Bill Monroe
Bill Monroe (September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) developed the style of country music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from Monroe's band, the "Blue Grass Boys," itself named for his home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader. He is often referred to as "the Father of Bluegrass Music."
Although many other singers and musicians contributed to the genre and its roots can be traced to earlier traditional forms, Monroe is rightly credited with having created a unique musical form within the country music field. With his driving mandolin style, his intensely high-ptiched tenor singing, and his conscious molding of his band's musical sound, Monroe was the unquestioned master of his art. His band became a training ground for many outstanding musicians, and his style influenced musicians as diverse as the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and rock star Jerry Garcia. His early records with the Blue Grass Boys are considered classics, and many of his songs have been covered later country and bluegrass recording artists.
Biography
Monroe was born in Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children. His father was a prosperous farmer while his mother, née Malissa Vandiver, was of more humble social origins. Malissa and her brother, Pendleton "Pen" Vandiver, were both musically inclined. Bill's mother passed on her knowledge of traditional ballads originating in the British Isles, while "Uncle Pen" taught him the old-time fiddle playing that became a characteristic of the bluegrass sound. Monroe learned guitar from a black musician named Arnold Shultz, who sometimes played with Bill and "Uncle Pen" at local dances.
Early Career
Monroe's professional career began in the 1930s when he and his older brothers, Birch and Charlie, began performing as a trio at a radio station in South Bend, Indiana, near Hammond, where they worked in an oil refinery. During this time Bill also performed as a square dancer on Chicago radios’s WLS National Barn Dance show. Birch soon left the music scene, but the younger two brothers continued to perform and record as the Monroe Brothers. They developed considerable popularity beginning in 1935 through their appearances on the powerful WBT radio station out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Bill's mandolin playing already manifest his blues-influenced, hard-driving virtuosity and set their act apparent from several other guitar-mandolin acts of the day.
RCA rercord producer Eli Oberstein recorded the Monroe Brothers for the first time in 1936, and the act had several hits. Bill and Charlie parted ways, however, in 1938. Bill recorded two more sessions for RCA with his new band, the Blue Grass Boys.
The Blue Grass Boys
Auditioning in Nashville for the WSM Grand Ole Opry, Monroe reportedly impressed the show's executives with his up-tempo rendition of “Mule Skinner Blues,” an earlier hit by the legendary Jimmie Rodgers. The song became Monroe's trademark and was later successfully covered by Dolly Parton. Monroe's star rose quickly on the strength of the Opry's popularity. He was reportedly grossing over $200,000 a year by 1943, making him a major star.
In the early 40s, Monroe added the banjo, played by "Stringbean" (Dave Akeman), dressed as a hillbilly clown with his pants belted far below his waiste. The band also included an accordion player, and occasionally harmonica. In 1945, the phenomenonal young banjo player, Earl Scruggs, joined the band. His revolutionary three-finger picking style — coupled with Lester Flatts baritone crooning and Monroe's "high, lonesome" tenor sound — formed the nucleus of the Blue Grass Boys' most famous incarnation. Not to be overlooked in the group is Chubby Wise, whose bluesy, dissonant fiddle style would become the standard for future bluegrass fiddlers. The band's late-1940s recordings for Columbia are now widely recognized as classics.
A crisis hit the band in 1948 when Flatt and Scruggs left the group to form Foggy Mountain Boys. While Monroe reportedly felt betrayed by his proteges' disloyalty, their leaving was also a blessing to his legacy, as their music too came to be called "bluegrass." By the early 1950s several successful bluegrass bands had emerged: the Stanley Brothers, Jim and Jesse McReynolds, and Reno & Smiley, as well as Flatt & Scruggs. Jimmy Martin, took over as Monroe's singing partner while the teenage prodigy Sonny Osborne handled Scruggs' former duties on the banjo admirably.
Legacy
In the future, Monroe's band would serve as a training ground for countless bluegrass singers and musicians. More than 150 musicians played in the Blue Grass Boys over the years. Many later became stars in their own right, including Mac Wiseman, Clyde Moody, Sonny Osborne, Jimmy Martin, Don Reno, Del McCoury, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, Carter Stanley, and many others. Monroe's song "Blue Moon of Kentucky" was one of the first songs recorded by Elvis Pressley, who played in 4/4 rockabilly style. Monroe would thereafter play the first verse of the song in the original waltz time in which it was written, and then switch to Pressley's 4/4 up-tempo style.
In 1982 the National Endowment for the Arts gave Monroe its prestigious Heritage Award, and in 1988 he won a Grammy for his album Southern Flavor—-the first bluegrass Grammy ever bestowed. Bill Monroe was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970, the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor as an inaugural inductee in 1991, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as an "early influence") in 1997. He is the only performer honored in all three.
Monroe was also 1993 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), an honor that placed him in the company of Louis Armstrong, Chet Atkins, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, and other such legends.
In 2003, CMT had Bill Monroe ranked #16 on its list of 40 Greatest Men of Country Music.
Until shortly before his death, Monroe continued bring his music to worldwide audiences. He appeared in all fifty states of the U.S. and many foreign countries, including Japan, Canada, England, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, and Israel. Many rural bluegrass festivals honored him as the originator of the music to which they were devoted, and he also played at numerous urban performing arts centers and the White House.
A stroke suffered in April 1996 ended Monroe’s career. He died on September 9 of that year.
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