In this website dedicated to honoring the legends and the lost of American music, it would seem terribly remiss to not pay tribute to such a tremendous figure as mandolinist, singer, and founder of the bluegrass genre, Bill Monroe—falling, needless to say, into the former category. In fact, it would be nearly impossible to overstate the man’s legacy.
Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys at the time of their Bluebird recordings. From Bluebird catalog.
William Smith Monroe was born into a musically inclined family on September 13, 1911, in Rosine, Kentucky, the eighth and youngest child of Buck and Malissa Monroe. Among his early musical influences were his uncle, fiddle player Pendleton Vandiver—with whom he lived after his parents’ deaths, and to whom he dedicated his popular song “Uncle Pen”—and black guitarist and fiddler Arnold Shultz. As his older brothers Charlie and Birch already played guitar and fiddle, young Bill was relegated to playing the mandolin. Together with them, Bill began playing music in a professional manner in 1929. After Birch departed and the group became a duo consisting of just Bill and Charlie, the Monroe Brothers made their recording debut for RCA Victor subsidiary Bluebird in 1936, producing some popular records such as the sacred song “What Would You Give Me in Exchange?”. The act was not particularly long-lived however, as the brothers tended to butt heads, and they went their separate ways in 1938. Subsequently, Bill formed a new band—dubbed the Blue Grass Boys, for his home state of Kentucky—and in 1939 auditioned for WSM’s Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. His rendition of Jimmie Rodgers’s “Mule Skinner Blues” impressed the Solemn Old Judge, and the Blue Grass Boys became a mainstay of that program for decades to come. A year after their Opry debut, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys made their first recordings for Bluebird, foreshadowing the genre of music that would be named in the group’s honor. Over the years, Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys employed such future bluegrass luminaries as Clyde Moody, David (“Stringbean”) Akeman, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and Jimmy Martin, all of whom would go on to be stars in their own rights. In 1945, the group went to Columbia Records, and in 1949 on to Decca, producing hits for each, including “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and “New Mule Skinner Blues”. Although his success dipped in the 1950s with the birth of rock ‘n’ roll and more modern styles of country music, Monroe and his bluegrass enjoyed renewed popularity during the folk music revival of he 1960s, and the musical form over which he reigned found a dedicated community of musicians and fans that has persisted to the present day. Bill Monroe continued to perform and lead the Blue Grass Boys until months before his death on September 9, 1996, four days before he would have been eighty-five.
Montgomery Ward M-8861 was recorded on October 7, 1940 in the Kimball House Hotel at 30 South Pryor Street in Atlanta, Georgia. The Blue Grass Boys are Bill Monroe on mandolin and guitar, Clyde Moody on guitar and mandolin, Tommy Magness on fiddle, and Willie “Cousin Wilbur” Wesbrooks on string bass. It was originally released as Bluebird B-8568 on November 22, 1940. Side A was reissued on RCA Victor 20-3163 in 1948.
Bill Monroe sings and plays the guitar, while Clyde Moody takes the mandolin, on the Blue Grass Boys’ legendary rendition of the Jimmie Rodgers classic, “Mule Skinner Blues”., the number that won Monroe a place on the prestigious Grand Ole Opry.
Mule Skinner Blues, recorded October 7, 1940 by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.
On the “B” side, Clyde Moody sings the baritone vocal on the twelve-bar blues of his own composition, “Six White Horses” (not to be confused with the Tommy Cash song of later years).
Six White Horses, recorded October 7, 1940 by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.