The Father of Bluegrass Music

 Q: What do bluegrass astronaut musicians drink in space?

A: An ice cold glass of TWANG!!

Well, Bill Monroe was not an astronaut, but his music was out of this world!

"The father of bluegrass music" William Smith "Bill" Monroe was born in 1911 on his family farm near Rosine, Kentucky. He grew up in a musical family. His mother Melissa Monroe and brother Birch both played the fiddle and brother Charlie played the guitar. I can imagine the whole family sitting on their front porch on a warm summer evening singing and playing rhythmic folk songs. The sounds must have stirred everyone within a country mile. Why, the dog probably howled as the crickets kept time.

Legend says that young Bill Monroe choose to play the mandolin so he would have a better chance to play with his brothers. Which he credited his uncle Pendleton "Pen" Vandiver for teaching him to play . Among many of Monroe's early musical influences were the high-pitched emotional singing he heard in country churches and the blues-style guitar playing of African American Arnold Shultz who let him play alongside him at local dances.

Monroe immortalized Vandiver in one of his best-known songs titled "Uncle Pen." He tributes his mentor in lines such as: "Late in the evening about sundown; high on the hill above the town, Uncle Pen played the fiddle, oh how it would ring. You can hear it talk, you can hear it sing"...

Bill Monroe and brother Charlie performed as the Monroe Brothers on North Carolina radio shows beginning in 1927. It was in North Carolina where he was first influenced with the emotional mountain ballads and mountain-style string bands. In 1938 the brothers broke up and Monroe started a band he called the Blue Grass Boys. Cleverly, Monroe required all his backup band members to play baseball. His group traveled throughout the South in the 1940s performing music and playing baseball for fans. At the peak of the road show, his performances gathered enough people to fill a 7,000-capacity tent. But, it wasn't until the early 1950s, that his style of music became known as "bluegrass".

Monroe recorded music for over fifty years and sold more than 25 million records. In 1970 Monroe was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Some of his famous songs include renditions of : "Blue Moon of Kentucky", "My Old Rose of Kentucky," and "Muleskinner Blues."

Source:

Kentucky Explorer. Jett, Richard. " Remembering Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass Music and a True Kentuckian." November 1996, page 14-15.

 Above Drawing: Bill Monroe circa 1965.

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