Pre-Monroe mandolin in American old-time

[PhilGE]

Just saw this thread over at rec.music.country.old-time and thought it might stir up a bit more conversation about origins of/influences on bluegrass.

[laddy jota]

Well, if you are talking about the original form of music called Bluegrass, in my opinion the biggest influence was the Monroe Brothers. There was really a short leap. Many of the songs were even the same. Just add Stringbean on banjo and you have early Bluegrass. If you are talking about influences on modern Bluegrass, then I would say the Beatles and Beyonce.

[allenhopkins]

I think you have to distinguish between early mandolin players who played pre-bluegrass old-time music, and the influences on Bill Monroe himself. To hear Monroe talk, his biggest influences were his uncle Pendleton Vandiver, who was a dance fiddler, and the African-American guitarist and fiddler Arnold Schultz. Monroe worked with both of them as a boy, and you can hear in his music both the old-time fiddling of "Uncle Pen," and the "blue" notes he may have picked up from Schultz. When Monroe went into "show biz" with his brother Charlie in Chicago, there were mandolin players there to whom he might have listened, many of whom played in "brother duets" like the Monroe Brothers. Most of their playing was more lilting and melodic (listen to Bill Bolick with the Blue Sky Boys), without the drive Monroe provided in his early work with Charlie, and carried on when he started his own band, the Blue Grass Boys. Listen to some of his pre-Flatt, Scruggs and Wise recordings, and you can hear how he liked faster tempos, blues-sounding improvisations, and driving, exciting music. One of the postings on the other thread mentions the Prairie Ramblers, who with Patsy Montana also worked out of WLS in Chicago, and their mandolinist/mandolist "Chick" Hurt may well have also influenced Monroe. And of course the mid-'40's addition of Scruggs' "hot" banjo just reinforced and underscored Monroe's own preferences.

Undoubtedly there were old-timey mandolinists before Monroe. I haven't listened to most of the ones listed on the other thread, but I have no trouble taking Monroe at his word, that he was seeking a synthesis of old-time music and blues, based on working with two musicians he considered his main influences. A showman with a big, healthy ego, he also found that the "hot" string band music he played, and which got called "bluegrass," attracted audiences, gave him a unique place in the crowded post-war country pantheon, and became his jealously guarded "patented" style. Only later did he accept that he couldn't keep others from copying it, and that this sincere form of flattery cemented his place as an influential innovator.

[Mike Bunting]

Well put.

[Fred Keller]

It's difficult to draw clear lines from predecessors to Bill, partly because Bill's testimony can be suspect. According to Mike Compton, Bill stated more than once that he never actually saw blues acts (aside from playing with Arnold Schultz) nor took any direction from black players. Mike--to put it mildly--has his doubts about Bill's memory (or veracity).

Early mandolin acts that Bill is known to have admired and patterned his playing after include Mac and Bob (samples at Juneberry's site) who were, I recently learned, the first to record the mandolin/guitar duet format, as well as the Prairie Ramblers and the Callahan Bros.

I also think that there's a fair amount of influence from the blues/jug band banjo-mandolin material. There's no direct evidence but if you listen to tunes like Hokum Blues or Vicksburg Stomp you can start to see where the drive and power and even phrasing of Bill's mando style comes from.

In that thread you linked to one of the posters said that before Bill, old time mandolin was "rudimentary" or something to that effect. I'm not sure I agree. There were a fair number of sophisticated musicians playing mandolin (or banjo-mandolin) but they weren't necessarily playing Southern Appalachian fiddle-tune-style oldtime.

[Ken Berner]

It would be interesting to hear some of Bill's mandolin-playing before his music was declared to be "bluegrass". OR was bluegrass born the minute he hit the stage for his first performance?

[Fred Keller]

It would be interesting to hear some of Bill's mandolin-playing before his music was declared to be "bluegrass". OR was bluegrass born the minute he hit the stage for his first performance?

His early duet work with Charlie is readily accessible and clearly different from his "bluegrass" mandolin stuff. That material, if you haven't heard it before, sounds a lot like the Blue Sky boys or the Delmore Brothers. I'm sure a Monroe Brothers disc is still available for sale.

Tough to say when bluegrass was born since it was always under construction and redevelopment during Bill's career. He went through all kinds of different banjo styles (Stringbean, to Scruggs, to Bill Keith), fiddlers galore, and even had an accordion (Sally Forrester) for a while. When BG was born has been a matter of debate on any number of threads here at the Cafe and is ultimately unanswerable, IMHO.

On top of that, it's clear that Bill's own mando style changed over time depending on who was in his band, his age, and his emotional situation at the time. As far as I know, the only mandolin work Bill recorded before bluegrass was with The Monroe Brothers in the 30's.

[Fretbear]

WSM's ferocious pre-bluegrass mandolin playing recorded with his brother Charlie was unprecedented in country music or any music for that matter, with the possible exception of Dave Apollon. It is nonsense that he never listened to or heard blues; he recorded Mississippi blues singer Jimmy Rodgers' tunes and the New Orleans ragtime feel is plainly evident in his 1946 recordings with Flatt, Scruggs, Watts & Wise.

[earthsave]

All of those pre-1946 recordings are readily available. In my mind and opinion, when Earl joined the band the bluegrass style was baselined on tape. Bill, Lester, Chubby, Earl, and Howard.

Don Reno, if he had not enlisted in the service, may have made the sound. I do not think he was recorded prior to Earl. Both Don and Earl played with the Morris Brothers prior to joining Bill.

[Mike Bunting]

1938 recordings with flatt, scruggs, rainwater & wise.

1945.

[swampstomper]

His early duet work with Charlie is readily accessible and clearly different from his "bluegrass" mandolin stuff. That material, if you haven't heard it before, sounds a lot like the Blue Sky boys or the Delmore Brothers. I'm sure a Monroe Brothers disc is still available for sale.

Well, yes the material is all available on CD, but as I hear it, it's a radical departure from the other mandolinists (and guitarists!) of the time -- Kyle & Harty, Blue Sky Boys etc. Listen to "Feast Here Tonight", "Watermelon on the Vine", or "My Saviour's Train" among many others and tell me if you could possibly mistake it for pre-Monroe Brothers. Sure Mon's style changed a lot over the years, but from the beginning he was more agressive and experimental. Charlie Monroe is sometimes overlooked, but his powerful backup and signature runs propelled that duet like no other. According to contemporary accounts the effect was electric, the Monroes were wildly popular in their touring area (especially the Carolinas).

The discussion about "what and when is BG" is not the point of this thread so let's leave that one out here!

[allenhopkins]

Concur with the above. The "brother duet" mandolinists (other than Monroe) tended to play lilting lines that framed the harmony vocals. Monroe, in his duet with his brother, played faster tunes, sounding much more aggressive, at least to my ears. I don't hear as many "blue notes" in the Monroe Brothers music as I do in Bill's own band, but of course you had two "big healthy egos," so whatever Bill and Charlie did had to included consensus if not compromise. In the Blue Grass Boys, you played it Bill's way.

I wonder about Chick Hurt's influence, though. The Prairie Ramblers were a pretty hot band. Guess I should find some recordings and see if I can hear a connection.

[Jon Hall]

Paul Buskirk was a mandolin virtuso pre-dating bluegrass. It's probably Paul playing on the Callhan Bro. recordings. Paul was a mando mentor to Red Rector.

Paul died in 2002 but began playing mandolin with The Buskirk Family Band in about 1929 -30. When he was a kid he played with Uncle Dave Macon on occasion

[earthsave]

1945.

1946

Who typed in 1938? Couldnt find your quote?

[Fred Keller]

I believe it was Fretbear's post, since edited to correct the typo.

[laddy jota]

Somebody dubbed the music of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys as "Bluegrass Music" in around 1946, I think. But I think the the BG Boys were a bluegrass band the first time they recorded. That was before '46. Some new bands specialize is something called Clawgrass, in which the pre-Scruggs b@*%o style, reminiscent of Stringbean is used. To me, that style works well with bluegrass. Nobody mentioned that Maybelle Carter's guitar style via Charlie Monroe stuck with bluegrass music til this very day, with enhancements of course. The bluegrass fiddling is generally considered to have been influenced by the Irish immigrant fiddlers via American old-time string bands (which were not called "old-time" at the time).The bass player is often overlooked in early bluegrass. The Monroe Brothers and other brother acts did not use bass players. There was a definite swing influence in the BG Boys bass lines. That part of the sound has been lost over the years. Too bad. The swinging bass and hot licks of course went electrified and became Rock 'n Roll (with African American influences also). Rock 'n Roll became Rock which became Heavy Metal and Lite Rock. The latter became Pop. Pop influenced Bluegrass. That gave us Popgrass, which many people still refer to as "Bluegrass". I think it is because Popgrass sounds too much like an alternative fuel source. Too bad nobody plays fusion anymore.

[earthsave]

I think Ralph Rinzler got the credit for popularizing the term Bluegrass music, when he did an article in Sing OUT! on Monroe in 1963 "The DADDY of Bluegrass music.

According to The Bluegrass Reader, the term started getting used in the 50's to describe bands that sounded like Monroe.

[Mike Bunting]

1946
Who typed in 1938? Couldnt find your quote?
_

Last edited by Fretbear; 11-24-2008 at 10:30 AM.

It was edited this morning. You sure it was '46, not '45? Aren't I getting picky these days?

[allenhopkins]

Somebody dubbed the music of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys as "Bluegrass Music" in around 1946, I think. But I think the the BG Boys were a bluegrass band the first time they recorded.

Monroe used the term "Blue Grass" (always two words) in the title of many of his compositions. I think the earliest recording was Blue Grass Special in February 1945, with the pre-Flatt & Scruggs lineup of Chubby Wise, Dave "Stringbean" Akeman, and Wilene "Sally Ann" Forrester on accordion. He titled early LP recordings Knee Deep In Blue Grass (1957), Mr. Blue Grass (1960), and Blue Grass Ramble (1961). The use of these titles, whether picked by him or by Decca Records, show that Monroe's music was being marketed as "blue grass" or "bluegrass."

Alan Lomax's 1959 Esquire article, Bluegrass Underground: Folk Music With Overdrive is generally credited with being the first widespread use of the term "bluegrass" to describe the music of Monroe and his "imitators," such as Flatt & Scruggs, Stanley Brothers, Reno & Smiley, Osborne Brothers, Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, etc. etc. (Monroe saw them as imitators, though others saw them as developing in parallel with the sound established by Monroe's mid-'40's version of the Blue Grass Boys.)

In any case, by the mid to late 1950's, Monroe's style of country music had been labeled "bluegrass," and Monroe gradually came to accept his role as the founder of a new kind of music that many musicians played -- rather than a beleaguered innovator plagiarized by imitators. I've often wondered what we'd be playing if Monroe had given his band a name other than "Blue Grass Boys." What if he'd called them the "Kentucky Hot Shots"? Would we be playing "hotshot music"?

[PhilGE]

So, any more information about pre-Monroe mandolin music that would've influenced Monroe? Let's try and stick to that topic.

[earthsave]

Yep, 1946. Septemberish.

[mando-tech]

...don't believe that the term 'bluegrass' was used to describe a genre of music until the 1960s !

[allenhopkins]

...don't believe that the term 'bluegrass' was used to describe a genre of music until the 1960s !

See my Post #19 above -- and, you know this is a ten-year-old thread, right?

[Mandoplumb]

I know this is a 10 year old thread and I did read post 19 but I believe each of those mentioned was specific to the band " blue Grass Boys" and not to a bluegrass genre. I used to go with my dad to play music in the 60's, he was playing a lot of Monroe and Reno as well as old mountain songs all with a roll on banjo. I never heard it called bluegrass music until years later. It was hillbilly music.

[allenhopkins]

Whether we might consider Ezra "Ted" Hawkins as an "influence" on Bill Monroe is problematical, since he appears to have played around the time that Monroe was already performing (early 1930's). However, his work at the Skillet Lickers' last session in 1934 was surely aggressive and, while clearly old-timey rather than "pre-bluegrass," not unlike Monroe's mandolin of the same period: