Monroe's Mando - Before the beating

[dcoventry]

I'm new, so I have to ask....

what in the heck are people talking about "before the beating" or "after the beating"? I looked around and couldn't find anything, and yes, I'll read the books. But can any of you help a newbie out? Thanks.

Dave C.

[Tristan Arnett]

Monroe's mandolin was stolen and busted to pieces, and then put back together. Thats what they are referring to when they say that.

[AlanN]

Actually, someone entered Monroes' home, smashed two Loars with a fire place poker, left the pieces laying there.

[Ed Goist]

Hi Dave:
The "beating" = being smashed by a fireplace poker.
Here's an an informative article. (The underlining is mine and it addresses your question).

WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 22, 2002

Devoted Bluegrass Fan Bets a Million On Bill Monroe's Legendary Mandolin

By WILL PINKSTON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

ROSINE, Ky. -- During the half-century that bluegrass master Bill Monroe wielded his mandolin, it was run over by a car, drenched with rain and beaten to pieces by a vandal. Yet through it all, thanks to repeated repairs, the instrument survived as a seemingly indestructible force in bluegrass music.

Originally designed as a delicate orchestral instrument, Mr. Monroe's eight-string Gibson F-5 model became an acoustic shotgun, firing off syncopated rounds through a wilderness of banjos, fiddles and guitars. His driving rhythms and the mandolin's deep timbre shaped country music and helped lay the groundwork for rock 'n' roll. The B-side of Elvis Presley's first single carried an up-tempo version of Mr. Monroe's classic "Blue Moon of Kentucky."

Bluegrass diehards view the coffee-colored instrument as the closest earthly connection to Mr. Monroe, who had reached legendary status by the time he died in 1996. Country artist Ricky Skaggs likens the F-5 to a rare Stradivarius. Kyle Young, head of Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, says it is "one of maybe a half-dozen artifacts that really tell the story of American music." Lizzie Lewis, an 84-year-old fan in Florida, recalls, "That mandolin was just music to your ears whenever you heard it."

But no one is more enamored with the maple-and-spruce instrument -- and with Mr. Monroe -- than Campbell Mercer. A former farm veterinarian, Mr. Mercer last year organized a nonprofit group to restore the old Monroe family farm here in Rosine, an impoverished coal-mining community in western Kentucky. Then he surprised the country-music world by agreeing to buy the mandolin from Mr. Monroe's son for $1.125 million -- more than double the highest-known amount previously paid for an American-made string instrument. His plan: to enshrine it in a museum in Rosine.

"Part of Bill's soul stays in that instrument," says Mr. Mercer, 44 years old, who as a teenager once touched the mandolin backstage at a concert. "I knew we just had to have it." But first he has to finish paying for it, and that is no small chore.

All this for an instrument that Mr. Monroe bought used for about $150 out of a Miami barbershop window in the early 1940s. Built in 1923, the mandolin was among a new breed of roughly 300 revolutionary F-5 models produced by Gibson Guitar Corp., then based in Kalamazoo, Mich., and now in Nashville, Tenn. The F-5 was the fifth model in Gibson's "Florentine" series of mandolins. Drawing on classical violin design, Gibson stretched the mandolin's neck about an inch and eliminated the sound chamber's traditional center hole in favor of two F-shaped openings that produce a more acoustically resonant sound.

"The F-5 just roars," says Nashville guitar and mandolin dealer George Gruhn. "You can whack it hard, and it puts out a barking blast of sound on these chords that no other mandolin can do."

The powerful tone was perfect for the blend of blues, jazz and ancestral Scottish highland sounds heard in Mr. Monroe's bluegrass music. "If you're really in a tight spot, you've got a powerful crowd or a big auditorium, that mandolin will always come through for you," the musician said in the 1970s. "It's got plenty of volume and it carries good, and if you want to soften up, it's got a beautiful tone." In an old fiddler's tradition, he dropped a rattlesnake tail inside the chamber to maintain a crisp tone by keeping dust from settling there.

People who witnessed the partnership between Mr. Monroe and the F-5 claim that Mr. Monroe's punctuated single notes affected the mandolin's wood, somehow making it a better instrument. "Daddy played his greatness into that mandolin," says James Monroe, his son.

As Mr. Monroe's fame spread throughout the '40s and '50s, so did the mandolin's legend. Once, the musician poured rainwater out of the instrument following an outdoor show. Another time, he fell from the stage at a music festival and broke off a small wooden scroll. On another occasion, a car accidentally backed over the instrument while it was in its case, leaving a fissure that still is faintly visible.

Mr. Monroe purposefully inflicted one wound early in his career around 1950. Furious at the manufacturer over what he considered a botched repair job, the hot-tempered musician cut the inlaid mother-of-pearl "Gibson" name from the mandolin's headstock with his pocketknife. Eventually, the singer and the company made amends, and Gibson repaired the damage free of charge.

The F-5's toughest test came in late 1985, when a vandal broke into Mr. Monroe's home near Nashville and smashed the instrument to bits with a fireplace poker. Some people speculated that a vindictive former love interest assaulted the instrument to get back at Mr. Monroe. Son James Monroe says: "It never was clear who did it."

Grief-stricken, Mr. Monroe picked up nearly 250 fragments and delivered them in a sack to Gibson craftsman Charlie Derrington. Mr. Derrington toiled four months reassembling the mandolin, at times working under a microscope gluing down loose splinters. When the instrument emerged, it looked like new.

By the time Mr. Monroe gave his last performance on March 15, 1996, at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, his fingertips had worn a depression in the mandolin's smooth face, and his pick had chipped the veneer down to naked spruce. The next day, the white-haired musician had a stroke. Six months later, he died, four days before his 85th birthday. He left the mandolin to son, James, also a bluegrass musician, who says he is selling it in part to help cover inheritance taxes on his father's estate. The instrument is locked in a suburban Nashville bank vault, waiting on Mr. Mercer, the former veterinarian.

About a year ago, his eastern Kentucky veterinary practice already cut back due to his chronic back problems, Mr. Mercer decided on a career change: organizing the nonprofit Bill Monroe Foundation. To manage the group full-time, he has temporarily moved his wife and two children into a 34-foot RV parked outside the old farmhouse where Mr. Monroe grew up.

One of his first tasks: to persuade James Monroe to hold off on plans to auction the mandolin. Last April, he committed the foundation to pay $1.125 million within 18 months. The foundation made a 10% down payment funded by a local industrial-development group.

The price tag raised eyebrows in country-music circles. The highest-known sum ever paid for an American-made string instrument was $497,500 offered at auction in 1999 by billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who bought an electric guitar used by rock legend Eric Clapton. The Smithsonian Institution and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum each sought the Monroe mandolin, but neither was willing to pay that much. "It's an incredible icon of American music," says Smithsonian staffer Gary Sturm. "But we weren't going to go into competition to buy it."

Mr. Mercer downplays the price. "If you came out and said, 'I've got the bat that Babe Ruth hit all his home runs on,' what would that be worth?" he asks. "It's just priceless."

The challenge is paying it off by October. Private fund raising is moving slowly, and Mr. Mercer has appealed to the state of Kentucky for help. At the request of local civic leaders, Gov. Paul Patton is requesting $234,000 for Mr. Mercer's foundation this year. Even though the state is facing hard times with revenue shortfalls, Mr. Mercer thinks lawmakers will earmark the funds. "It would be like France not giving money to preserve the Eiffel Tower," he says.

Mr. Mercer is also preparing to sell souvenir stock certificates for as little as $25 to bluegrass fans who want to own a piece of the mandolin. He says he'll even sell a few head of his cattle to meet an upcoming installment if he has to.

James Monroe declines to say whether he would be open to extending the time limit. And there's still the matter of attracting fans to Rosine (population 65), which has no interstate highway and no hotel.

But on a recent day Mr. Mercer appeared unfazed. He describes Rosine as a potential Disneyland for bluegrass tourists, complete with music festivals and ox-and-cart tours of the Monroe family farm. He envisions the legendary F-5 rolling into town in an armored car in the middle of a homecoming parade.

"There's right and there's wrong," Mr. Mercer says. "What's right is for it to come home to rest with Bill Monroe."

[Scotti Adams]

http://home.comcast.net/~ukecat/mand...dos8bill6.html

[JEStanek]

Two of Monroe's Loar mandolins were damaged by an un-named person (presumably a scorned lover) with a firepoker. The pieces were brought to Gibson and Charlie Derrington painstakingly separated the splinters and reassmbled both mandolins. Bill's primary mandolin (Jul 9th, 1923 Loar) now resides in the Country Music Hall of Fame and the whereabouts of the other is unkown.

Jamie

[dcoventry]

Everybody,

Thanks for the background info. I did a cursory search and hadn't come up with much when I realized I should just ask here.

I shudder at the thought of destroying any instrument, but a cute little mando. Barbaric, say I.


Dave

[barry k]

Who was the person that brought the pieces of those remaining mandolins to Gibson and Charlie to repair? I would think someone out there knows where the other mandolin is...hmmm

[Scotti Adams]

Who was the person that brought the pieces of those remaining mandolins to Gibson and Charlie to repair? I would think someone out there knows where the other mandolin is...hmmm

Good one Barry..I dont believe that question has ever been posed. Who did bring the pieces to Charlie?

[allenhopkins]

Good one Barry..I dont believe that question has ever been posed. Who did bring the pieces to Charlie?

All that Richard Smith's Monroe biography says is, "The two mandolins were packed up and taken to the new Gibson factory in Nashville, along with a paper bag full of pieces of broken wood. The latter action was well-intentioned and nearly disastrous: Gibson craftsman Charles Derrington was presented not only with the wrecks of the instruments but about 150 mixed slivers of wood. There was no immediate way of telling which piece had come from which mandolin." (p. 259) Smith's sources appear to be articles in the Nashville Tennessean.

[AlanN]

Yah, clearly this was not treated like a crime scene. Police 101 says 'Don't touch anything!'

[MikeEdgerton]

If I'm not mistaken it has been posted here before that Monroe took the pieces to Gibson and I know it's been posted that Monroe picked up both mandolins (not at the same time). Joe Vest knows the answer to both questions and I'm sure will chime in.

Although the person that smashed it has not been named here it was a person known to Monroe and is a person known to certain cafe members. It has been hinted that Monroe would not give up the person that did the deed. In other words, it's not a complete mystery.

What we find when we look for it. Check out this thread.

[barry k]

Monroe did not take the pieces to Gibson , Bill wanted someone else to do the work.

[Mandoist]

Although the person that smashed it has not been named here it was a person known to Monroe and is a person known to certain cafe members. It has been hinted that Monroe would not give up the person that did the deed. In other words, it's not a complete mystery.this[/URL] thread.

That's some of the worst 'hearsay' I've read in quite some time. Anybody says they know the person(s) is fibbin'...

...and it was more than one person (or Andre the Giant?) at the farmhouse that day, since a small safe of Bill's was found down the road, tossed aside and unfazed.

[MikeEdgerton]

Perhaps you should call out those in the thread I linked to that say they know who it was. Then maybe you can argue it out with them. Until then I'll stand by what others have said and take your comment with the grain of salt I'm taking it with.

[Mandoist]

Perhaps you should call out those in the thread I linked to that say they know who it was. Then maybe you can argue it out with them. Until then I'll stand by what others have said and take your comment with the grain of salt I'm taking it with.

...and a pinch of pepper!

[Scotti Adams]

Now now...lets all play nicely. The CSI fan I am has got me wondering too.

[MikeEdgerton]

Look, in that thread that's linked to (that isn't the only place this has been discussed) there is at least one person (and possibly more) saying they had conversations with Bill about the subject. I'll be honest. I place more trust in that than in someone that jumps in and simply scoffs at it with nothing to back it up. I do think the the person that did it is known to members of the cafe. I don't pretend to know who that is, nor do I have any great curiosity on who it might be. It's simply part of the story that is Bill Monroe. To simply dismiss others that have a history with the subject is small minded. That's not playing badly, that's simply stating the obvious. If they are wrong simply present what you have that refutes that.

[Bernie Daniel]

Look, in that thread that's linked to (that isn't the only place this has been discussed) there is at least one person (and possibly more) saying they had conversations with Bill about the subject. I'll be honest. I place more trust in that than in someone that jumps in and simply scoffs at it with nothing to back it up. I do think the the person that did it is known to members of the cafe. I don't pretend to know who that is, nor do I have any great curiosity on who it might be. It's simply part of the story that is Bill Monroe. To simply dismiss others that have a history with the subject is small minded. That's not playing badly, that's simply stating the obvious. If they are wrong simply present what you have that refutes that.

As Mike notes this topic has come up more than once and at several individuals have said they know and it would seem clearly to be the case each had a long-term personal relationship (friendship) with Monroe when he was living. They have further stated (and have not equivocated either) that they know who did it was a female.

Clearly the person who did it must, for some reason, have the sympathy or empathy of those who know the situation because they keep the secret of this (IMO) dastardly deed. Alternatively, maybe those who know feel that since Monroe himself named no one publicly they won't either.

Personally, I believe people should be held responsible for their criminal behavior without a sexual preference. I wonder if a male had become angry about how Monroe treated him (and as I read his biographies, that happened more than once) and then that same man had then decide to smash up two Loars, would the same kind of cover would be given to him? I say not likely.

So it seems like a misplaced double standard to me -- but I wasn't there -- and I'm not making judgments just giving an opinion. I do think folks have a right to express their opinions about the matter however as Monroe was certainly a public figure.

[Mandoist]

Believing second-hand information as to who-knew-whom and what is a big assumption...a huge assumption...just because they say so, or touted their longstanding friendships. I don't feel a need to justify or qualify my relationship with Bill Monroe over this subject and won't.

But suffice it to say there were several candidates who could have been suspects at that period in Bill's life. He did set himself up for some potential trouble, no doubt about it. Some of those candidates were listed as suspects in the police reports. Nothing panned out due to lack of solid evidence.

The "knowledge" that it was a female probably comes from the first (or second?) newspaper article that was printed regarding the incident. The rumor from the writer's unnamed source was that it was Monroe's most recent ex-wife. Police determined she was not even in the state of Tennessee at the time. End of rumor (until now?).

Still, no one seems to recall the small safe that was undamaged and thrown to the side of the road. No one man could have carried it, certainly no woman. That was in the police report, and Bill confirmed it as well, but I'm not certain it ever made the news?

Moderate at will. All I wanted to do was discount those who say they know for a fact who did the who-done-it. Because, from my perspective, no one does, Bill did not, and unless the perpetrator confesses, no one ever will know.

Too bad all this kind of stuff (plus the fiasco of a court case in Ohio County, KY over the Monroe name, land ownership, etc) is going on in this year of celebration of what would have been Monroe's 100th. Can't imagine the testimony of "friends who know" once the Monroe-Bessie Lee movie plays out!

[Bernie Daniel]

You do provide an interesting counter point of view that I have not heard expressed before Kevin. Thanks.

Its true I've never heard anyone mention a safe being stolen at the break-in and I do not recall it being mentioned in the biographies either.

Upon reflection however does it seem plausible that some person (persons?) would enter a house for the purposes of theft -- and then smash up two very valuable mandolins that weigh a few pounds apiece (instead of stealing them) and choose instead to walk out dragging a massively heavy safe? This does not seem logical to me? Was this a crime of theft or revenge?

Also, however I do concede the possibility that, as you say, someone who states that they know who did something may really be saying "I'm pretty sure I know". This might explain why no one really points a finger and names names because they don't REALLY know?

[MikeEdgerton]

Still, no one seems to recall the small safe that was undamaged and thrown to the side of the road. No one man could have carried it, certainly no woman. That was in the police report, and Bill confirmed it as well, but I'm not certain it ever made the news?

Let's look at the safe that no one has ever mentioned before and seems to pique your interest. What exactly does that safe mean to you?

[Ed Goist]

"Before the Beating" would be a great name for a band or an album.

[Mandoist]

Let's look at the safe that no one has ever mentioned before and seems to pique your interest. What exactly does that safe mean to you?

Now that presumption is "silly" ...even for my sense of humor. If I needed that sort of 'help' I would pay a professional for it.

But before I leave this thread, only to lurk while it lasts... I mentioned the safe because anyone claiming knowledge and personal friendships should oughtta know about it. If they don't, then it should be kinda obvious what else they don't know.

[MikeEdgerton]

So let me get this right. You don't want to have the conversation about this "smoking gun" you have brought up. You had a chance to change my mind, but it appears that rather than getting into this you'd rather simply dismiss everything everyone else has said and everyone should take what you say at it's face value. OK, I'm good with that. Just a thought, maybe the person that was so angry with Bill that they smashed the things they knew would hurt him most wasn't there alone. Your revelation doesn't change anything really. I'm done.