The Daily Grist: “Bill Monroe’s importance to American music is as important as someone like Robert Johnson was to blues, or Louis Armstrong. He was so influential: I think he’s the only musician who had a whole style of music named after his band.” (Ricky Skaggs)
Today bluegrass fans everywhere can celebrate the birthday of the guy, who more than anyone else, started the ball rolling for the distinct musical style we all love. The music has come a long way since Monroe but everybody who still calls themselves a bluegrass musician honors the founders like Monroe, Flatt, Scrugs, the Stanleys, etc. And Monroe is at the top of the list.
The music, as I said, has come a long way since Monroe but it also came a long way during Bill’s nearly sixty years of performing. The mandolin playing style of Charlie Monroe’s brother duet partner sounds nothing like the style of the musician who recorded as the leader of the Bluegrass Boys with Clyde Moody and Tommy Magness. By the time Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatt, Chubby Wise and Howard Watts joined the band you had an entirely different sound that formed the basis of what we think of as bluegrass music today but Bill wasn’t done.
The departure of Flatt and Scruggs to form their own band would have been a disaster for most band leaders. Forty percent of your band is gone overnight and arguably the most talented forty percent. What do you do? Keep making music was Bill’s solution. Over the years Monroe’s original bluegrass band attracted more than 150 musicians, many of whom went on to their own careers in bluegrass music. And Bill fed off of the new blood just as much as they learned from him. Monroe’s best mandolin artistry came well after the band lost its two other stars in 1948.
Meanwhile “copycat” bands like Flatt and Scruggs and the Stanleys solidified the unique country music style that Bill’s band had pioneered. What seemed like a bad thing in 1948 became a blessing in the long run: for the perpetuation of the music, for the schooling of its disciples, and for the musical development of the founder himself.
In the 1960’s the Bluegrass boys recovered from the downturn in their popularity brought on by the rock and roll craze. They benefitted from the folk revival to the extent that budding musicians like Jerry Garcia were following Bill’s band all the way to California to get all that good stuff. Bill was able to start a festival in Bean Blossom, Indiana which still hosts music to this day.
Bluegrass lives on! And the person we have most to thank for that is Bill Monroe. Happy birthday Bill!
