitar - the only instance where a Blue Grass Boy other than Monroe played mandolin at a Bill Monroe recording session. Upon his departure from the Blue Grass Boys in 1944, he remained at WSM and the Opry for several years as a solo artist. In 1952, he recorded as a member of the Brown's Ferry Four with The Delmore Brothers on King Records.
Clyde Moody | Early life and career
By and by his brothers and sisters moved away, leaving Monroe to bounce between uncles and aunts until finally settling in with his disabled uncle Pendleton Vandiver, whom he often accompanied when Vandiver played the fiddle at dances. This experience inspired one of Monroe's most famous compositions, "Uncle Pen," recorded in 1950, and the 1972 album "Bill Monroe's Uncle Pen." On that album, Monroe recorded a number of traditional fiddle tunes he had often heard performed by Vandiver. Vandiver has been credited with giving Monroe "a repertoire of tunes that sank into Bill's aurally trained memory and a sense of rhythm that seeped into his bones." Also significant in Monroe's musical life was Arnold Shultz, an influential fiddler and guitarist who introduced Monroe to the blues.
Bill Monroe | Early life
In mid-February 1973, just prior to the break up of the White-era version of the Byrds, White joined with guitarist Peter Rowan, mandolinist David Grisman, fiddler Richard Greene, and banjoist Bill Keith to form the bluegrass supergroup Muleskinner. The musicians initially assembled as a one-off pickup band to back bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe for a television program, but ended up performing on their own when Monroe's tour bus broke down on the way to the television studios. A recording of this broadcast, which was once thought lost, was released as an album in 1992, under the title "". A VHS video cassette of the broadcast was also released in 1992 and later re-issued on DVD.
Clarence White | Post-Byrds
They scored an immediate hit single with the gospel song "What Would You Give in Exchange For Your Soul?" and ultimately recorded 60 tracks for Victor's Bluebird label between 1936 and 1938. After the Monroe Brothers disbanded in 1938, Bill Monroe formed The Kentuckians in Little Rock, Arkansas, but the group only lasted for three months. Monroe then left Little Rock for Atlanta, Georgia, to form the first edition of the Blue Grass Boys with singer/guitarist Cleo Davis, fiddler Art Wooten, and bassist Amos Garren. Bill had wanted William Hardin to become one of the original members of his Blue Grass Boys, however he had to decline.
Bill Monroe | Professional career
An album titled "Legend of Bill Monroe and More Bluegrass" was engineered By Bernard Rousseau of the Harriman Sound Lab and made available through Scott Morgan's Morgan Stringed Instruments on CD. Williams enjoyed a long-time collaboration with Scott's father Tom Morgan, himself an IBMA Hall of Fame inductee. On this album, Benny plays fiddle on "Never Again" and "The Legend of Bill Monroe" and banjo on "Soldier's Joy". On other tracks he plays cross pick mandolin and Travis -tyle guitar.
Benny Williams | Legend of Bill Monroe and More Bluegrass
Monroe's compositions during his later period were largely instrumentals, including "Jerusalem Ridge", "Old Dangerfield" (originally spelled Daingerfield after the town in East Texas), and "My Last Days on Earth"; he settled into a new role as a musical patriarch who continued to influence younger generations of musicians. Monroe recorded two albums of duets in the 1980s; the first featured collaborations with country stars such as Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, and The Oak Ridge Boys, while the second paired him with other prominent bluegrass musicians. A 1989 live album celebrated his 50th year on the Grand Ole Opry. Monroe also kept a hectic touring schedule.
Bill Monroe | Later years
The discography for the American bluegrass musician Bill Monroe includes a selection of compilation albums. No duplicates are listed.
Bill Monroe discography | Introduction
When told he would have to return the next day, Clements was crestfallen, lacking the money for either a hotel room or return bus trip. Monroe gave him some money to a night's lodging, and the next day Clements auditioned and was hired. He remained with Monroe for seven years, recording with the band in 1950 and 1951. He soon became one of the most distinctive, inventive, and popular fiddlers in bluegrass music. His virtuosity and ability to blend several different genres, including swing and hot jazz, made him a pioneer in country music and much sought-after session musician. Between 1957 and 1962, he was a member of the bluegrass band Jim and Jesse & the Virginia Boys.
Vassar Clements | Biography
When Cowan Powers and his family recorded their old-time music from 1924 to 1926, his daughter Orpha Powers was one of the earliest known southern-music artists to record with the mandolin. By the 1930s, single mandolins were becoming more commonly used in southern string band music, most notably by brother duets such as the sedate Blue Sky Boys (Bill Bolick and Earl Bolick), the Armstrong Twins (Lloyd and Floyd Armstrong) and the more hard-driving Monroe Brothers (Bill Monroe and Charlie Monroe). However, the mandolin's modern popularity in country music can be directly traced to one man: Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music.
Mandolins in North America | Bluegrass and the jug band
In the late 1950s, Kuykendall wrote several articles and discographies for "Disc Collector" magazine which were "the first serious writing about the discographical aspects of the careers of [Bill] Monroe, Reno and Smiley, Flatt and Scruggs and the Stanley Brothers." Folklorist and music scholar Neil V. Rosenberg has called him "the first discographer of bluegrass music."
Pete Kuykendall | Discographer
At age 15, Scruggs played in a group called The Morris Brothers for a few months, but quit to work in a factory making sewing thread in the Lily Textile Mill near his home in North Carolina. He worked there about two years, earning 40 cents an hour, until the draft restriction for World War II was lifted in 1945, at which time he returned to music, performing with "Lost John Miller and his Allied Kentuckians" on WNOX in Knoxville. About this time an opening to play with Bill Monroe became available. Bill Monroe, 13 years older than Scruggs, was prominent in country music at the time.
Earl Scruggs | With Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys
In the late 1930s, Bill Monroe formed the Blue Grass Boys (named after his native state of Kentucky, the "blue grass state") and combined diverse influences into Appalachian folk music. These include Scottish, Poland and Southeastern Europe and folk, as well as doo wop, country and gospel. Monroe became the father of bluegrass music, and his band was a training ground for most of bluegrass' future stars, especially Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Flatt and Scruggs popularized bluegrass as part of the Foggy Mountain Boys, which they formed in 1948. Though bluegrass has never quite achieved mainstream status, it did become well known through its use in several recorded plays, including the T.V.
Music history of the United States in the 1950s | Bluegrass
Keith was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He attended Amherst College and graduated in 1961. In 1963 he became a member of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. Keith's recordings and performances during these nine months with Monroe permanently altered banjo playing, and his style became an important part of the playing styles of many banjoists. After leaving the Bluegrass Boys, he joined "Jim Kweskin Jug Band" playing plectrum banjo. He began playing the steel guitar and soon after 1968, worked together with Ian and Sylvia and Jonathan Edwards. In the 1970s, Keith recorded for Rounder Records. Over the years he performed with several other musicians, such as Clarence White and David Grisman in Muleskinner, Tony Trischka, Jim Rooney and Jim Collier.
Bill Keith (musician) | Professional career
James Pendleton Vandiver (1869–1932) was a Kentucky fiddler, born there shortly after the American Civil War. He was uncle to bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, who immortalized him in a song, "Uncle Pen". Monroe used to hear his uncle playing fiddle on the hilltop where he lived, while Monroe put away his mules at night. He later said that Vandiver was "the fellow that I learned how to play from." Vandiver played fiddle at local square dances and social events, and his nephew backed him up, playing mandolin. Monroe's parents had both died by the time he was 16, and he lived part of the time with his Uncle Pen, in his two-room hilltop house in Rosine, Kentucky.
Pendleton Vandiver | Introduction
At the beginning of the twentieth century, mandolin orchestras were popular throughout North America. Large numbers of mandolins were sold, particularly by the Gibson Guitar Company, which manufactured and promoted a new type of flat-backed mandolin. After a time, the mandolin orchestra craze died out, but the mandolins remained. In the southern United States, they began to be used in the performance of traditional mountain folk music. At the end of the 1930s, a new musical genre which combined Scottish and Irish fiddle tunes, blues and African American banjo with traditional American songs began to develop. Bill Monroe, a Kentucky fiddler and mandolin player, was the first to bring all of the elements of this new genre together.
Bluegrass mandolin | History
Key developments occurred in Monroe's music with the addition of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs to the Blue Grass Boys in December 1945. Flatt played a solid rhythm guitar style that would help to set the course for bluegrass timing. Scruggs played the banjo with a distinctive three-finger picking style that immediately caused a sensation among Opry audiences. Flatt and Scruggs joined a highly accomplished group that included fiddler Howdy Forrester and bassist Joe Forrester and would soon include fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Howard Watts, who often performed under the name "Cedric Rainwater". In retrospect, this lineup of the Blue Grass Boys has been dubbed the "Original Bluegrass Band", as the music finally included all the elements that characterize bluegrass music, including breakneck tempos, sophisticated vocal harmony arrangements, and impressive instrumental proficiency demonstrated in solos or "breaks" on the mandolin, banjo, and fiddle.
Bill Monroe | "Original Bluegrass Band" and Monroe's heyday as a star
In high school in the '60s, Gaudreau performed as a professional musician, playing electric guitar in his band Jimmy G & the Jaguars. The band played dances and Saturday nights at his uncle's Rhode Island beachfront restaurant. During the folk boom, Gaudreau became interested in bluegrass music. When he started playing the mandolin, he used guitar fingering techniques, giving him his unique sound.
Jimmy Gaudreau | Early life
In 1995, Robins produced a masterpiece banjo-oriented bluegrass recording: "Grounded-Centered-Focused" featuring a talented supporting cast, including Bill Monroe himself.
Butch Robins | Grounded-Centered-Focused
Bluegrass music originated in the person of Bill Monroe. According to Haigh, "Monroe always considered the fiddle to be the key instrument of bluegrass".
American fiddle | Bluegrass fiddle
His career started with the "Monroe Brothers", a duo with his brother Charlie. Bill sang the high tenor harmony parts, a sound called "high lonesome", for which he became noted. The brothers split up in 1938 and Bill, a native of "the Bluegrass State" of Kentucky, formed a new group called Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. They first played on the Opry in 1939 and soon became a popular touring band featuring a vocalist named Lester Flatt. The name bluegrass stuck and eventually became the eponym for this entire genre of country music and Monroe became known as "the father of bluegrass." When Scruggs was 21, Monroe was looking for a banjo player for his group, because David "Stringbean" Akeman was quitting.
Earl Scruggs | With Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys
That year's fellowships were the first bestowed by the NEA. In 1993, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1995. His well-known song "Blue Moon of Kentucky" has been covered not only by bluegrass but also rock and country artists, most notably Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, and Patsy Cline. In 2003, CMT had Bill Monroe ranked No. 16 on "CMT 40 Greatest Men of Country Music". Artists that claimed to be influenced by or to be playing the bluegrass genre were often bullied by Bill Monroe. He always considered himself the father and caretaker of bluegrass.
Bill Monroe | Legacy and influence
From 1977 until 1981, Robins played banjo for Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, performing throughout the United States, including the White House and Lincoln Center in New York City.
Butch Robins | Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys
In the early 1960s, the American folk music revival was in full swing, and the San Francisco Bay Area had its own folk scene. In 1961, after getting out of the Army, Jerry Garcia started playing folk music and other old-time songs. Garcia would sing and play acoustic guitar as a member of various ensembles and bands. Over the next few years, Garcia also become interested in bluegrass music, and learned to play the banjo. As his music skills evolved, he continued to play in different bands with similarly inclined musicians. A number of these performances were captured on reel-to-reel tape.
Before the Dead | Recording
Lincoln would ask his friend Ward Lamon to sing and play it on his banjo and likely played along on his harmonica. It is said that he asked for it to be played as the lead-in to his address at Gettysburg. Following World War II, the "Blue Tail Fly" was repopularized by the Andrews Sisters' 1947 recording with the folk singer Burl Ives. It then became part of the general Folk Revival through the '50s and early '60s before losing favor to more politically-charged fare, as parodied by Tom Lehrer's "Folk Song Army". A 1963 "Time" article averred that "instead of ...
Jimmy Crack Corn | History
As he wavered between guitar and banjo, he was a star on both. In March 1944, Reno joined the Army and served as company barber in Burma and China. After the war, he operated a grocery store in South Carolina and played jazz and country music at night. In 1948, he heard that Bill Monroe needed a banjo player after earl Scruggs had left, so he drove to Taylorsville, North Carolina, where he got onstage without invitation and played banjo with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. He stayed with them until 1949, when Reno left the Blue Grass Boys because of an occurrence of malaria and formed the first edition of the Tennessee Cut-Ups in South Carolina with his nephew, Verlon Reno.
Reno and Smiley | Background
Accompanied by Keith, Rowan went to Nashville and was hired in 1963 or 1964 as songwriter, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. His recording debut as a "bluegrass boy" took place on October 14, 1966 and he recorded a total of fourteen songs with Monroe, including the classic "Walls of Time" co-written with Monroe, before his tenure ended in the spring of 1967. Rowan teamed up with David Grisman in 1967 forming the band Earth Opera which frequently opened for The Doors. In 1969, Rowan joined Seatrain, along with Richard Greene. In 1973, Rowan, together with Greene, Grisman, Bill Keith, and Clarence White, formed the bluegrass band Muleskinner.
Peter Rowan | Biography
Major traditional performers included the Copper Family, The Watersons, the Ian Campbell Folk Group, and Shirley Collins. The fusing of various styles of American music with English folk also helped to create a distinctive form of guitar fingerstyle known as ‘folk baroque’, which was pioneered by Davy Graham, Martin Carthy, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. Several individuals emerged who had learnt the old songs in the oral tradition from their communities and therefore preserved the authentic versions. These individuals, such as Sam Larner, Harry Cox, Walter Pardon, and Frank Hinchliffe, released albums of their own and were revered by folk revivalists.
English folk music | Folk revivals 1890–1969
Bob Wills was another country musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a "hot string band," and who also appeared in Hollywood westerns. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, would become known as Western swing. Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had been played at Carnegie Hall, when Johnny Barfield recorded "Boogie Woogie". The third generation (1950s–1960s) started at the end of World War II with "mountaineer" string band music known as bluegrass, which emerged when Bill Monroe, along with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were introduced by Roy Acuff at the Grand Ole Opry.
Country music | Generations
John Duffey of the original Country Gentlemen and later the Seldom Scene did much to popularize the bluegrass mandolin among folk and urban audiences, especially on the east coast and in the Washington, D.C. area. Jethro Burns, best known as half of the comedy duo Homer and Jethro, was also the first important jazz mandolinist. Tiny Moore popularized the mandolin in Western swing music. He initially played an 8-string Gibson but switched after 1952 to a 5-string solidbody electric instrument built by Paul Bigsby. Modern players David Grisman, Sam Bush, and Mike Marshall, among others, have worked since the early 1970s to demonstrate the mandolin's versatility for all styles of music.
Mandolins in North America | Bluegrass and the jug band
Monroe dubbed Hicks ""the truest fiddler he had ever heard"". He recorded seven tunes with Monroe but had to quit in 1956 to join the army. In 1958, after his discharge, he rejoined the Bluegrass Boys, recording ten more songs. He left in 1959 to join Porter Wagoner. Later in 1963, he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and became a fixture on the Judy Lynn Show for the next seven years. In 1981, he joined Ricky Skaggs, a stint that would last for 23 years. In the mid and late 1980s, he frequently performed with Bill Monroe on stage and on records.
Bobby Hicks | Career
He also gained recognition joining with the popular bluegrass duo of Flatt and Scruggs on the popular theme to the hit television sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies". Earl Scruggs' path-breaking banjo style had premiered with Bill Monroe in the late 1940s, and thereafter gained widespread renown with Lester Flatt and the Foggy Mountain Boys. Stardom was within his grasp.
Vassar Clements | Biography
Vandiver had been crippled earlier, and he made some money with his music. Bill Monroe's biographer, Richard D. Smith writes, "Pen gave Bill more: a repertoire of tunes that sank into Bill's aurally trained memory and a sense of rhythm that seeped into his bones. Sometimes Bill played guitar behind his uncle, sometimes the mandolin." On September 13, 1973, a monument in honor of Uncle Pen was unveiled by Monroe at the Rosine Cemetery. Another way he honored Penn's memory was to play the part of "Uncle Penn" in Ricky Skaggs' Country Boy music video.
Pendleton Vandiver | Introduction
The music's creation is often credited to Bill Monroe and his band, the Blue Grass Boys. One of the defining characteristics of bluegrass—the fast-paced three-finger banjo picking style—was developed by Monroe's banjo player, North Carolina native Earl Scruggs. Later, as a member of Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, Scruggs wrote Foggy Mountain Breakdown, one of the most well-known bluegrass instrumentals. Bluegrass quickly grew in popularity among numerous musicians in Appalachia, including the Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, and Jimmy Martin, and although it was influenced by various music forms from inside and outside the region (Monroe himself was from Western Kentucky), it is often associated with Appalachia and performed alongside old-time and traditional music at Appalachian folk festivals.
Appalachian music | Influence
This lineup can be considered as a bluegrass supergroup, a term not often used with bluegrass. The original start of the group was connected with Bill Monroe, as Richard Greene (who played for his Bluegrass Boys before), was asked to put a band together to join him in a television program. However, Monroe's bus had some technical problems and Muleskinner had to play the whole evening on their own and it was a success.
Muleskinner (band) | Planned show with Bill Monroe
Larry Richardson (August 9, 1927- June 17, 2007) was an American bluegrass and old time banjoist and guitarist from Galax, Virginia. He is known for his work with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys, and the Blue Ridge Boys. Larry Richardson began his bluegrass career with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers alongside mandolin player Bobby Osborne of Osborne Brothers fame. These two musicians are credited for transforming the band from western swing to bluegrass music in 1949. Larry and Bobby left the band after only a year and were replaced by Jimmy and Paul Williams. After Larry's brief time with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, he joined Bill Monroe as a banjo player from 1950-1951.
Larry Richardson | Introduction
Cline's Banjo player, Larry Richardson, had been offered a job with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in the early 1950s, and was instrumental in bringing Charlie Cline into the group. Cline recorded 32 songs with the Bluegrass Boys between 1952 and 1955, playing every instrument but the mandolin. Monroe brought Charlie Cline to the Stanley Brothers recording session, where they recorded their duet version of Blue Moon of Kentucky. Charlie Cline played the guitar on the recording in the style that Clyde Moody once played. It was the first time that lead guitar was used on the Stanley Brothers recordings - which would soon become an essential part of their sound.
Charlie Cline | Cline's Time with Monroe & Later Career
Monroe A. Althouse (May 26, 1853 – October 12, 1924) was a composer and bandmaster best known for his parade marches. He was born in Centre Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania and spent his youth working on the family farm. He learned to play the violin, trombone, and baritone as he toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show during his teens. After performing with several local bands, orchestras, and theater ensembles near Reading, Pennsylvania, he organized the pit orchestra for the Rajah Theater and was selected to lead the Ringgold Band. He became friends with John Philip Sousa and the two composers stayed in contact as each toured the country.
Monroe Althouse | Introduction
He MC'd at many a bluegrass performance or festival, including Bill Monroe's Bean Blossom Festival in Indiana, and festivals of Ralph Stanley and Carlton Haney. He served as editor for Muleskinner News and wrote many articles on early bluegrass performers for that and other publications, including Bluegrass Unlimited. In 2004, he was honored by being inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Museum's Hall of Fame. He died on November 20, 1996 in Rocky Mount.
Bill Vernon | Introduction
In 1976 he performed at the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival.
Birch Monroe | Later performances
Bill Monroe's 1941 and 1952 recordings, both under the title "In the Pines", were highly influential on later bluegrass and country versions. Recorded with his Bluegrass Boys and featuring fiddles and yodelling, they represent the "longest train" variant of the song, and omit any reference to a decapitation. However, as Eric Weisbard writes in a 1994 article in "The New York Times", "...the enigmatic train is almost as frightening, suggesting an eternal passage: 'I asked my captain for the time of day/He said he throwed his watch away.'"
In the Pines | Bill Monroe
Jim Shumate (October 21, 1921 – October 10, 2013) was a fiddler that played with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys from 1943–1945. Shumate's main influences were Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, Curly Fox, and his uncle who played the fiddle while he was growing up. Shumate joined the band after Bill Monroe heard him playing on the radio station WHKY from downtown Hickory, North Carolina, and asked him to join the Blue Grass Boys. Howdy Forrester, who was Bill Monroe's fiddle player at the time, gave his notice and was going into the Navy. At age 20, Shumate became the fiddler for the Blue Grass Boys, and he sang bass on gospel songs.
Jim Shumate | Introduction
In the 1940s Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys revolutionized American string band music by incorporating virtuosic instrumental solos and a “high lonesome" vocal style. Bluegrass fiddling was first exposed to national view during the folk revival of the 1960s with the first televised documentary "Bluegrass Roots: On The Road With Bluegrass Musicians" shot in the Mountain of North Carolina by Bascom Lunsford while auditioning musicians for the Asheville Mountain Music Festival. It was the festival to feature this type of music. In recent years events have brought renewed interest in bluegrass fiddling: major mainstream performers have recorded bluegrass albums, and the Coen Brothers' released the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" in (2000), with an old-time and bluegrass soundtrack, and the "Down from the Mountain" music tour.
Bluegrass fiddle | The beginnings of bluegrass music
Many progressive folk performers continued to retain a traditional element in their music, including Jansch who became a member of the band Pentangle in 1967. Others largely abandoned the traditional element of their music. Particularly important were Donovan (who was most influenced by emerging progressive folk musicians in America such as Bob Dylan) and the Incredible String Band, who from 1967 incorporated a range of influences including medieval and Eastern music into their compositions, leading to the development of psychedelic folk, which had a considerable impact on progressive and psychedelic rock. Acoustic groups who continued to interpret traditional material through into the 1970s included Ossian and Silly Wizard.
Scottish folk music | Second revival
By the end of World War II, "mountaineer" string band music known as bluegrass had emerged when Bill Monroe joined with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, introduced by Roy Acuff at the Grand Ole Opry. That was the ordination of bluegrass music and how Bill Monroe came to be known as the "Father of Bluegrass." Gospel music, too, remained a popular component of bluegrass and other sorts of country music. Red Foley, the biggest country star following World War II, had one of the first million-selling gospel hits ("Peace in the Valley") and also sang boogie, blues and rockabilly. In the post-war period, country music was called "folk" in the trades, and "hillbilly" within the industry.
Country music | Bluegrass, folk and gospel
David Davis is an American mandolinist and singer in the bluegrass tradition. He has been cited as a foremost practitioner of Bill Monroe's mandolin technique.
David Davis (bluegrass) | Introduction
One of his longest lasting legacies was his bringing a group of Spanish performers, known as the Spanish Students, to the United States. These performers inspired imitators and gave rise to the widespread playing of the mandolin in the United States, where it was previously unknown.
Henry Eugene Abbey | Legacy
Charlie Monroe (July 4, 1903 – September 27, 1975) was an American country and bluegrass music guitarist.
Charlie Monroe | Introduction
This group of men became the prototype of what a bluegrass band would become.
Earl Scruggs | With Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys
Rowan was born in Wayland, Massachusetts to a musical family. From an early age, he had an interest in music and learned to play the guitar from his uncle. He formed the rockabilly band the Cupids 1956. Influenced by the blues musician Eric Von Schmidt, Rowan traded his electric guitar for an acoustic and began to play the blues. He was also influenced by the folk sound of Joan Baez. In college, he discovered bluegrass after hearing The Country Gentlemen and The Stanley Brothers. He soon discovered the music of Bill Monroe, and with some help from banjo player Bill Keith, he was invited to Nashville to audition for Monroe.
Peter Rowan | Biography
Charlie Monroe was born on his family's farm in Rosine, Kentucky; he was the older brother of the mandolin player Bill Monroe. His sister Bertha also played guitar, and brother Birch, fiddle. Charlie, Birch, and Bill played together as a band in the middle of the 1920s, and played on radio starting in 1927. Soon after this, however, their parents died and Charlie and Birch moved to Detroit and then Indiana to find work, eventually taking jobs in oil refineries near Hammond, Indiana. Bill followed them into the oil business in 1929, and the three continued performing in small-time and private venues.
Charlie Monroe | Biography
In 1964 Allen, Wakefield and their band made a much-admired album for Folkways, entitled simply "Bluegrass", produced by young David Grisman, an admirer of Allen and mandolin student of Wakefield's. The recording showed a larger public that Allen was a true disciple of the "high lonesome sound" associated with Bill Monroe. At his best, Allen drenched his material in emotion, each song propelled by his surging rhythm-guitar playing. As he later said, "Bluegrass is sad music. It's always been sad and the people that's never lived it, it'll take them a long time to know what it is."
Red Allen (bluegrass) | Biography
The festival featured many of the biggest acts of the day in bluegrass music including Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Red Allen, Frank Wakefield & The Kentuckians, Mac Wiseman and the Country Gentlemen. In 1963, Clifton's family moved to England and he toured all over Europe playing in local folk clubs. In 1967, he joined the Peace Corps, serving three years in the Philippines. Meanwhile, he recorded with a local New Zealand band, The Hamilton County Bluegrass Band. In later years, he recorded both in Europe and in the United States. In the 1970s, he signed with County Records and formed the First Generation band, consisting of Clifton on guitar, Red Rector on mandolin and Don Stover on banjo.
Bill Clifton | Later music career
Jim Nunally plays bluegrass-style, flat pick guitar with John Reischman and the Jaybirds, and with The David Grisman Bluegrass Experience. Jim has received two Grammy award certifications and two IBMA awards for his performance on the 1996 Bluegrass Album of the Year "True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe".
Jim Nunally | Introduction
The mandolin found a new surge with the music of Bill Monroe; the Gibson F-5 mandolin he played, as well as other archtop instruments, became the American standard for mandolins. Bowlback mandolins were displaced. The instrument has been taken up in blues, bluegrass, jug-band music, country, rock, punk and other genres of music. While not as popular as the guitar, it is widespread across the country. The music scene in Canada as the United States is similar, with both countries having a common origin and having English-based music in the same genres, such as rock, country, bluegrass. The mandolin has found a home in both countries.
Mandolins in North America | Introduction
The Bill Monroe Museum is a project of Ohio County and the Ohio County Tourism Commission. It is the only Museum dedicated entirely to the life and legacy of Bill Monroe and the early foundations of bluegrass music. The museum is currently under construction in Rosine, Kentucky. The ground was broken on May 22, 2017 just across the street in Rosine from the Rosine Barn Jamboree in a field where Bill Monroe himself used to play baseball before performing for crowds. This was the result of two years' collaboration with local and state dignitaries to secure funding for the building.
Bill Monroe Museum | Introduction
1)" previously appeared as a hidden track at the end of "Under the Covers". Despite the mixed bag of sources, "In Others’ Words" sounds remarkably cohesive as a collection of Americana. Yoakam composed the album opener “Borrowed Love” with Randy Scruggs and his father, banjo legend Earl Scruggs, who appear on the track. Western swing legend Bob Wills is also faithfully represented with “New San Antonio Rose, and Bill Monroe’s “Rocky Road Blues” was a number Yoakam and The Babylonian Cowboys rocked up as part their live set in the early days, as can be heard on the 2006 Rhino deluxe edition of "Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.", but this version remains faithful to Monroe’s musical template.
In Others' Words | Recording
Berline was born in Caldwell, Kansas in the United States. He started playing the fiddle at age five and quickly developed his talent. In 1965 he recorded the album "Pickin' and Fiddlin'" with the Dillards. The same year he met Bill Monroe at the Newport Folk Festival and was offered a job with Monroe's Bluegrass Boys, but he turned it down in order to finish his education. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1967 with a teaching degree in Physical Education and joined the Bluegrass Boys in March replacing Richard Greene. He recorded three instrumentals with the Blue Grass Boys including "Gold Rush." That tune, which Berline co-wrote with Monroe, has become a jam session standard.
Byron Berline | Biography
In 2005, Ragan conceptualized the idea of The Revival Tour, a collaborative acoustic event featuring several punk rock, bluegrass, and alt-country performers. Ragan has stated that the tour is about "sharing music together" and "bringing it to people in an extremely honest and grassroots fashion." On each tour the artists were accompanied by a fiddle player, Jon Gaunt, and an upright bass player. In 2008 and 2009, German Americana singer, Digger Barnes played the upright bass. In 2011, 2012, and 2013, the upright bass was played by Joe Ginsberg.
Chuck Ragan | The Revival Tour
Clements was born in Kinard, Florida, but grew up in Kissimmee. He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7, learning "There's an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor" as his first song. Soon, he joined with two first cousins, Red and Gerald, to form a local string band. In his early teens Clements met Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys when they came to Florida to visit Clements' stepfather, a friend of fiddler Chubby Wise. Clements was impressed with his playing. In late 1949 Wise left Monroe's group, and the 21 year-old Clements traveled by bus to ask for an audition.
Vassar Clements | Biography
Monroe was asked by Jimmy Martin to play at the Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival in 1972. His performance was a great success.
Charlie Monroe | Solo career
Befriended and mentored by Bill Monroe, the acknowledged Father of Bluegrass Music, Mike Compton is one of today's foremost interpreters of Monroe's genre-creating mandolin style. Mandolin students from around the world make the pilgrimage to his annual Monroe Mandolin Camp in Nashville, Tennessee, where Compton and a select handful of other experts teach everything from the basics of bluegrass mandolin (fiddle and banjo) to the most intimate details of Monroe's endlessly inspiring mandolin style. Mike Compton's decades of touring and recording — with musical luminaries ranging from rockstars Sting, Gregg Allman, and Elvis Costello, to straight-from-the-still acoustic legends such as John Hartford, Doc Watson, Peter Rowan, Ralph Stanley, and David Grisman — have established Compton as a true master of the modern American mandolin and a premier interpreter of roots and Americana musical styles.
Mike Compton (musician) | Biography
Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band Peter Rowan's career in bluegrass started in 1964 as part of Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. Bluegrass legend Bill Monroe thought that Peter sounded like himself. “When the two harmonized together, they were said to reach ‘heavenly heights.’" Rowan co-wrote with Monroe to produced ‘Walls Of Time,’ which has since become a bluegrass standard. Peter Rowan's Bluegrass Band consists of exceptional players; Keith Little on banjo, Paul Knight on bass, and Mike Witcher on the dobro. The band plays Rowan's original tunes along with Bill Monroe and Carter Family classics. Rowan's Bluegrass Band is beloved amongst the bluegrass community.
Peter Rowan | Various Acts
Hicks was born in Newton, North Carolina and learned to play the fiddle before he was 9 years old. He attended several fiddlers conventions and at the age of eleven, he won the "North Carolina State Championship" playing the tune "Black Mountain Rag". He joined Jim Eanes band in the early fifties. In 1953, he was, through the bluegrass festivals arranger Carlton Haney, hired as a bass player in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. He did not record with the Bluegrass Boys until December 31, 1954, by then he had switched to fiddle. During this period, he learned to play "Nashville swing" by the session fiddler Dale Potter, a style Hicks often used when playing with Bill Monroe on the road.
Bobby Hicks | Career
In spring 1943, Howdy left for the Navy, and "Sally Ann", as Billie was now called by Monroe, continued singing and playing the accordion, as well as keeping the books, for the Blue Grass Boys. She was a band member, along with Lester Flatt, when banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs joined in late 1945. Within a week of Scruggs joining the band, Howdy returned to reclaim his spot as fiddler. The Forresters stayed with Monroe through the end of March, 1946, when they moved back to Howdy's home in Texas.
Sally Ann Forrester | Musical career
The siblings was involved with music and most of them played instruments and learned shape note singing through visiting teachers in the Baptist and Methodist churches of Rosine. Birch's main instrument was the fiddle.
Birch Monroe | Early days
Taylor then took a break from music and joined the military, but eventually moved back to Nashville and got to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Merle was also one of Bill Monroe's fiddlers and helped contribute to the start of bluegrass music. Monroe took interest in Merle "Red" Taylor when he composed an ear-catching melody. Monroe liked the way it sounded, and by his next recording session on October 15, 1950, he set words to Taylor's tune. He made it his own and as a tribute to "Uncle Pen." It became one of his most requested songs, and Taylor remained uncredited.
Merle Taylor | Career
Baker was born in Burdine, Kentucky and learned the fiddle by accompanying his father, also a fiddler. Early on, he was influenced by the swing fiddler Marion Sumner, as well as Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. After working for Bethlehem Steel in the coal mines of Kentucky, he served in the United States Navy before pursuing a musical career full-time. He soon joined Don Gibson's band as a replacement for Marion Sumner. Baker, who played western swing, had little interest in bluegrass music until he heard ""Wheel Hoss"" and ""Roanoke"". During a package show with Don Gibson, Baker met Monroe and was offered a job.
Kenny Baker (fiddler) | Biography
During this time, Clifton met and played music with artists such as A.P. Carter, The Stanley Brothers, and Woodie Guthrie, to name just a few. He had many connections throughout old-time, bluegrass, country, and folk music - which reflected his unique repertoire and sound. His singing style was deemed to have more of a folk revivalist influence rather than a "hillbilly" sound - which was the popular sound of the previous years. Because the instrumental style of his band had more of a "contemporary bluegrass" sound along with his "folk revivalist" vocals, he was deemed one of the first "city-billies" in bluegrass music.
Bill Clifton | Early music career
In 1953, Bill Monroe hired Haney as a booking agent for his band, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Haney booked for the band until 1965. Haney was responsible for recruiting fiddler-star Bobby Hicks to band in 1954, initially as a bass player. Haney also managed bluegrass duo Reno and Smiley between 1955 and 1964. While working with Reno and Smiley, he initiated the daily television show, “Top ‘o the Morning,” on WDBJ, Roanoke and wrote and co-wrote Reno & Smiley staples songs "He Will Forgive You," "Kneel Down", "I Never Get To Hold You In My Arms Anymore" and "Jimmy Caught the Dickens (Pushing Ernest in the Tub)." Beginning in the 1960s, Haney began to lump some of the bluegrass and country acts together on the same stage.
Carlton Haney | Professional career
On April 7, 1990, Monroe performed for Farm Aid IV in Indianapolis, Indiana along with Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and with many other artists.
Bill Monroe | Later years
Charlie returned to the Fiddlers briefly before becoming a member of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. During 1952-1955, Charlie worked off and on with Monroe, recording some 38 songs, all on Decca. It has been said that he played every instrument at one time or another in the Monroe group except mandolin. Charlie spent most of 1953 back with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers working at WJR radio in Detroit. When Ezra brought the band to Pikeville, Kentucky, in November, Charlie rejoined Bill Monroe. In 1954, Charlie did a session, playing lead guitar, with the Stanley Brothers and also another one on RCA with the Fiddlers, although he was not otherwise working with them at the time.
Lonesome Pine Fiddlers | Career
Each then formed his own band, with Bill starting The Kentuckians (later the Blue Grass Boys) and Charlie, The Kentucky Pardners. Charlie brought members of the Monroe Brothers act with him to Knoxville and then to Roanoke playing on radio stations. By this time he had hired Bill Calhoun and Zeke Morris, and he was attempting a re-creation of the Monroe Brothers duet sound. He spent most of his time during the early 1940s in Greensboro, North Carolina at radio station WBIG, where he was featured on a show called the Noonday Jamboree every day. He also spent some time in '44 and '45 at WSJS in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Charlie Monroe | Solo career
He was National Fiddling Champion from 1934 to 1949. Mac made his last recordings in 1945, although he continued to perform until 1955 when he retired. His most notable composition was "Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia", later recorded by Jimmie Rodgers in 1932. By the time the folk revival was under way in the late 1950s, his irritation with being asked to play old-fashioned material was unconcealed. At the Newport Festival he spoke out on stage of his disdain for the Skillet Lickers. However, the recordings he made with that band are the only ones of his in print. In the early 1930s the band occasionally toured without Gid Tanner, and without Puckett, with McMichen in charge instead.
Skillet Lickers | Individual members
Homer Robert Eanes Jr. was born in Mountain Valley, Virginia and grew up in Martinsville. Eanes learned to play the guitar at an early age despite an injury to his left hand. He had his first musical training as a rhythm guitarist in his father's string band. In 1940, he joined "Roy Hall's Blue Ridge Entertainers" performing at a radio station in Roanoke, Virginia until 1943 when Roy Hall died. In the mid-1940s, Eanes joined "Uncle Joe and the Blue Mountain Boys". He also performed with Flatt & Scruggs, and in 1948, with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. In 1949, he made his solo recording debut on the Capitol label together with Homer Sherrill on fiddle and Snuffy Jenkins on banjo.
Jim Eanes | Biography
This was how many urban white American audiences of the 1950s and 60s first heard country blues and especially Delta blues that had been recorded by Mississippi folk artists 30 or 40 years before. In 1952, Folkways Records released the "Anthology of American Folk Music", compiled by anthropologist and experimental film maker Harry Smith. The "Anthology" featured 84 songs by traditional country and blues artists, initially recorded between 1927 and 1932, and was credited with making a large amount of pre-War material accessible to younger musicians. (The "Anthology" was re-released on CD in 1997, and Smith was belatedly presented with a Grammy Award for his achievement in 1991.) Artists like the Carter Family, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Clarence Ashley, Buell Kazee, Uncle Dave Macon, Mississippi John Hurt, and the Stanley Brothers, as well as Jimmie Rodgers, the Reverend Gary Davis, and Bill Monroe came to have something more than a regional or ethnic reputation.
American folk music revival | Archivists, collectors, and re-issued recordings
While at times the thumb may be used in a manner inconsistent with a banjo roll-based style, the "cascading" effect of the roll is still present in many examples of melodic style playing (especially with the bombastic descending runs, popular in the 1970s). The earliest recordings of the melodic style were made by Bobby Thompson in the late 1950s when he was in Jim and Jesse's band. The style came to prominence when Bill Keith joined Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in 1963. He impressed audiences with his ability to play fiddle tunes note-for-note on the banjo. Other early proponents were Marshall Brickman and Eric Weissberg.
Keith style | Introduction