Curative Talk For a True Life

By Bill Graham - Special for the Mandolin Cafe
September 10, 2009 - 5:45 am

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Bill Graham is a freelance outdoor writer, photographer, bluegrass musician and singer-songwriter.

I loved Bill Monroe more after I finished reading Richard D. Smith's controversial biography about him.

That's why I defend Smith's work published in 2000, "Can't You Hear Me Calling, The Life of Bill Monroe."

A scenario I witnessed in the 1980s as Monroe left his tour bus punctured my reverence and left me uncertain about him. The same occurred for many in the bluegrass music world.

What some view as Smith tarnishing a reputation was instead for me a restoration of lost dignity. But only time and more biographies will present a clearer view, and consensus may never exist because so much opinion depends on the deeply personal feelings within the witness.

Monroe's long and varied life coupled with his profound music and contradictory personal characteristics makes him a very difficult biography subject. He was born into 19th century culture on Sept. 13, 1911, and he died at age 84 on Sept. 9, 1996, having experienced the space age and hearing talk about computers changing the world. As an artist, he was known worldwide but somewhat obscure at the same time.

I respect anyone willing to tackle the big chore of describing Monroe's life.

But my appreciation for Smith's book includes: the fact that I enjoyed reading it; I learned a lot I didn't know before; what I did already know was put into better context, and—he tackled Monroe's personal life in ways that explained much to me and soothed my uncertain feelings toward him.

These opinions won't increase my popularity.

Many people in bluegrass loath Smith's book. Those who are the most emotional detest the emphasis that Smith put on Monroe's relationships with women, those close to him and those who were sexual flings. Smith counters that the women in his life are important to understanding the wellspring of Monroe's music.

Other critics simply wanted more in a biography about his music and songs, his childhood influences, Monroe's happy moments and more praise for his continued musical creativity and recording in his final decades.

Bill Graham, left, with Bill Monroe at the 1986 Shady Hills Bluegrass Festival in the Missouri Ozarks. Photo credit: Bill Graham. Click to enlarge.

Some who interacted with him through the years contend that Smith didn't get to know the real Bill.

Although, the mandolin-playing Smith began following bluegrass in 1963, he first heard Monroe on concert in 1966, and he first talked to him in 1970. Backstage at one show, Monroe noticed him trying to follow his fingerings on a tune, so Bill ran though it slowly so he could learn it. In the early 1970s Smith's band went to Bean Blossom and wound up helping Monroe move straw bales and talking to him. At a concert in New York, there was a jam and Smith shared a microphone with Monroe. Plus he interviewed him for a 1980s Bluegrass Unlimited story. So they weren't total strangers.

Still, there were fierce criticisms regarding fact errors, context and other matters leveled at Smith in a multi-gun broadside against the book in the Spring 2001 issue of "True Life News," edited by West Coast bluegrasser Sandy Rothman. Today, Rothman says a bit of the emotion has ebbed, but the general distrust of Smith's work remains.

I'll leave the error contentions for Smith to defend and future scholars to discuss.

But something in one paragraph that Tom Ewing wrote is important to discuss for this biography and those to come. Ewing, a Bluegrass Boy in Monroe's final decade or so of performing, was among Smith's harshest critics in "True Life News," and says he feels even more strongly so now as he works on his own biography of Monroe.

Ewing wrote that the portrait Smith painted could make people no longer care how talented and influential Monroe was musically, that readers including young musicians could think less of Monroe, and worse, turn their backs on bluegrass music.

I respect Ewing's loyalty and his personal and professional experience with Monroe. But I disagree with him on this point, because Monroe himself had already damaged his public reputation. Hiding the issues only worsened the wound.

Musicians only talked about Monroe's music when I began to listen to him in depth in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, I was a rabid fan. The first time I ever heard him live, in 1982, I was blown away by him and the band. I interviewed him that day for a newspaper story and came away impressed.

A friend on the same musical journey told me about seeing Monroe at an Eminence, Mo., festival and how he was the epitome of the old time southern gentleman.

To me his music, his stubborn nature, the scratching of the Gibson logo off his mandolin—it all took me back to my grandparents Ozark farm and other rural Missouri places. My grandparents married as teenagers and never strayed in their love. Monroe seemed safely steady, sweet and self reliant like so many family members and neighbors in my small-town upbringing.

Then someone damaged his F5 mandolins with a fire poker, and there was publicity about that and similar problems. An older gentleman who had been around bluegrass far longer than I gave me an explanation that Monroe had girlfriends, and they were unhappy with him.

I was totally surprised. This was a very different Monroe than what I had in my mind. What about the Father of Bluegrass standing in front of a little community church in an LP album cover photo?

The Blugrass Special, 1986. Photo credit: Bill Graham. Click to enlarge.

Then shortly after, I was at a bluegrass festival in the Missouri Ozarks and Monroe was to play. His driver had set up the record table outside the bus. The Bluegrass Boys were signing autographs and a crowded had gathered to gawk and perhaps see the father.

Sure enough, Monroe appeared on the steps of the bus. Clinging to his arm in a fondly manner was a hefty bleach blond woman in her 20s wearing a cleavage-showing blouse and an ill-fitting cowgirl hat. Is that a niece or granddaughter, I wondered?

Monroe plunged into the crowd in a hasty manner that left her behind, and I stood near the woman and another woman with her. She complained that the fans kept Monroe from her. It became clear to me from observing and hearing more of her conversation that she considered herself as Monroe's girlfriend, and that she was naïve and not very bright.

Frankly, my opinions of Monroe were seriously wounded on all fronts.

Years went by and I had conversations with friends who had similar experiences. A young married couple that I introduced to bluegrass had gone to a festival, seen Monroe with a strange looking young woman, and it turned them away from his music. Another couple who are permanent bluegrass fans visited with a Monroe girlfriend at a show who went into detail about what he could and could not do sexually in his old age.

Such stories became oft told. When Monroe was still alive, I heard a bluegrass legend remark onstage to a crowd that "he's still bringing those old gals down to the Opry." Everyone already knew what that was about.

To this day when the subject of Monroe comes up I've heard people joke about and say things about his womanizing that are far, far stronger than anything Smith wrote.

But Monroe's personal life doesn't bother or concern me much anymore. I'm back to just the music.

Smith's book gave me background on Monroe's painful childhood, loss of parents and challenging young adult life that I didn't have in such detail before. I've accepted that there were reasons for the way he was without worrying about them or passing judgment.

A healing has begun for bluegrass fans because Smith dealt with the subject openly. Buried it festers, but exposed to discussion, thought and forgiveness, the wound heals.

I also understood after reading the book that many of Monroe's relationships with women were deeply emotional and meaningful. A complicated life does not diminish love and affection.

Also, throughout the book I felt Smith was gentle with Monroe on many topics that a more cold-natured biographer could be, or might yet be.

Monroe is portrayed overall in a very sympathetic light, and as someone vastly important to bluegrass music and beyond.

Smith wrote in his introduction: "Indeed, Bill Monroe would become the most broadly talented and broadly influential figure in the history of American popular music."

Critics, including Monroe loyalists, point to that sentence is an overshot and proof that Smith is an incompetent biographer.

The sentence gave me pause when I first read it, too. But at night when I can't sleep and things are racing through my mind, I've thought about this sentence a lot and I have trouble punching a hole in it.

Had Smith been vague and said "among the most" instead of "the most" he would have been safe. But safe isn't always the honest truth. There are debate points on his side when you ponder broadly talented and broadly influential."

Time may be more kind to Smith regarding his position.

Even Bob Dylan said in a 1978 interview for Playboy Magazine: "If I had known then what I do now, I probably would have taken off when I was 12 and followed Bill Monroe. 'Cause I could have gotten to the same place... Probably would have saved me a lot of time and hassles."

For sure the debate about Monroe's life will continue. There will be more biographies that contain new information and perspective.

I anxiously await Ewing's book because I'm simply a Monroe fan who wants more. Perhaps his son James Monroe will write one someday. I'd buy a fat book with nothing but family photos, publicity stills and fan snapshots that show his life from start to finish. His youth alone would support a detailed book.

Like a good record you hear too often, we can tire of Monroe and turn our attention elsewhere. But his profound influence always brings us back for awhile.

Smith's book laid bare the good, great and perplexing all at once in an easily readable form. He need not be personally crucified for a journalistic effort.

Let the next Monroe biographies state their case, and the healing continue for Monroe's wounded personal image and disappointed fans.

He is undisputedly one of the greatest musical artists of our time no matter what hindsight says about his life.

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