Oh Snap. It’s Bill Monroe.
Reuben’s Train, a slightly different version than the one I know. Oh snap! Vic Jordan on banjo!
A Voice From on High. The audio sync is off, but guaranteed this is live. Bill didn’t do lip sync-ing.
Wicked old footage of “Uncle Pen”
Bill Monroe is like a god to me. Bluegrass music changed my life, and Bill Monroe invented bluegrass music. Every year I go to bluegrass festivals, and my favorites are almost always those final few first-generation performers. I saw Jim and Jesse twice, back when there was a Jim: he passed on almost five years back. I’m going to digress a moment and state that I’ll be damned if Jesse hasn’t gone on full-steam ahead. When I saw him at Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival in summer 2003 (2004?), he followed Lynn Morris, who was recovering from a stroke. Lynn followed Bob Paisley and the Southern Grass in what was to be Bob’s last season before he passed on from cancer, when his son and longtime partner Dan took over his role: as you may imagine, Bob was really sick, and it showed. [And my I digress for one more moment? Dan Paisley and Southern Grass are hands down the best traditional bluegrass band out there today. THE BEST.] It was really sad: I don’t even care for Lynn Morris’s music, but I was sad because the bluegrass scene is small and there are fewer degrees of separation. Two winters ago I wound up at Bob Paisley’s funeral because a friend of a friend who was recuperating from a heart attack needed a lift. I know his banjo player pretty well too.
So knowing that Jesse’s brother had just died, I was ready for another sad set: when Jesse bounded out on stage and put on the full J&J show with Charles Whitstein, whose tenor is more than comparable to Jim’s, it blew my mind. It’s not like Jim wasn’t present: Jesse talked about his brother but the show was definitely not some sort of tribute. Great stuff. Incredible, vital music. At 70-whatever, Jesse McReynolds had the energy of a much younger man.
I never got to see Bill Monroe: he died just after I’d gotten into bluegrass. And so are a lot of others: we lost Jimmy Martin a few years back. Wade Mainer, now that guy is still kicking well into his ninetiess. Charlie Waller, he passed on. Curly Sechler’s still alive though, gotta be in his eighties, Earl’s still alive.
It’s sad to see these legends go, but look what they’ve left behind. But anyway…
Bluegrass music changed my life. It fundamentally changed the way I play the bass, my main instrument, and also informed my acoustic picking and songwriting styles. To this day, I can’t pick and sing blues or rock at the same time, but bluegrass and country is a snap. My lead and harmony singing is nothing but old time and bluegrass lonesome.
Yeah, that’s about all i got there…
