Story behind Bill Monroe's mandolin being vandalzd

[garyedelman]

Don't mean to drag up this old thread, but I caught the Dry Branch Fire Squad at the
Palatka Bluegrass Festival yesterday. In introducing the band members, Ron Thomason
told a pretty abbreviated story about their mandolin player, Brian Aldridge, owning or
having owned the Gibson F5L that Monroe was given while his 2 Loars were being
rebuilt. Aldridge did, and might still have a vintage stringed instrument shop in Ohio.
I have no idea what mandolin he and / or Thomason played during their 2 sets. I was
pretty far from the stage.

[mrmando]

Isn't Brian an active Cafe member?

Ron owns a Loar and I thought Brian had one too.

[Bernie Daniel]

Isn't Brian an active Cafe member?

Ron owns a Loar and I thought Brian had one too.

Yes Brian does indeed! It is a 1924 and because of his generosity I, and several others, were lucky enough to get to touch and play it a bit one afternoon. As to be expected it is a wonder instrument. It was the first Loar-signed mandolin I had every had my hands on and it was an impressive thing to see that signature in "real life".

[Mike Bunting]

Ron isn't playing mandolin anymore?

[evanreilly]

Last time I knew, Brian A. had an April 25, 1923 that belonged to a fellow from Boston. Ron also has a LL signed F-5.

[f5loar]

Neither of them boys is Loar poor.......... They've had them a long time back when they only cost a single wide trailer and not a 2 story house. I've not heard about Brian having Monroe's 1978 F5L but anything is possible as these vintage Gibsons do seem to change hands quite often. Maybe he will take time off from picking so much to tell us all about it.

[William Smith]

Brian is a real good guy and I've wheeled and delt with him for a long time now. Like f5loar said he is not Loar poor and other sweeties that he has/had, not my business to say what he has. Check out his you tube videos under his name I believe and there is some great videos Brian took at Randy Woods shop of Herchal Sizemore and my Uncle Dick Smith picking his unsigned 24 that was Derringtons. Great sounding mandolin. also If its still on there, there is a video of Brian picking the unsigned 24 "I think" and then picking the same thing on the 34 F-7 I bought from him a while back. Pretty good sounding F-7! If I was computer smart I'd post the videos here.

[garyedelman]

Ron played plenty of mandolin at the Palatka Festival. Again, I have no
idea what specific mandolin he played. And Brian played multiple instruments
as well. As is Thomason's tradition, he started out telling the story about
Monroe's mandolins being vandalized and added his own take on who and why.
And then added that Brian owned (sounded past tense to me) the replacement
Gibson for a period of time. He did not mention Brian or himself owning Loars.
Just to make sure, they sounded great, no matter what instruments they were
playing, and Thomason was in fine story-telling form.

[Willie Poole]

Brian stopped by my house one day about 10 years ago with his stable of mandolins, he wheels and deals quite a bit, I was under the impression that he also owned a Loar that belonged to Mr. Derrington, I heard it at the Gettysburg festival shortly after he bought it, he asked me what I thought of it and I told him, he hasn`t spoken to me since because I only heard it being played through the sound system and couldn`t give him a true report but it didn`t sound near as good as his first one which he let me play all afternoon while he strummed on his guitar...I tried to wear out the frets and strings that day, it is one of the best Loars that I have had my hands on, which is quite a few...He also had a `25 Fern, a `37 F-7 converted to an F-5, a Gilchrist (which in my opinion was the best sounding of all of them), he played my `81 Loar copy and said he really liked it but Brian being a real gentleman wouldn`t have said anything bad about it even if he didn`t like it, he`s not like me, I tell it like I hear it...At least I used to...

Great post and some good insight here....

Willie

[eadg145]

I saw Dry Branch Fire Squad in Mountain View just over a week ago. Ron was definitely playing a '23 Loar. I talked with him about it. And oh boy, what a sound that mandolin has!!! I've heard a few Loars (never played one), but Ron's is a real singer! I'd love to know more about that one.
Ron also told the story during introductions, and told us that Brian was playing a mandolin that had been lent to Bill Monroe after the mandolin attack (I have some issue with the term "vandalized", as I think it's a contrivance in this particular case.) My wife told me she preferred Brian's mandolin. However, I was busy scraping my jaw off the floor every time I heard Ron's Loar. Holy Cow!

[DataNick]

Thread Bump:

Kind of related; the 1978 F5L that Gibson gave to Bill Monroe is up for sale at Greg Boyd's, NFI
Bill Monroe's F5L

[f5loar]

Thread Bump:

Kind of related; the 1978 F5L that Gibson gave to Bill Monroe is up for sale at Greg Boyd's, NFI
Bill Monroe's F5L

Interesting indeed. How about when an interested serious buyer calls for the price, post that price here. Monroe did indeed play this one but it was given to him shortly after it was made in 1978 to butter him up for future repairs and his namesake coming to Gibson after the fall out in 1951. So it was not presented to him during the poker damage to the 2 Loars in 1986. He already owned it.

[MikeEdgerton]

Interesting indeed. How about when an interested serious buyer calls for the price, post that price here. Monroe did indeed play this one but it was given to him shortly after it was made in 1978 to butter him up for future repairs and his namesake coming to Gibson after the fall out in 1951. So it was not presented to him during the poker damage to the 2 Loars in 1986. He already owned it.

Yup, they've got that story wrong.

[Big Joe]

Mr. Bill played Charlie's unsigned Loar for much of the time his was in for repair. Charlie was always proud that he could do that for his hero.

[sgarrity]

So how much and what does it sound like???

[DataNick]

So how much and what does it sound like???

Shaun,

Don't know what they're asking, but this is what it sounded like in 1980

[sgarrity]

Good find Nick! If I buy it will I be able to play like that???

And no, I'm in no danger of buying this thing. With the $75,000 Monroe fingerboard out there I can only imagine what they're asking for this mandolin.....

[Timbofood]

I think that may have been the prototype built by Aaron Cowles but, I make many mistakes. Was it indeed one of the "new" production batch?

[DataNick]

Tim,

Here's the story behind it...I lifted it from the comments that are after the Siminoff article on the F-5L Mandolion: A Turning Point...

Bill Junior
May 22, 2010 01:29 PM
"I am the current owner of the 1978 F5L that was given to Bill Monroe by the Gibson Company as a peace offering. Roger Siminoff asked if would chime in with what information I have on the instrument. Here is all that I know. If anyone else has any information about this mandolin, I would love to hear from them.

After the NAMM show, Roger encouraged Gibson to present a new F5L mandolin to Mr. Monroe as a gift to help mend fences with the 'Father of Bluegrass.' Sometime later, the Gibson Company gave Monroe one of the F5L prototypes. This mandolin was signed by Gibson luthier Aaron Cowles on June 20, 1978, and bears the serial number, 71568197. According to Roger, this mandolin was finished on June 5th. "And, if that's the case, yours had to be one of the first three (and I think I remember Aaron completing his first)." On the first half-dozen instruments, Roger tap tuned the mandolin before the body was closed, so this one would have been tuned personally by Roger.

When I first acquired the mandolin, all I knew is that it had been owned and used by Monroe. As a Big Mon disciple, that was good enough for me. But one day I got a call from a friend of mine, Tom McKinney, of Asheville, North Carolina, and he said, "There's a publicity photo of Bill Monroe holding your mandolin." I confess I was skeptical, but Tom was right. After carefully comparing the headstocks of the two mandolins, specifically the inlays, I realized it was the very same mandolin. I didn't know of any publicity photos of Monroe with anything other than his 1923 Loar-especially late in his career. That started me on a little research project to find out what I could about the instrument. I don't know if anyone else feels the same way I do about this, but most of us go through dozens of vintage instruments in our lives and don't know anything about the provenance or history of these things, and that's a shame. So, I wanted to find out all I could.

Last year, the Mandolin Café posted a little audio clip of Monroe on stage where he talks about mending fences with the Gibson Company. Monroe mentions acquiring the 1923 Gibson mandolin in a barber shop, the subsequent feud with Gibson, and how in 1978 Gibson convinced Monroe to have the Loar-signed instrument worked on back in Kalamazoo, Michigan. At the end, Monroe says, "And in the deal, they give me that new mandolin there in a brand new case." This F5-L mandolin is what he refers to as "that new mandolin there."

Monroe played the 1978 F5L mandolin quite often when his number one mandolin was unavailable, such as in the 1980 White House concert for President Jimmy Carter. In December 1981, I saw Monroe using the F5L to play "My Last Days on Earth" at an Orlando concert. So for at least some of the time, Monroe had the F5L in that alternate mandolin tuning.

Monroe used the F5L as his primary instrument after the infamous November 1985 "vandal" incident, in which an intruder smashed both of Monroe's Loar-signed mandolins. Curtis McPeake verified that Monroe used the F5L for a year or more until his 1923 Gibson was repaired by Charlie Derrington. As evidence, Monroe was filmed using the F5L at a 1986 Colorado concert in the Scott Wright documentary titled, "High, Blue, and Lonesome."

So how did I come to acquire the mandolin? Bill Monroe was good friends with a Nashville-area police officer, Bill Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins was not a professional musician, but played locally as an avocation. Hawkins did a lot of favors for Monroe, such as helping to feed livestock when the Blue Grass Boys were on the road. I understand Officer Hawkins was one of those called to the scene after the vandal incident, and helped gather mandolin pieces up into a paper bag. Sometime in the late 1980s or early '90s, Bill Monroe saw Mr. Hawkins in town and called him over to his vehicle. Monroe said, "I have something here I want to give you." It was the 1978 F5L mandolin. Bill Hawkins treasured the F5L mandolin and played it until his passing. In the summer of 2005, the mandolin was brought to McPeake's Unique Instruments, in Mount Joliet, Tennessee, and made available for sale; I purchased the mandolin from Curtis.

Sometime during its life, the mandolin lost its original pickguard, tailpiece, and bridge. I repaired a crumbling bone point on the lower bout. Other than that, the mandolin is intact and includes the original case. I recently took the F5L mandolin to Bruce Weber in Logan, Montana, for a review. After looking the instrument over for quite some time, studying the smallest details, Mr. Weber said he was impressed with the workmanship.

I have played a few Loar-signed Gibson mandolins over the years, and I think the power and tone of this F5L mandolin is comparable. As Big Mon, himself, would have said, "it's a wonderful instrument." I'm glad the behind-the-scenes story of the F5L's development has been revealed. Roger and everyone involved in making those early Gibson F5L mandolins should be proud of what they did."

[George R. Lane]

Check my post #92 on the 3rd page. It has all the info you need from my good friend, Walt Timmerman (RIP), who was the last owner.
I have played this f5L and it is a fine instrument. By the way Greg Boyd was a friend of Walt and he knows the background on it.

[George R. Lane]

Disregard my post. DataNick beat me to it.

[f5loar]

That story above is correct. I can tell the story of why the pickguard was on there when Monroe had it, and how it got removed but the story is too long to post here. So if the current owner/seller wants to PM me I can give that information, as the other 2 people who knew the story are now dead.

[Glassweb]

sounds like a very good mandolin to me... the "player" notwithstanding...

[Scott Tichenor]

I'd like to note today is the 30th anniversary of the famed incident with the fireplace poker!

[Tobin]

The "other" day which will live in infamy...