Artist:Arkansauce Hometown: Fayetteville, Arkansas Song: “My Home in Arkansas” Album:OK to Wonder Release Date: April 21, 2023
In Their Words: “‘My Home in Arkansas’ is an up-tempo bluegrass number about the lives we live when we hit the road and the tolls we pay to live the traveling musician lifestyle. Maybe it’s because it’s the two things we’ve done the most for the last several years, but I see a lot of parallels between the traveling life and a good jam. Both of them are more fun when there is a sense of adventure and a feeling that you are entering into new terrain, and they both will inevitably contain a breakdown at some point.
“As we were developing this batch of new tunes, several of them became studies on new rhythms and complex instrumental melodies with harmonized lines; things that really stretch our technique. It also became evident that we didn’t have many songs that were delivered in a classic Monroe-inspired bluegrass form, so that was intentionally front and center as I wrote the tune. I knew I wanted an open section that would give us somewhere to take it in our live shows, so we put together our exit strategy from the jam and hit the studio before things coagulated.” — Tom Andersen, Arkansauce
On Monday August 7, 1972, with fresh memories of Maritimes old-time and bluegrass, I drove from New Brunswick to New England to join my wife and kids, who were house-sitting for my in-laws in Norwich, Vermont.
On Thursday the 10th I headed south. A fourteen-hour drive brought me to Morgantown, West Virginia, the home of my friend and partner in research, photographer and film-maker Carl Fleischhauer, then employed at West Virginia University. We’d known each other for twelve years. (Our stories are in Bluegrass Odyssey: A Documentary in Pictures and Words, 1966-86 [U of IL Press 2001]). We were about to embark on fieldwork.
During the preceding year, when I began planning for the book Bluegrass: A History, I asked Carl to help me think about photos. In addition to documenting bluegrass festivals and other venues he, with Sandy Rothman, had recently looked for traces of earlier days in a field trip to the old Monroe home in Rosine, Kentucky. Now, we made plans for our own field trip. Carl would take photos. I would make notes and do interviews.
We spent that Friday in Morgantown looking at Carl’s photos and films and listening to LPs as we prepared for the research. At the end of the evening, my notes say,
Did some picking.
Early Saturday morning we piled in my new Toyota with our gear (cameras, tape recorder, axes, tent, sleeping bags) and headed southwest, crossing into Kentucky from Huntington, WV and snaking down through the mountains to Jackson, the seat of Breathitt County. Three hundred miles; we arrived around 2 o’clock.
There we headed just outside of town for Bill Monroe’s Second Annual Kentucky Blue Grass Festival. When I went to Canada in 1968, Bill Monroe had one festival a year at Bean Blossom in Indiana. Now he was running a bunch in other states, as were other artists. Festivals were the big news in bluegrass music in 1972. We sought to document the bluegrass festival experience.
Later others would write about this, like Bob Artis (“An Endless Festival” in Bluegrass [1975]) and Robert Owen Gardner (The Portable Community [2021]). Here’s how my notes from Jackson begin:
West of town on main hwy, down short steep road. Paid camping & Sat. fees, never did pay for Sunday. Parked & walked down to the stage area — tent set up, natural amphitheatre, uncovered stage, bad sound. Lots of cops around on Saturday.
Made contact with Pete & Marion Kuykendall, and agreed to move in next to them to camp. Set up tent, attempted to speak to Monroe but he was busy coping with the Goins Bros. problem of being hassled by the cops for drinking. Later Kuykendall said that cops had asked Monroe for $ (3 or 6 hundred) and he had refused to pay off so they were taking it out in fines. Lots of racing around on Sat. with flashing lights etal, but they stayed away on Sunday.
Listened then to IT’S A CRYING TIME, hot & exciting Japanese bluegrass band. Then back to Kuykendall’s bus/home whatall. Thunderstorm; discovery that cassette recorder didn’t work on batteries because plug distorts switch; got it running eventually. Oldest Kuykendall girl Sam/Ginger comes in with bass player of above-mentioned Japanese band, then leaves. Kuykendalls are a bit worried about this but Carl & I both notice later that a number of young girls (McLain girls, for example) are hanging around, with this group.
Dinner with Kuykendalls. Frank & Marty Godbey come in and are around for the rest of the evening. Mostly we sit & talk, though I went down to the amphitheatre to catch Jim & Jesse and the Japanese bands. Came back, then returned to catch Monroe. Afterwards listened to picking group in tent near us. Did mainly Emerson & Waldron, Newgrass Revival, Bluegrass Alliance, Gentlemen, etc. Chromatic banjo. Noisy night in Carl’s tent, as sessions went on late and busses started early. I got a spider bite.
Bill Monroe (center) and the Blue Grass Boys at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday, August 12, 1972. Bandmembers include Monroe Fields, bass; Jack Hicks, banjo; Joe Stuart, guitar (hidden); Monroe, mandolin; and Kenny Baker, fiddle.
I’d known the Kuykendalls since 1966. Pete, a 1996 inductee to the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, was a musician, record collector, producer, publisher, and, since 1970 owner-editor of the first and leading bluegrass monthly Bluegrass Unlimited.
Pete Kuykendall, editor of Bluegrass Unlimited, in his RV parked in the camping area at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday August 12, 1972.
Pete and I had already been corresponding about bluegrass history when we met on Labor Day weekend 1966 at the second Roanoke Bluegrass Festival. Subsequently, I visited the Kuykendalls in Virginia where Pete encouraged me to write for the then all-volunteer magazine he would later own. I began with a review of the festival, published the following January — the first of eight articles I did for BU in 1967.
Photo made by Pete Kuykendall’s son Billy with one of Carl Fleischhauer’s cameras. Carl is seated at left with two other cameras on the table. This photo was made at the time of Neil Rosenberg’s (top of head above stove) interview of Pete Kuykendall, editor of Bluegrass Unlimited, in his RV at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday, August 12, 1972. In the background, at left, is Pete’s wife and Bluegrass Unlimited co-manager Marion Kuykendall.
By 1970 Pete and Marion were running BU full-time; I’d done an article for them earlier in 1972 (eventually I would write a monthly column) so we had been in touch recently by mail and phone. Conversations with Pete were never brief! He loved to share the business scuttlebutt and he had plenty since they were selling the magazine at festivals every weekend and had just launched BU’s own annual festival.
I think this may have been the first time I met the Godbeys. From Lexington, and before that, Columbus, Ohio, they had been following the bluegrass scene for a decade. Frank is a musician who is still performing these days. By 1972 he and Marty had begun writing and publishing photos in BU. For them, as for me, hanging out with the Kuykendalls was a good way to keep up on the bluegrass news. People were already talking about starting an industry association, though that — the IBMA — wouldn’t happen until 1986. Pete was one of its founders.
Neil Rosenberg (facing camera) interviewing Pete Kuykendall, editor of Bluegrass Unlimited, in his RV parked in the camping area at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday, August 12, 1972. In the background, with an air rifle, is Pete’s son Billy Kuykendall.
With the growth of the festivals came clubs, newsletters, and magazines. Bluegrass enthusiasts (many of them musicians) followed their favorites to festivals and other venues. Paths crossed; networks grew. The politics of bands was a favorite discussion topic.
Over the course of the festival, I made note of gossip about the always changing bands. Ricky Skaggs had just left Ralph Stanley — there were rumors about where he was headed next. Was Bill working to get Ralph Stanley on the Opry? Some thought so. The II Generation was said to be splitting up. Stories were told of bluegrass festival camp followers.
At this Jackson, Kentucky festival were a bunch of bands that had been appearing at Bill Monroe’s other 1972 festivals — Monroe, Jim & Jesse, Flatt, Reno & Harrell, the Goins, Ralph Stanley — mature musicians who’d been working with this music for a substantial period of time and who stuck close to the early models of which they were, often, the authors. Classic bluegrass, one could say.
What the audience didn’t hear was the kind of stuff we’d heard from the jammers late Saturday night, like “One Tin Soldier,” The Bluegrass Alliance’s cover of a song popularized in the film Billy Jack. Their bluegrass version, with Sam Bush’s lead voice and Tony Rice’s harmonies and guitar work, was a hit, a big step on the road to newgrass.
The Japanese bands were new to the scene. Japanese bluegrass began in the early sixties. In 1971, Bluegrass 45 came from Kobe, Japan, with the sponsorship of their label, Rebel, to tour U.S. bluegrass festivals. They made a big hit at Monroe’s Bean Blossom festival with their showmanship and musical savvy. This year they were back, along with another Japanese outfit, It’s A Crying Time.
Visiting from Japan, the band It’s a Crying Time performs at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday, August 12, 1972. Band members include Eiichi “Ei’ Shimizu, banjo; Kazuyoshi “Kazu” Onishi, mandolin; Satoshi “Sato” Yamaguchi, guitar; Akira “May” Katsumi, bass.
Monroe had booked the Japanese bands as a novelty, something you couldn’t see just anywhere in the bluegrass world. As I mentioned in my field notes, I found It’s A Crying Time’s music “hot & exciting,” and I was not the only one in the audience reacting this way. They came to the attention of Lester Flatt, who, after watching them rehearse, invited mandolinist Kazu Onishi to join him on stage at his final set.
Backstage moment at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday, August 12, 1972. Akira Katsumi, Kazu Onishi, Lester Flatt, and Akira Otsuka. Otsuka was Kazu’s friend from the Japanese scene, a member of the Bluegrass 45.
This video comes from the Bluegrass 45’s appearance at Carlton Haney’s Camp Springs festival:
They are announced at the beginning of the video by emcee, writer, and DJ Bill Vernon. Vernon was here at Jackson, as I learned Sunday morning when I went down to the early morning gospel show. Pete Kuykendall introduced me to Bill there, and we had a long chat about the politics of the bluegrass industry. I wrote in my notes:
A very loquacious and complex person.
At that morning’s gospel show, the music came to a stop as a fundamentalist preacher began his sermon. At that point, I noted:
Bill Vernon cut out from the morning sermon, he’d had enough…
During the preacher’s sermon at the gospel program at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Sunday, August 13, 1972. Bill Monroe (wearing a black suit) is seated in the audience area at left.
I stayed and heard some good music, noting:
The gospel section’s high point was when the Goins Bros. did “Somebody Touched Me” and Eleanor Parker came on stage & started clapping hands and singing; Monroe caught on and came up to join in too.
During the gospel program at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Sunday, August 13, 1972. When the Goins Brothers band performed “Somebody Touched Me,” they were joined on stage by Eleanor and Rex Parker and Bill Monroe. Eleanor and Bill joined the Goins trio at the main microphone while Rex sang and played mandolin at the “stage right” microphone.
This kind of spontaneity, which gave festivals their appeal, was not there all the time. Jim & Jesse, I wrote, had:
A good show, with Jim Brock sounding especially good, but … a cut and dried quality to it all.
Describing Lester Flatt and his Nashville Grass, I concluded:
To me the whole band sounded tired, lackluster.
But Flatt’s final set was enlivened when It’s A Crying Time mandolinist and tenor Kazu Onishi came on stage to sing “Salty Dog Blues” with him.
During my times around the stage area, I had a chance to talk with Monroe and with some of the musicians I’d gotten to know during my years as a backstage regular at Bean Blossom, like Birch Monroe, Joe Stuart, and Roland White.
I arranged with Birch, who was busy helping Bill run the festival, for an interview, to take place later in the week at his home in Martinsville, Indiana.
Joe Stuart offstage at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday, August 12, 1972.
Joe told me about his experiences playing bluegrass in Canada with Charlie Bailey. He’d even appeared in Newfoundland.
Roland, whom I’d known since his days as a Blue Grass Boy, was now playing with Lester Flatt. He told me they were working solid, playing festivals every weekend.
Here’s what I wrote about the audience:
Audience — bluegrass die-hards from Ohio, Ky., D.C., Carolinas. Few freaks. Appear to be about 50% campers, 50% local people. Certainly no more than 1500-2000, on Saturday, though figure of 3000 was bandied about. Bill moved his Ky festival to Jackson from Ashland this year because the turnout at Ashland was dropping. Fact, bluegrass ain’t as popular in Kentucky as it is elsewhere — Ohio, D.C.
Audience on the hillside natural amphitheater at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Saturday, August 12, 1972.
The festival closed with a finale, orchestrated by Monroe. At the first festivals in the mid-60s, which were created to honor Monroe, such events were somewhat spontaneous, but by now, seven years after the first one, these events were highly ritualistic. By the time it happened, I noticed that the Kuykendalls had left. They were not the only ones.
The finale performance at the Second Annual Kentucky Bluegrass Festival, Jackson KY, Sunday, August 13, 1972. At the center, in white suits, are Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt. Here are a few of the other performers, left to right: Curly Ray Cline (on the ramp), Melvin Goins (guitar, facing camera), Kenny Baker (fiddle, white hat, wearing a suit), Joe Stuart (just behind Baker, partly hidden), Buck Ryan (fiddle, white belt), Jack Hicks (banjo, white hat, wearing suit), Paul Warren (fiddle, white hat, at microphone), Vic Jordan (banjo, facing forward), Ralph Stanley (banjo, dark suit, hidden behind McCormick), Haskell McCormick (banjo, in profile), Monroe and Flatt with Don Reno (wearing white) partly hidden behind them, Raymond W. McLain and sister Alice McLain (hidden behind Flatt), Jesse McReynolds (mandolin, wearing striped jacket), Ruth McLain (bass, behind McReynolds), Raymond K. McLain (guitar, no hat), Roland White (mandolin, white hat), Rex Parker (mandolin, striped shirt), and Monroe Fields (leaning on van).
We packed up soon after and headed west for Lexington. I was hoping to interview J.D. Crowe.
Born on July 4, 1942, it seems rather poignant that this musical ambassador of freedom and exploration came into this world on Independence Day. First emerging onto the national scene in the early 1960s as a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, Rowan was a young buck — a “green horn,” as he’d say — who found himself alongside the “Father of Bluegrass,” singing lead and playing rhythm guitar.
And though Rowan and Monroe were very different people from equally different backgrounds, there was a deep, mutual love and respect for the sacred art form that is music — either learned, recorded or performed live — where lessons and anecdotes spun by Monroe decades ago have remained written on the walls of Rowan’s memory and throughout his extensive melodic travels.
The second half of our conversation hovers about the road to the here and now, about nothing and everything, and anything in-between, which is just how Rowan has always carried himself, that signature glint of mischief in his eyes radiating hardscrabble sentiments of a life well-lived.
When you think about getting older, what are your reflections on your relationship with Bill Monroe — as a musician and as a mentor to you?
Rowan: I’m just taking what he was doing a little further — that’s all. He said, “Pete, don’t go too far out on the limb, there’s enough flowers out there already.” He saw me coming. And his mentorship is just something that’s part of me.
Which you’ve parlayed into mentoring other people.
Yeah, I’m at that point. I remember what Josh White and John Lee said to me as I nervously presented my playing to them — “take your time, take your time.” The bluegrass guys, [fiddlers] like Tex Logan and Kenny Baker, were the touchstone of bluegrass at the time. Any jam session was led by the fiddlers, and then you’d throw a few songs in. But it was the fiddlers — Buddy Spicher, Richard Greene, Kenny Baker, Tex Logan, Vassar Clements. It could be five fiddlers and they’d all play that tune. That’s what the jam was, it was playing fiddle tunes. It wasn’t like, “Okay, you take a chorus and just play.” You stayed within the structure.
By the way, this whole idea of jamming, there’s always that element in the jam where you go to sort of an unknown place. There’s a real artless art to that. And I’m not sure the bluegrass folks are going there, because most of their instruments are short duration notes. It’s not like a saxophone where you take a breath and just blow for eight bars. But, I have to say the fiddle player for the Steep Canyon Rangers, [Nicky Sanders], he’s taken it up [a notch] — he’s paid attention to Vassar.
When you look at all of the musicians you came up with in the 1960s, there’s not a lot of them left right now.
It’s me and Del [McCoury].
That’s about it. And maybe Bobby Osborne.
Bobby is still alive, and I’m so glad I got to record with him a few years ago for Compass [Records]. And there’s David Grisman.
In terms of touring, you and Del are the ones that are always out there, onstage and on the road.
Yeah. Well, I think it’s part of the gift of being able to indulge in the thing that gives you the power to sing. You can have a lot of afflictions. But if you can sing, you can overcome. The weight of age. For instance, I saw Del last summer. We played out in Colorado, and there’s this picture of us — we look like we’re 10 years old. Just laughing and smiling, well, because it is a joy.
Both of you have never lost that childlike wonder of creation and discovery. You’ve always retained it.
Yeah. But people who want to say Del is upholding the tradition? Yes — stylistically, musically — he is. But he’s doing Richard Thompson songs. Del’s not close-minded.
You’ve always had this core of tradition, but you’re never shied away from jumping the fence into other genres.
And I’ve been criticized for it. Going to Jamaica and recording reggae with bluegrass songs. Going to Texas and recording with the great Flaco Jimenez. Come on, these are masters of our world — how could anybody in their right mind not do what I did? Bluegrass Unlimited once referred to me as a “schizophrenic musician,” like it’s a mental thing, where “he’s gone off the deep end.” [Laughs]
The criticism you faced is like what Billy Strings is facing today, and what Sam Bush faced in the 1970s. It seems every 20 years or so, the critics always say the sky is falling in the world of bluegrass. But it never does. It remains.
I think that goes back to Bill Monroe. He said this [to me], “If you can play my music, you can play any music.” That goes for Billy [Strings], too. And [Bill] saw it, where maybe I didn’t see myself as that. [Growing up], I had my little rockabilly band The Cupids, and I learned some Lead Belly tunes, trying to learn Lightnin’ [Hopkins] tunes. And here’s Bill Monroe, and it’s perfect. There’s harmony. It’s hard-driving. There’s acoustic guitars. It’s got everything I wanted.
You’ve had this incredible life — traveling the world, meeting people, collaborating onstage and off with all these musicians — what has the culmination of all of those experiences thus far taught you about what it means to be a human being?
Well, you know, all of these players were always the ones that didn’t have any prejudices. You sit down with Lightnin’ Hopkins and he doesn’t care. He’s not like, “Oh, white boy wants to steal my music.” These guys were musicians, and they weren’t just your average person.
I lived in the South long enough to have tremendous respect for the amount of heart that the Black people down in the South had. People who lived through the hard times and were glad to be driving a cab to get you to the airport, [where] you shake hands with that man — his hand is warm, just warm love and compassion in that hand. During those years — the 1960s — when it was still segregated in the South, it was weird, this thing of love and theft.
I was with the Bluegrass Boys and I remember one night we played the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Mance Lipscomb was on the bill. He came back and we’re all sitting around the dressing room. I asked Bill and Mance if they would play together. You might see [something like] that at Newport [Folk Festival], maybe. But mostly it was segregated into different musical styles [at that time] — Cajun, blues, bluegrass. I said, “Would you guys play?” And they didn’t know what to play. Bill goes, “What do you want us to play?” Bill didn’t know what to play. He didn’t know the starter blues. And Bill just started playing, and Mance played along, too. But it wasn’t this moment that I had imagined, like this intergalactic grandeur, you know what I mean?
[Bill and Mance] were really specialized in their own world. Mance Lipscomb, his music was complete, his version of the blues. Bill Monroe’s music was complete, his version. But [Bill] would talk about his “other music.” He’d say, “It wouldn’t have a dobro, but it might have a slide guitar.” I’d say, “And a mandolin?” He’d say, “Maybe not a mandolin, but maybe one of them little guitars.” [I’d say], “Like a what? A ukulele?” I think his “other music” was the mellifluous laidback music of a Hawaiian feel. Slow. Because bluegrass was all about keeping it up, playing for farmers who were exhausted, folks that had been up since 4:30 in the morning, go to a little schoolhouse and see Bill Monroe. He said he wanted to give them something that would raise their spirits.
And the world changed while Bill was alive. Typically, he would steer away from anything that compromised him. He began to understand that his position was not that of a star so much as [he was] a progenitor of musical tradition. He took from many different things — blues, gospel, Celtic. And he alone had figured out a way to put it all out there, soon to be copied by many, many others. And the talent of those others were helping him develop his style — Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatt, Don Reno, all those folks.
(Rowan pauses for several seconds, seemingly lost in thought at the initial question posed.) What are you thinking right now?
Well, I’m not really thinking very much. [Laughs]. But I want to make sure that we’ve covered some of the things that you’re asking.
Well, you’ve lived the life of an artist. What is that life of an artist, and why is it that was the path you ultimately chose?
Okay, this is the connection now. When I was four years old [in 1946], my Uncle Jimmy came back from the Navy. He’d been in the South Pacific [during World War II] and he brought back grass skirts and coconut bras, all this tourist stuff because he’d been stationed in Honolulu, Hawai’i. I remember the first musical experience I had was Uncle Jimmy dancing around our living room [in Massachusetts] in his skivvies with his sailor hat on playing the ukulele and singing “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawai’i.”
I guess that just seemed like such a happy thing, you know? That was so different from what was the norm. After World War II, they were all celebrating. But Uncle Jimmy was saying, “Hubba, hubba, ding, ding,” all these strange things. Well, [later in life], I went to Hawai’i and traced Uncle Jimmy’s footsteps. I found out he [used to hangout] at this hula bar called Hubba Hubba. He had absorbed what he could — during the middle of World War II — some of that inspiration from the Hawaiian aloha spirit.
And that’s in you. I know that’s in you, too.
Yeah. So, when Bill Monroe was talking about his “other music,” I think he was talking about Hawaiian music. Because his song, “Kentucky Waltz”? The melody of that song was recorded in 1915 in Honolulu by John Kameaaloha Almeida, this Portuguese-Hawaiian orphan, who was adopted and raised by a Hawaiian family. He had a really strong band. A lot of the younger singers of the 20th century went through his band as featured singers, and he had three girls singing harmony. So, when Bill Monroe had a hit with “Kentucky Waltz,” he was singing a melody that came from Hawai’i, probably a classically derived melody. There’s this strange sort of admixture of technique and heart, you know? And that’s always been my path.
I feel like, maybe subconsciously, that memory you have of your uncle is what you’ve been chasing after your whole life.
I think I’ve been wanting that coconut bra and grass skirt again, man. [Laughs].
Kentucky music is currently having a moment, but it’s far from the first time. Before artists like Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, and Chris Stapleton made it big, folks like Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Keith Whitley, Crystal Gayle, Tom T. Hall, Patty Loveless, Ricky Skaggs, Dwight Yoakam, and countless others helped build up the Bluegrass State’s rich musical foundation spanning bluegrass, country music, and more.
With so much talent having originated from Kentucky, there’s no shortage of destinations around the Commonwealth to consume this musical history. From the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg in the southeast to the Muhlenberg Music & History Museum in the west, Lexington’s Red Barn Radio and beyond, every nook, cranny and holler throughout the state is full of destinations beckoning to be explored by music fans. We’ve compiled more than a dozen of these attractions below in an epic road trip that could be called the Kentucky Music Trail.
Central Kentucky
Opened in 2002, the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Mount Vernon features exhibits showcasing talent from throughout the state ranging from country and bluegrass trail blazers like Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn and Keith Whitley along with Black Stone Cherry, The Kentucky Headhunters and Exile, among others. The museum is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily with an admission of $10.
Also sitting on the same 55-acre property is the Renfro Valley Entertainment Center. First opened in 1939, the massive barn features two unique performance halls that host country, gospel and bluegrass music annually from April through December. Additionally, the venue has been the home of Renfro Valley Gatherin’, a syndicated radio program airing on Sunday nights at 9:30 p.m. EST, since 1943. The show is the third oldest continually broadcast radio program in America and the second longest continuously running such program featuring country music, behind only the Grand Ole Opry.
Back inside the Hall of Fame & Museum, one of the most prominent exhibits is one showcasing Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour, an internationally syndicated radio program hosted by folk musician Michael Johnathon in front of a live studio audience at the historic Lyric Theatre in Lexington on most Monday nights at 7 p.m. Launched in 1998, the entirely volunteer-run production spotlights musicians across all genres performing their songs and sharing the stories behind them. Now over 1,000 episodes in (and counting), the program has featured artists like Sam Bush, J.D. Crowe, The Black Opry, Riders in the Sky and Billy Strings. Each show also features a “Woodsongs Kid,” helping to encourage and grow the next generation of Kentucky songwriters.
Another radio program based in Lexington and featuring talent from around Kentucky, Appalachia and the southeast with a similar mix of conversation and performance is Red Barn Radio. Founded in the early 2000s at Renfro Valley’s little red barn (from which the show draws its name), co-founder Ed Commons helped lead the show’s move to its current home inside LexArt’s headquarters in downtown Lexington in 2005. The show has taken off since moving there, hosting everyone from Sam Bush to J.D. Crowe, Tom T. Hall, John R. Miller, Arlo McKinley, Sierra Ferrell, Sunday Valley (led by a young Sturgill Simpson) and Tyler Childers. In the case of Childers, his performance on the show became so revered that he ended up releasing it as a live album, Live on Red Barn Radio I & II, in 2016.
Eastern Kentucky
Out east on the campus of Morehead State University you’ll find the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music (KCTM), a school teaching the next generation of bluegrass and old-time musicians the nuances, history and business side of the music. Founded in 2000, the center offers the only Bachelor of Arts in Traditional Music in Kentucky along with a minor in traditional music. It also features an extensive digital archive of Kentucky and Appalachian traditional music, a recording studio, sound-proofed classrooms and rehearsal spaces. Alumni from the school include Linda Jean Stokley and Montana Hobbs of The Local Honeys, current professor and pedal steel player for Nicholas Jamerson, Thomas Albert; Lauren and Leanna Price of The Price Sisters, and current Assistant Director, Archivist, Instructor and member of Tyler Childers’ band, Jesse Wells.
Just over an hour southeast of the KCTM you’ll find the U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum. Located just off of U.S. 23 in Staffordsville just north of Paintsville, the museum features memorabilia from Tyler Childers, Chris Stapleton, Loretta Lynn, The Judds, Patty Loveless, Dwight Yoakam, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tom T. Hall and other artists hailing from the counties that the highway passes through in Eastern Kentucky. The area known as the “Country Music Highway” is distinguished as having the highest number of charting country musicians calling the area home per capita than anywhere else in the world. Admission to the museum is $4.
After another half-hour drive through the area’s Appalachian mountain back roads and hollers you’ll come across Loretta Lynn’s birthplace at Butcher Hollow in the old coal mining community of Van Lear. The humble mountainside cabin features four rooms to explore—one bedroom for Loretta, younger sister Crystal Gayle and her five other siblings; a bedroom for her parents, a tiny kitchen and a cozy dining room—all covered wall to wall in pictures and other collectibles from the Coal Miner’ Daughter’s childhood and life as a musician. Tours are $5 and are typically guided by members of Lynn’s family who still call the holler home.
About a mile up the road from Lynn’s home you’ll find Webb’s Grocery, a general store constructed by the Consolidated Coal Company in 1918 when Van Lear’s coal output was near its peak. In addition to stocking ice cold Coca Cola, Mallo Cups and other quick bites the shop also is stuffed with tons of pictures of Loretta Lynn and her family including a massive banner reading “Welcome Loretta Lynn.” A journey to Butcher Hollow offers not only an incredible look back on the upbringing of one of country music’s most iconic voices, but also a look back on the mountain towns ravaged by the boom and bust of the coal industry that back in the day helped to power our entire country.
Another 30 minutes south of Van Lear is the Mountain Arts Center (MAC) in Prestonsburg. Opened in 1996, the building features a 1,000-seat concert hall, a state-of-the-art recording studio, loads of rehearsal space and will soon be the home to the TV and radio headquarters of CMH23, an organization dedicated to educating people on the history of artists from the Country Music Highway and giving a platform to up-and-coming musicians from the region. According to Executive Director Joe Campbell, the MAC and CMH23 are also partnering with The Country Network on Live From CMH23, a show that will focus on rising artists from around the state.
The MAC is also the home of a family variety show called Billie Jean Osborne’s Kentucky Opry, as well as the Kentucky Opry Jr. Pros. (an educational program for aspiring entertainers ages 6 to 18) and the Appalachian Arts & Entertainment Awards. Kentucky Opry alumni include Chris Stapleton’s longtime bassist J.T. Cure, Jesse Wells, Tyler Childers’ piano/keys player Chase Lewis, Brit Taylor, Marleena Vanhoose and Rebecca Lynn Howard.
Western Kentucky
Just under two and a half hours west of Lexington via the Western Kentucky Parkway is Rosine, a small town in Ohio County with its claim to fame being the birthplace of the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe. In the heart of Rosine, you’ll find several landmarks commemorating the artist starting with the Bill Monroe Museum, which houses countless instruments, outfits, fan letters, photos, personal furniture and even Monroe’s personal Cadillac DeVille in a constantly growing and evolving collection. The museum is open Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Admission is $3-5.
Less than a mile up the road from the museum is the Rosine Barn Jamboree, which hosts free bluegrass jams every Friday night from mid-March through mid-November. A stone’s throw away from the barn sits the Rosine Cemetery, where you can’t miss the grave of Monroe. Featuring an obelisk-style monument and adorned in flowers, Monroe’s grave stands tall over the quaint hillside cemetery as, even in death, he watches over the town that helped to define him. The cemetery also includes several of Monroe’s family members including Birch and Charlie Monroe and Pendleton (Uncle Pen) Vandiver.
Also nearby is Jerusalem Ridge, Bill Monroe’s homeplace. On the compound you can see Monroe and other family member’s childhood homes. Restored in 2001, Bill’s home features guided tours Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sundays from 1-4 p.m. The site also features several stages and plays host to the Jerusalem Ridge Bluegrass Celebration, a festival taking place annually in September with some of the region and country’s best traditional bluegrass bands.
Less than an hour west of Rosine in Central City you can learn about icons like John Prine, The Everly Brothers, Merle Travis, Ike Everly, Mose Rager and Kennedy Jones at the Muhlenberg Music & History Museum. In addition to the traditional museum the building features a 1950s era jukebox serving up hits from the aforementioned artists that call Muhlenberg County home along with a towering Everly Brothers monument just outside. It also houses the Kentucky Motorsports Museum.
Just under an hour north of Central City is the last stop of our Kentucky Music Trail tour at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum along the banks of the Ohio River in Owensboro. The latest jewel of Owensboro’s transformed downtown, the $15.3 million building opened in October 2018 not only houses the museum and hall of fame, but also the 447 seat Woodward Theatre, a gift shop and several private event spaces along with a 1,500-seat outdoor amphitheater to boot.
When it comes to the museum, the biggest of bluegrass fans could easily spend a day diving into everything the facility has to offer. A self-guided audio tour will inform you on the ins and outs of each exhibit, the roots and impact of artists to bluegrass music, the nuances of the music and more, helping to fully immerse and indulge visitors in the music. On display are items from the likes of Rhonda Vincent, Bill Monroe, Billy Strings, Sam Bush, The SteelDrivers’ fiddler Tammy Rogers, Flatt & Scruggs, The Steep Canyon Rangers, J.D. Crowe, Hee Haw, bluegrass’ cinematic coronation O Brother, Where Art Thou? and more.
Other facilities in the museum include a pickin’ parlor where guests can play on pre-tuned guitars, mandolins, banjos, upright bass and more along with a transcribed and searchable interview database provided in partnership with the University of Kentucky’s Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, a massive display honoring banjo maker Jimmy Cox and the Hall of Fame itself. The prestigious space contains 68 plaques honoring those instrumental to bluegrass from its roots to its golden age and everywhere in between. Much like the museum, it offers a tremendous look back at the genre’s roots, where it is now and how it got there.
The same could be said for all of these destinations. I was already in love with my home state prior to visiting all of these places, but after having done so I’ve grown an even greater appreciation for the state, its musical roots and trailblazing artists. I’m confident that you will too upon making the trip for yourself.
The first Canadian festival, a modest affair billed as a “Bluegrass Jamboree,” took place in August 1972. I was involved in its organization and presentation. Subsequently, the Jamboree grew into an annual festival that’s still running.
The annual family friendly Nova Scotia Bluegrass and Oldtime Music festival is Canada’s oldest, and North America’s second oldest continuously running Bluegrass Festival, and is presented and hosted by the Downeast Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Bluegrass and Oldtime music in Eastern Canada.
Here’s how it happened.
By the summer of 1972 I had been living in Canada for four years, working as a professor of folklore and archivist in St. John’s, Newfoundland, at Memorial, the big provincial university.
Deeply immersed in bluegrass, I now stayed in touch with the music I’d left behind via bluegrass friends in the states, I read Bluegrass Unlimited every month, and I got County Sales‘ newsletters and bought new LPs from them by mail.
June 22, 1968. Banjo workshop at Bean Blossom, IN: Vic Jordan, Bobby Thompson, Dave Garrett, Neil Rosenberg, Ralph Stanley. (Photo by Frank Godbey)
When I arrived in Newfoundland in September 1968, I’d just published my first academic article — on bluegrass — in the Journal of American Folklore. I’d been writing regularly for Bluegrass Unlimited. That past June, Bill Monroe had included me in a banjo workshop at his Blue Grass Festival in Bean Blossom, Indiana; and a few weeks before coming to St. John’s, I’d been at the Richland Hills fiddle contest near Dallas, Texas, jamming with Alan Munde, Sam Bush, and Byron Berline and the Stone Mountain Boys.
August 18, 1968. Richland Hills, TX fiddle contest: Neil Rosenberg (b), Sam Bush (m), Byron Berline (f). (Photo by David Stark)
During the late ’60s and early ’70s, bluegrass festivals were proliferating (I wrote about this in Bluegrass: A History, 305-339) and bluegrass was having success in the popular music business (I wrote about that too, 305-339).
By 1972 I was hearing at a distance about the adventures of my friends from the U.S. bluegrass festival scene. Alan and Sam had made a popular instrumental LP. Now Alan was picking banjo with Jimmy Martin and Sam was singing and playing mandolin with the Bluegrass Alliance. And Byron, working as a studio musician in Los Angeles, had recently recorded with The Rolling Stones.
As I continued to study and write about bluegrass, I maintained my musical calling, moonlighting in the local contemporary folk and pop music scene. It was several years before I met anyone in St. John’s who played or knew much about bluegrass.
In 1969, RCA Victor invited me to edit an album in their Vintage series titled Early Bluegrass. Aside from some Monroe LPs, this was the first historical bluegrass anthology. I signed its detailed historical liner notes with “Memorial University of Newfoundland” under my name. It got a good reception in the bluegrass world and introduced me to Canadian bluegrass record buyers.
In 1971 I signed a contract with the University of Illinois Press to write a volume on bluegrass history in their new Music in American Life series. It was a book that would take years to write, for I had catching up to do. Not only was I out of touch with the bluegrass scene I’d been in before immigrating, I also knew little about the bluegrass scenes in my new home.
June 22, 1968. Banjo workshop at Bean Blossom, IN: Vic Jordan, Bobby Thompson, Neil Rosenberg, Dave Garrett, Ralph Stanley, Larry Sparks. (Photo by Doc Hamilton)
Learning About Canadian Bluegrass
Even before immigrating to Canada, I knew it had bluegrass, thanks to Toronto’s Doug Benson, who put me on the mailing list of his magazine The Bluegrass Breakdown. The first issue had reached me in spring 1968 while I was still in Indiana. It told of bluegrass scenes in Ontario and Quebec.
En route to Newfoundland in September 1968, we entered eastern Canada via the Maritimes— the provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Picking up our landed immigrant passes from Canadian Customs at the Maine border, we drove through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where, in Cape Breton, we caught the night ferry to Newfoundland.
During this trip I got my first taste of Canadian bluegrass in an Antigonish, Nova Scotia motel where we watched Don Messer’s Jubilee, a Halifax-produced CBC weekly TV show starring a fiddler who’d been recording and broadcasting nationally on radio since the 1930s and television later. Messer’s prime-time Jubilee was Canada’s second most-watched show, exceeded only by Hockey Night In Canada.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Messer’s band included a five-string banjo played bluegrass style! To this immigrant’s eyes and ears, Messer was blending bluegrass into his country and old-time sound. Here’s his performance, taken from Jubilee footage, of “St. Anne’s Reel,” a popular Canadian fiddle tune:
The smiling banjo picker behind Messer was Vic Mullen, the youngest member of his band. Born in 1933 and raised in rural southwestern Nova Scotia, he had been working as a musician since his teens, playing with country bands in the Maritimes and Ontario.
In 1969, Mullen left Messer and began appearing with his own country band, The Hickorys, on another Halifax CBC weekly prime-time show, Country Time. There wasn’t much bluegrass on that show beyond Mullen’s occasional southern-style fiddle pieces.
Getting Acquainted
My first meeting with a Newfoundlander who shared my enthusiasm for bluegrass came early in April 1971 when I had a letter from record collector Michael Cohen of Grand Falls-Windsor.
By the time we met, Michael’s family owned six furniture stores in central Newfoundland. He’d grown up listening to country music on the radio and began collecting records. After attending university in Ottawa, where he’d heard lots of local and touring American and Canadian country music, he returned to Windsor to work in the family business, continue his collecting (he has all of Hank Snow’s recordings) and play in a country band.
He wrote me because he’d been told about me by a friend. “Early bluegrass and string bands … are my main interest,” he said, introducing himself and welcoming me to make tape copies of his rare records.
I wrote back inviting him to visit us on his next trip to St. John’s. This was the beginning of an enduring friendship. Through him I met others interested in bluegrass and Canadian country. The first was Fred Isenor of Lantz, Nova Scotia, a small community north of Halifax, who got my address from Michael and wrote me a few weeks later.
August 18, 1968. Alan Munde, Neil Rosenberg, unidentified fiddler. (Photo by David Stark)
Fred, Vic Mullen’s contemporary and friend, worked at the local brick factory, and had a music store in Lantz. He was a record collector, a Bluegrass Unlimited subscriber, and a musician. He played mandolin and bass in The Nova Scotia Playboys, which he described to me as an “authentic (non-electric) country” band. They had represented Nova Scotia at the 1967 Expo in Montreal.
Fred had purchased his mandolin, a 1920s Gibson F5, for $100 at a Halifax pawn shop in 1960. Only later did he learn that its label, signed by Lloyd Loar, meant that he now owned an instrument like that of Bill Monroe, who’d just been elected to Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame.
Our correspondence began with shared unsuccessful attempts to put together a Bill Monroe tour. I’d planned to speak with Monroe at a New England festival that summer. But the festival was cancelled; that plan fell through. In March 1972, Fred wrote of other plans:
There is a possibility of a one day bluegrass jamboree in Nova Scotia this summer. Not really a festival but if we can put it over it will be a start. Perhaps Michael has mentioned this to you. As you played with Bill Monroe and helped run Bean Blossom [I’d told Michael about this when we first met] I thought possibly you could offer some helpful suggestions, in other words some do’s and don’ts.
He explained that with a limited budget the event would have to utilize local talent.
Please do not mention this to anyone as definite … so far Vic Mullen and I just talked briefly about this and will be discussing it further on Monday night.
He asked if I’d be able to visit him and take part in the program.
I responded enthusiastically, calling the jamboree a festival, offering my suggestions, and saying I’d be driving through Nova Scotia in August and hoped to visit him then.
Meeting Vic Mullen
In June 1972, Country Time came to St. John’s to tape some shows. I asked Vic if he’d do an interview, explaining to him that I was working on a book about bluegrass. He agreed.
Still in his thirties, Vic had been playing country music professionally for a quarter century. He’d mastered instruments — mandolin, fiddle, guitar, five-string banjo — as needed, working on the road with a series of increasingly high-profile bands. Bluegrass chops were just one aspect of his professional tools — a flashy banjo piece, or southern-style hoedown fiddle as part of the show, that kind of thing. He’d worked with some bluegrass bands in Ontario, done TV, etc.
In the late fifties he started his own band, The Birch Mountain Boys. Working at first in southwestern Nova Scotia, he teamed up with Brent Williams and Harry Cromwell, young African Canadians from his home county, Digby. They played bluegrass in the Maritimes for several years before Brent and Harry started playing country and Vic joined Messer.
Now Mullen was fronting his own national CBC TV country music show. He liked bluegrass and enjoyed playing it, but as a bandleader he chose it rarely. Most people in his audiences didn’t know the word “bluegrass” when they heard it and even if they liked it, it was just nice country music to them. Bluegrass was a niche genre. It had enthusiastic fans and great performers, but they were in a minority.
Vic was supportive of his old friend Fred; he understood Fred’s enthusiasm. He knew about BU and the bluegrass festivals that were happening in the States, but he didn’t think the festivals were going to catch on in Canada. Of Canadian bluegrass fans, he said that:
Altogether in a group, there’d be a lot of people. But they’re spread out from coast to coast and particularly between here and Ontario … there wouldn’t be enough people for an audience in any one area, it’d be just too far for them to get there.
Still, he was planning to be at Fred’s Jamboree. In our interview, Vic had given me an insider’s introduction to the world of Canadian country music. From him I heard for the first time many names and facts that would become familiar to me later. I was encouraged that a musician of his caliber, experience, and reputation would be there.
A week after the interview, I wrote Fred and told him I’d be catching the ferry to Nova Scotia on August 1, driving to Lantz the next day and staying to get acquainted. I explained that this was just the start of a crowded trip for “some hurried field research on bluegrass music … in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.” I closed by mentioning that I’d had a pleasant experience interviewing Vic.
Fred’s reply came a few days later. He was looking forward to my visit, he said, and then, referring to my earlier letter, told me the event would be a jamboree — “outdoors, just one evening.” Referring to a nearby farmer who held dances in his barn, Fred explained:
John Moxom is building an outdoor stage as soon as his hay is made and it appears now that we will be holding it either Friday, August 4th or August 11th. All the local bluegrass musicians are willing to help and take a chance on it being a flop. We hope to find out if there is enough interest to try something bigger and better next year. I know you have a busy schedule but if August 4th turns out to be the date we would sure like to have you present.
By the end of July 1972, I was headed first to visit Fred in rural Nova Scotia. Then I’d drive to New England, stopping near the border at Woodstock, New Brunswick, to see Don Messer’s Jubilee perform at a county fair, and then going to Vermont where my family was vacationing. After a short rest I’d be heading for West Virginia to join my photographer friend Carl Fleischhauer on the trip we described in Bluegrass Odyssey.
On August 1, I headed for the Canadian National ferry terminal in Argentia, Newfoundland, ready to sail west for some bluegrass.
Artist:Teddy and the Rough Riders Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Latest Album:Teddy and the Rough Riders Personal nicknames: TRR, Teddy
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
Well, since there are way too many artists who have had singular, exceptional influences on us, I’ll have to just pick one amongst many! But someone special that comes to mind for me is Bill Monroe. For me he took the song formula to the moon, maybe from speeding up Jimmie Rodgers and other traditionals to breakneck speeds, and singing as high as humanly possible. To me he breaks through bluegrass. As a creator he made these simple, beautiful melodies that can be felt beyond genre, as he certainly was in his day.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
Growing up in Nashville there was a plethora of rock house shows and gatherings. One in particular I was around 15 years old when I saw this band Jeff the Brotherhood, and they just had this stripped-down, two-piece, driving minimalist rock sound. The scene around them was exploding and I truly felt like I got to be a part of it right then and there. That made me believe I could actually play music. It took our buddy Carter setting up a honky-tonk night every Sunday 7-9 at Santa’s Pub in 2011 to be fully convinced to play real country music, though!
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
Jack and I love to rehearse singing together before a big show. I play mandolin and sing the high harmony, and Jack plays guitar and sings lower. But we do a huge Louvin Brothers routine, kind of doing the high lonesome, blood harmony thing. It’s just great practice and lets us all warm up solidly and relieve stress before a show.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
Nashville is surrounded by great hikes. We go to Sewanee, Tennessee, where a good many friends have family cabins out there. That will put a song in your mind, it’s a pretty special place. We all go out to Percy Priest Lake together and listen to music and sit in the sun and swim. We have access to canoes and a lot of our friends are good at efficiently camping. I definitely write songs about those experiences all the time.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
In Nashville there’s an exceptional Southern-style meat-and-three called Arnold’s Country Kitchen. Well, naturally we go there a good bit, but before his death, and for longer than I know probably, John Prine would go there every Thursday before a writing session and get the meatloaf. We’d go and see him ride in his huge black Escalade and go to town. So to me, John Prine and a big ole meatloaf and three sides from Arnold’s is the stuff of legend!
My series of memoirs on the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion closes with a gallery of snapshots taken during the day’s proceedings. I had a new Japanese automatic camera of the type then described as “point and shoot,” an Olympus Quick Shooter Zoom.
I returned home with a 25-shot 35mm film roll and immediately sent it to a budget speed processing outfit in Seattle. The prints returned (along with a new roll of film and a mailer) a few weeks later.
Unlike today, when you can monitor photos on your digital camera after every snap, in 1989 you had to wait for the prints to arrive to see what came out and what didn’t. Here’s what came out.
I started outside the concert site, Memorial Hall, in the afternoon before the concert — sound checks were going on inside — taking care to get a close shot of the Hall’s sign on one of Dayton’s busiest streets.
Inside the hall that day, the stage was being set. Working as a stagehand, I helped handle communications between director Don Baker and the evening’s performers. Moon Mullins and The Traditional Grass and the Osborne Brothers were parked outside in their own vehicles. I first visited Moon and the band in an RV with the name, “The Cabin,” on the door. He introduced me to the band members, including his son Joe. Then I visited the Osbornes.
I hadn’t seen the Osborne Brothers since a Saturday night three years before when I was in Nashville to promote my new book, Bluegrass: A History. They’d invited me to be their guest backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, where Sonny brought me onstage, introduced me and spoke about the book — a very generous act. During the concert I asked a fellow backstage bystander to take our photo. Born in 1937, Sonny passed away last fall; he is sadly missed.
At about the same time I noticed Fred Bartenstein and Tom Teepen nearby and asked them to pose for me. They were important figures in the discovery and revival of Dayton’s bluegrass scene. Recently, I sent this photo to Fred (original editor of Muleskinner News) and asked him for a caption:
National editorial correspondent Tom Teepen (1935-2017, left) wrote an evocative memoir in the concert program about his days as a Dayton bluegrass fan. Here he meets backstage with Fred Bartenstein, who helped plan and organize the event.
The rest of my photos were taken at the Canal Street Tavern after the concert.
The executive producer of the event, Phyllis Brzozowska ran CityFolk from the start until its end about ten years ago. Behind her on the left is Greg Allen of the Allen Brothers. The individual on the right was one of the crew that director Don Baker enlisted from his Lime Kiln Theater troupe to help backstage.
Doug Smith and his wife, Dayton Bluegrass Reunion researcher and writer Barb Kuhns (both members of The Corndrinkers, an old-time band still active today) posed with Don Baker, concert director and emcee.
Harley Allen, a veteran star of several bands, had performed in the concert with his brothers. At the center of Canal Street’s evening’s activities, he’s seen here surrounded by friends.
The peripatetic mandolin virtuoso, Frank Wakefield, then living in Saratoga Springs, New York, and working with a Cleveland-based bluegrass/swing outfit, was bouncing around the room. I’d first seen him in action onstage in 1962 (Bluegrass Generation, 124-25); he was still up to his onstage hijinks.
Meeting Noah Crase was a special treat. I’d first heard his music in the late ’50s on an obscure 45 record by Dave Woolum. The evening’s program included a picture of him playing with Bill Monroe along with two men I’d played with in Indiana myself, Roger Smith and Vernon McQueen. We swapped Blue Grass Boys stories.
Another special treat. I first ran across Porter Church’s recordings on Red Allen’s County LPs from the mid-’60s. He was well-known in the D.C./Baltimore area, but I didn’t get a chance to see him in action until the Reunion.
The Sacred Sounds of Grass (Norbert Dengler, guitar; Sam Hain, mandolin; Thilo Hain, banjo; Alfred Bonk, bass)
I didn’t take notes about my snapshots — all that remained in my memory of this group was that these young men were from Germany, played bluegrass gospel, and were on their first American tour. I sent a copy to Mark Stoffel, mandolin player with Chris Jones and the Night Drivers, who’s from Germany. He told me he “knew them well,” and sent the band’s name and contact information.
I wrote to banjoist Thilo Hain and asked him to describe the circumstances that brought the band to Dayton that evening, and their experiences at the concert and the reception. He explained:
In 1988 his brother Sam Hain saw an ad in New York instrument dealer Harry West‘s sales list for a 1922 Gibson Lloyd Loar once owned by Pee Wee Lambert and now owned by Frank Wakefield. Sam, interested, “rang Frank Wakefield up to ask him more details about this instrument.” Wakefield told Sam, “Better get that mandolin, before anybody else gets it.”
Sam then asked Frank if he was planning a reunion with Red Allen and his band. Wakefield told him about the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion scheduled for April 1989. Thilo remembered, “Frank finished with the words, ‘You better be there!'”
Sam missed out on getting the mandolin, but the band was there in Dayton for the concert. Red Allen arranged for their free admittance and took them backstage to “a meet and greet with all the musicians,” and suggested they perform at Canal Street. “Dee Sparks,” said Thilo, “was so kind to let Alfred play his bass for the show. Throughout our first U.S. tour we earned so many friendly comments, felt heartwarming hospitality from all the great musicians we visited at their homes and went back to Germany with a huge bag full of new impressions and experiences.”
A Google translation of the band’s history on their Facebook page reads: “Sacred Sounds Of Grass is the oldest active Bluegrass Band in Germany, founded in 1979. With their classic Bluegrass Sound the group is also considered the most authentic bluegrass band outside of the USA.”
Thirty-two years after their Canal Street Tavern performance, the same band lineup appears in a photo, also posted at their Facebook page, of them performing in a church in Adelberg, Germany this past August. Here’s a recording from a 2019 festival.
Wild & Blue (below) was mandolinist and fiddler David Harvey’s new band, formed November 1988. On this night, when they came onto the Canal Street stage, David had already played with the Allen Brothers. Born 1958 in Dayton and son of famous mandolin player Dorsey Harvey (1935-1988; see Industrial Strength Bluegrasspp. 150, 183), he’d grown up in Parkside, a postwar housing development, together with Red Allen‘s four sons as neighbors. Their fathers both played in bluegrass bands — they all learned at home, jamming together after school as teens. By summer 1972 David was playing festivals with Red Allen.
In 1974, at 17, Harvey dropped out of high school to help support the family as a professional musician, joining the Falls City Ramblers. Parkside was a decaying, crime-ridden, rustbelt housing project; David saw music as a way to a better life.
A Louisville-based band that played a lot in Southwest Ohio, the Ramblers were local favorites with the same crowds who listened to the Hotmud Family’s eclectic blend of bluegrass, old-time, blues and early county. The chapter “Beck Gentry” in Murphy Hicks Henry’s Pretty Good for a Girl:Women In Bluegrass (pp. 186-191) gives a good history of the band. David was with them, playing fiddle and mandolin, for five years. In 1977 Kentucky Educational Television aired one of their shows:
In 1979 Harvey moved to Colorado Springs, where his musical career continued in a group called The Reasonable Band. He entered and won several mandolin contests, establishing an enduring reputation for his skill and creativity. He also began working as a luthier.
He moved to Indianapolis in 1983 and for the next four and a half years he played on the road and recorded with Larry Sparks. His career as a luthier grew. In 1986 he met Jan Snider, who, with her younger sister Jill, had been playing bluegrass. Jan and David soon wed.
Wild & Blue brought lead singer Jan’s voice to the forefront, solo and in duets with Jill’s high harmonies. They began around the same time as a number of other bluegrass bands with female lead singers were coming on the scene like Alison Krauss, Lynn Morris, and Laurie Lewis. The band had a lot of energy, with David’s suave mandolin work and its female-dominated trios. They won the band contest at SPBGMA 1992 and moved to Nashville in 1995. By then they’d recorded albums for Vetco and Pinecastle. Wild & Blue lasted until 1999.
Harvey then worked with Larry Cordle (1999-2001), Claire Lynch (2002-07), and Harley Allen (2008-11). Meanwhile his luthier work in Nashville blossomed. He joined Gibson in 2004 and today as Master Luthier heads Gibson’s Original Acoustic Instruments division. Here’s a video (above) in which Dave introduces one of the mandolins he’s building and illustrates it with a tune he co-wrote with his dad, “Cruising Timber.”
As a small boy Harvey had watched and listened to his father and Frank Wakefield as they wrung out mandolin ideas at his home. He clearly enjoyed himself with Frank this evening.
I had watched the evening’s afterparty at Canal Street with old friends from Lexington, Kentucky: the late Marty Godbey, author of Crowe On The Banjo: The Musical Life of J.D. Crowe. Next to her, husband, writer, photographer and musician Frank Godbey, creator of two influential bluegrass digital lists, BGRASS-L and IBMA-L. Next to Frank is Tom Adler, folklorist, banjoist and author of Bean Blossom: The Brown County Jamboree and Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Festivals. And that’s my hat on the table.
Neil V. Rosenberg would like to thank: Fred Bartenstein, Phyllis Brzozowska, Nancy Cardwell, Frank Godbey, Thilo Hain, David Hedrick, and Mark Stoffel.
Del McCoury is a legend many times over. A snapshot from any period of his life would be enough to earn him a place in the history books. From his time playing with Bill Monroe in the early ‘60s to fronting his own band with his sons Rob and Ronnie McCoury, Del’s career is a triumph. The Del McCoury Band is the most-awarded band in IBMA history, and Del has been honored with a Grammy Award, induction into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, and a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Since moving to Nashville in the early ’90s, The Del McCoury Band has recorded more albums than they can remember. (Literally. I asked them and they couldn’t remember. It approaches near two dozen.) Their latest album, Almost Proud, furthers their musical legacy. In a visit with The Bluegrass Situation, Del McCoury and Ronnie McCoury talk about recording it during the pandemic, digging through a big box of submissions for material, and learning a trick from Jerry Douglas that they still use to this day.
BGS: Del, you’ve fronted a band for many decades and this version with your sons has been around since the ’90s. How has the process of picking the material and arranging it changed over that course of time?
Del: Well, I’ll tell you, we used to do a lot of prep before we went in the studio, years ago when it was just me and the band. But now the boys have their own band and they’re a lot busier now. For the last several records, I just kind of picked the material and I’ll try to find the right key and tempo and all those things. And we won’t even have a rehearsal or anything until we get in the studio. We just mainly do all of the hard work in the studio after we’re in there.
I’ve always been in awe of how this band not only picks great material but also plays it in a way that makes it unique and often an instant bluegrass classic, no matter the original genre. What goes into how you pick material?
Ronnie: I still don’t know what Dad’s going to like. I found “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” through a guy named Dick Bowden. He gave me a tape of it after the band had played a show. It was just Richard Thompson playing solo guitar on a radio show. Dick said he thought it’d be a good song to cover and as soon as I heard it and the fingerstyle guitar I thought, “Wow, this could be good.” Well, I took it to Dad, and he passed on it for the record we were making. But then the next record, he pulled it out and said, “You know, I’ve been listening and I think that would make a pretty good song.” So, like I said, I don’t know what’s going to hit him and when it will.
But with my dad, it doesn’t matter what he plays or sings. Number one, it’s going to have strong guitar rhythm. Number two, it’s going to be his voice. Through the years, I figured he can sing about anything. For example, when he played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, everybody was like, “I wonder how this is going to work.” Well, he just opens his mouth and does what he does, and it is what it is, and it’s great! People will pigeonhole others for their style of singing. My dad’s got a high lonesome sound, but it always seems to work.
My dad taught us how to have that feel and the elements of first generation bluegrass. The drive, how to play fast and when you need to, how not to overplay, and how to back up behind a singer, things like that. People don’t always have a teacher that really knows that stuff, so it sometimes doesn’t come easily or at all. We were just lucky to have this guy who was so well-rounded. A great guitar player but a banjo player first and such a good singer. He can sing any part, and he loves to sing bass, too.
Those elements are all very present in this band for sure. The fiddle is a very lyrical instrument to begin with but I’ve always particularly considered Ronnie’s mandolin playing and Rob’s banjo playing to be a really interesting combination of melodic/lyrical and still very traditional sounding.
Del: Yeah, I know what you mean. They don’t strictly depend on melodic notes to do something, but they make their style work around the melody that they’re trying to play. They do that. They try to keep it fairly simple.
It’s very masterful, the subtlety of all of it. I imagine you had a hand in guiding them when they were younger.
Del: I tell you, I never even thought about my sons playing music. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I just didn’t. Maybe it’s because when I was learning to play, I had a lot of cousins. They’d hear me and they’d want to learn to play, and I’d show them something. And then, of course, next week they’d be into baseball or something else. They forgot about music that quick. And I guess I thought they might also lose interest in this music. But they never did. Rob started playing banjo when he’s about 9. Of course, I started playing guitar when I was 9, too. My older brother taught me the chords. But I was not really all that interested in playing until I heard Earl Scruggs. I was about 11 then. And that really switched something up in my brain.
But my boys, they were always around music. Ronnie played violin in school when he was really young, but he also was in Little League and he was their star pitcher. And you know what happened? His violin teacher told me, “He’s really doing good on this.” And I said, “Really?” She said, “Yeah, he learned so fast.” Well, it comes to where there is going to be a recital in school at the same time there’s going to be a big Little League baseball game. And he was supposed to be in both of them. He chose the baseball game. And, oh, his teacher called! She was so disheartened because he was one of her finest students. But he kind of forgot about music just for a little while.
And I took him with me to New York City. I was playing a show and Bill Monroe was one of the acts there. It was during Ronnie’s school vacation between Christmas and New Year’s so I brought him with me. Bill took an interest in Ronnie. He put his hat on him and he put his mandolin in his lap and he said, “Now you play me something on this mandolin.” I didn’t think nothing about it at the time. But when we got back home, Ronnie asked if he could have this old mandolin I carried around on the bus. And once Ronnie got that mandolin, he never laid it down.
Well, now those guys, when they did start learning to play on their own, I could hear them in my spare time—I was pretty busy in those days. And I hear them playing and I could tell they were missing a note here and there and I’d just tell them where to find it and then let them go on their own. I just didn’t bother them much. Boy, they learned fast.
That’s great. I think all of that is a big part of the sound but there’s something about the arrangements that has always made you all stand out, I think.
Ronnie: As far as arranging things, when we got to Nashville and did that first record, Jerry Douglas produced it and one of the first things that we did still sticks with me. I wound up singing “A Deeper Shade of Blue.” Flux is the one that gave us the beginning and end of it, this lick. And I was like, “Oh, wow, we can put a lick on tunes.” I was just so straight-ahead that I had never even thought to do that. I credit Flux with opening my ears to that because he’s so musical.
That is interesting because that kind of thing is usually associated with pop-adjacent music. Your music is so traditional but having those hooks does make the songs stick in your mind.
Ronnie: It probably also comes from listening to all kinds of music. I’m a product of the ‘80s. When I was in school I was hearing all of the rock and newer stuff that was being played on the radio. I never gravitated to it as much as I probably did to Southern rock. We loved the twin guitars of the Allman Brothers. What’s interesting is that those guys were listening to this stuff. Dickey Betts was a bluegrass fan and I remember he and Vassar had a duet thing. They used to play together in Florida.
That makes sense. There’s a full-circle element there as well. The Allman Brothers are sort of the prototypical jam band and now you guys are playing shows with Greensky, The String Cheese Incident, Railroad Earth, etc.
Ronnie: You’re right about that. Part of the reason we got into that world we’re in is that there’s already a Del McCoury Band, and we wanted to do something different, but we couldn’t call it the “Del-less McCoury Band.” So we had to do something that was different sounding. When I grew up I had no idea that mandolin players were doing anything but what Bill Monroe did. I was around 15 years old when the Dawg came out with that first record, the David Grisman Quintet album with Tony Rice on it.
The arrangements and playing on there were really influential and all that stuff squeaks into your music. You’re a product of what you hear, I guess. Those guys changed so much. There’s the guys that don’t get credit on the banjo like Bobby Thompson and then the next guy was Bill Keith. From Bill Keith comes [Tony] Trischka and Béla [Fleck], and it just moves on. But the Dawg, man, he was kind of the first one to take the Monroe and Wakefield stuff and stir it up like that. I’m a big proponent for him to be in the Hall of Fame.
The ensemble abilities of this group are some of the best in the business. Having so much family in the band lends itself to that, but Jason Carter and now Alan Bartram have been in the band so long I imagine that you all can anticipate what each other will do next.
Del: That’s true. It makes it easier, because I think we all kind of think alike and are satisfied in what we’re doing. And I’ll tell you something, I think it helps keep them interested. Like on live shows, we never have a set list, and they never know what’s coming next. When we get on stage, we just go up there and do a few tunes. I like to introduce each member of the band. I’ll let them tune or choose a song to sing after I get the four of them introduced. Then a lot of times we just start doing requests from the audience, and all through the set, we’ll try to work in things that we just recorded or had released, whatever. But for the most part, we’re doing requests from the audience. They know that when they go up on stage, they don’t know what’s happening next, and I don’t either, but that’s kind of the fun of it.
You are a link to those older traditions, and those were a lot more about performing than making records and stuff. It seems to me that performing and being an entertainer is what’s important to you.
Del: You know, I think it probably is because that’s what you do most. You’re never in a studio that long but before the pandemic we’d be out every week doing a show. I like talking to the audience. I think they entertain me more than I entertain them. For example, I ask them questions, like, “What would you like to hear next?” And what entertains me is they’ll request a song, but they get one word wrong or two in the title of the song.
For instance, we get a lot of requests for “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” and what people have problems with is the year. So, I say back to them, “Well, I don’t know that song.” And then it gets real quiet and they’ll think, “Well, I know he knows that song because he’s got it on a record.” I let them wonder for a little bit before I’ll say, “Well, now, look, I know a song entitled ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning,’” and then they’re relieved and I’ll play it for them. But just little things like that. They’re so funny. People are funny if you listen to them. They will entertain you.
You guys have put out so many records. Is there anything that makes this one stand out or feel special to you?
Ronnie: Well, probably the fact that during a pandemic, my dad worked and he sat down and listened to like 150 songs or something. He didn’t just rest on his laurels. We got him a tape recorder, a nicer one, that he could record his ideas on because he felt more comfortable working with a tape machine.
Del: All through the years, people have sent or given me songs while we were on the road. A lot of the time, I just throw them in a box and say, “Well, when I get time, I’ll listen to them, see what they are.” So, when this pandemic hit that spring, I thought, “Wow, I’ll get all those things out and listen to them.” And then I picked out certain songs and I started to work on them.
Ronnie: During this time, we’re wearing masks and sitting outside doing our radio show six feet apart and not going in the house. Everybody’s worried about my parents so we were careful. But he worked on this stuff and he wrote some songs. So, what’s special to me are just good memories, really. Just being able to be in a studio with Dad in the middle of a pandemic and getting it done and not having so much wasted time. … The hardest thing through the pandemic for me to see, besides the tragedies where people lost their lives to this stuff, was seeing my dad in his golden years, not being able to do what he wanted to do, which is to travel and play for the people. He knocks us all out with how he can play and sing at this age.
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.
Ronnie: He knocks me out. I can’t get over it. Like I said, it was amazing to be able to go in and do this record through all this and that his health is still with him. So I’m just proud of that. “Almost Proud,” you could say, ha ha.
Artist:Mike Compton Hometown: Meridian, Mississippi (same as Jimmie Rodgers) Song: “Orange Blossom Breakdown” Album:Rare & Fine: Uncommon Tunes of Bill Monroe Release Date: March 5, 2022 Label: Taterbug Records
In Their Words: “In the late ’70s I was living in Nashville and really began to build up a collection of obscure Bill Monroe music. I had a bunch of cassette tapes full of tunes shared from like-minded enthusiasts I met on the music scene. By the time the internet came around in the 1990s, it was staggering the amount of Monroe music that was out there: rehearsal tapes, festival performances, jam sessions. My Monroe source material had accelerated into an incredible collection. After he passed in 1996, I knew I needed to put out this project at some point. ‘Orange Blossom Breakdown’ came from a tape an old friend from New England sent me. It sounded like a home recording off the radio. It was Bill Monroe on the Opry in the 1940s. The quality is poor. The signal is cutting in and out. I was drawn to it because I had never heard it before. I don’t think hardly anyone has. It’s a very unusual arrangement for Monroe, and I’ve never heard him do anything quite like it. I had to listen to it a few times to piece together the song because the recording was just fits and starts, but it was enough where I could get it. Never heard it again anywhere since.” — Mike Compton
The image of bluegrass is mountain music played and heard at high altitudes and towns like Deep Gap and remote mountain hollers across the Appalachians. But the earliest form of the music originated at lower elevations, in textile towns across the North Carolina Piedmont. As far back as the 1920s, old-time string bands like Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers were playing an early form of the music in textile towns, like Gastonia, Spray, and Shelby – in Cleveland County west of Charlotte.
In this second episode of Carolina Calling, a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it, we visit the small town of Shelby: a seemingly quiet place, like most small Southern towns one might pass by in their travels. Until you see the signs for the likes of the Don Gibson Theatre and the Earl Scruggs Center, you wouldn’t guess that it was the town that raised two of the most influential musicians and songwriters in bluegrass and country music: Earl Scruggs, one of the most important musicians in the birth of bluegrass, whose banjo playing was so innovative that it still bears his name, “Scruggs style,” and Don Gibson, one of the greatest songwriters in the pop & country pantheon, who wrote “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Sweet Dreams,” and other songs you know by heart. For both Don Gibson and Earl Scruggs, Shelby is where it all began.
Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, Asheville, and more.
Music featured in this episode:
Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers – “Take a Drink On Me” Flatt & Scruggs – “Ground Speed” Don Gibson – “I Can’t Stop Loving You” Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler” (Carolina Calling Theme) Hedy West – “Cotton Mill Girl” Blind Boy Fuller – “Rag Mama, Rag” Don Gibson – “Sea Of Heartbreak” Patsy Cline – “Sweet Dreams ” Ray Charles – “I Can’t Stop Loving You” Ronnie Milsap – “(I’d Be) A Legend In My Time” Elvis Presley – “Crying In The Chapel” Hank Snow – “Oh Lonesome Me” Don Gibson – “Sweet Dreams” Don Gibson – “Oh Lonesome Me” Chet Atkins – “Oh Lonesome Me” Johnny Cash – “Oh, Lonesome Me” The Everly Brothers – “Oh Lonesome Me” Neil Young – “Oh Lonesome Me” Flatt & Scruggs – “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” Bill Preston – “Holy, Holy, Holy” Flat & Scruggs – “We’ll Meet Again Sweetheart” Snuffy Jenkins – “Careless Love” Bill Monroe – “Uncle Pen” Bill Monroe – “It’s Mighty Dark To Travel” The Earl Scruggs Revue – “I Shall Be Released” The Band – “I Shall Be Released” Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” The Country Gentlemen – “Fox On The Run” Sonny Terry – “Whoopin’ The Blues” Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee – “Born With The Blues (Live)” Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”
BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.
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