From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Fri Sep 13, 2002  1:18 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Bill Monroe
 
BILL MONROE (By Alain Dormoy)

Born William Smith Monroe, 13 September 1911, Rosine, Kentucky
Died 9 September 1996, Springfield, Tennessee

Bill Monroe is the undisputed creator of what is known as Bluegrass
music. His early musical influences were British-American folk songs
passed along by his mother, his "Uncle Pen" Vandiver old time fiddling
and the blues of Arnold Shultz, a black guitar player with whom he and
his "Uncle Pen" worked occasional local dances. Both his parents died
by the time he was sixteen and he followed some of his brothers north
to Chicago where he worked in an oil refinery, performed as a square
dancer on Chicago's WLS "National Barn Dance" and sang and played
mandolin on local radio, along with his brothers Charlie, who played
guitar and Birch who played fiddle. Soon Bill and Charlie started
doing music full time, as the "Monroe Brothers" after Birch had left
the band.
After they moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1935 and based
themselves at the powerful WBT radio station, their popularity rose to
the level of the duos that were famous in the area at the time. But
they were noted for their fast tempos, high-pitched harmonies and
Bill's virtuoso mandolin solos.
In 1936 they did their first recording at RCA, produced by Eli Oberstein.
"What Would You Give In Exchange For Your Soul" which sold fairly
well.
But the act broke up in 1938. Bill did two more recording sessions at
RCA with his new group the Blue Grass Boys. They auditioned for the
Grand Ole Opry and were hired in October 1939 after impressing WSM's
George D. Day, Harry and David Stone with their performance of "Mule
Skinner Blues", a former hit for Jimmie Rodgers.
By 1943 he was sharing his time between the Opry and his own tent show
which he would mostly take to rural small towns throughout the South.
The basic elements of the Bluegrass music were already there although
no one was referring to their music as such (until the mid 50's): the
original mandolin-guitar-fiddle-bass to which Bill had added the banjo,
plus experimentally and briefly the accordion and harmonica. In 1945
was introduced the revolutionary three finger banjo picking of Earl
Scruggs. The recording Bill made in the late 40's with Scruggs and
Lester Flatt on guitar can, in hindsight, be regarded as definitive.
In the early 50's several bands were playing their own renditions of
The Blue Grass Boys' music: The Foggy Mountain Boys, The Stanley
Brothers, Jim & Jesse McReynolds, Reno & Smiley followed by many
others as Blue Grass Music was becoming more and more popular. Is it
necessary to mention Elvis Presley's cover of "Blue Moon Of Kentucky"?
In 1963 Monroe's acoustic music began to attract the attention of the
part of the urban audience who was otherwise listening to folk music.

He performed for worldwide audiences until the late 90's, winning in
1988 the first Blue Grass Grammy ever bestowed.
In April 1996, a stroke put an end to his career. He died on 9 September
of that year.

Recommended listening: The Music of Bill Monroe from 1936-1994 (MCA
1994).
Bear Family released two 4 CD-sets, circa 1990: Blue Moon Of Kentucky,
1950-1958 (BCD 15423) and Bluegrass 1959-1969 (BCD 15529)
Biography : Richard D. Smith, Can't You Hear Me Callin' : The Life of
Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass. Boston : Little, Brown, 2000.