Bill Monroe (1911 to 1996) was a mandolin player, singer, and songwriter from Kentucky. He created bluegrass music, and the style takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys. He led that band for nearly 60 years, and more than 150 musicians played in it. Every bluegrass mandolin player since has learned from him, in person or through someone who did.
Why Monroe matters
Before Monroe, the mandolin was a parlor instrument and a quiet partner in brother duets. Monroe turned it into a lead voice that could cut through a loud band. He played hard, fast, and bluesy, and he wrote the tunes that mandolin players still learn first: Rawhide, Roanoke, Big Mon, Jerusalem Ridge. He also gave the mandolin its job in the rhythm section. The sharp chop on beats two and four that holds a jam together started with him.
Life and career
Monroe was born on September 13, 1911, on his family’s farm near Rosine, Kentucky. He was the youngest of eight children. His older brothers Birch and Charlie already played fiddle and guitar, so Bill got the mandolin. He later said they made him take off four of its eight strings so he would not play too loud. His mother died when he was ten, and he went to live with his uncle Pendleton Vandiver, a fiddler. Bill played guitar behind Uncle Pen at dances. He also backed Arnold Shultz, a Black fiddler and guitarist whose bluesy playing stayed with him for life.
As a teenager he followed his brothers to Indiana to work at an oil refinery. Bill and Charlie formed the Monroe Brothers and played on radio across the Midwest and the Carolinas. RCA Victor signed them in 1936, and they cut 60 sides for its Bluebird label by 1938. That year the brothers split. Bill formed the Blue Grass Boys, and in October 1939 he passed his audition for the Grand Ole Opry with Mule Skinner Blues.
The full bluegrass sound came together after Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs joined in December 1945. With Chubby Wise on fiddle and Howard Watts on bass, the band recorded 28 songs for Columbia in 1946 and 1947, including Blue Moon of Kentucky. Elvis Presley recorded that song in 1954 for the B-side of his first Sun single. Monroe moved to Decca in 1949 and cut Uncle Pen, Roanoke, Big Mon, and the mandolin showpiece Rawhide with a band that included Jimmy Martin.
The folk revival of the 1960s brought him new fans on college campuses. He was the central figure at the first bluegrass festival in 1965, and in 1967 he started his own festival at Bean Blossom, Indiana. His later tunes, like Jerusalem Ridge and Old Dangerfield, became jam standards. He won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Recording in 1989 for Southern Flavor. He gave his last performance on March 15, 1996, had a stroke that April, and died on September 9, 1996, in Springfield, Tennessee.
Playing style
Monroe played with a heavy right hand. He favored strong downstrokes, and his attack made a 1923 Gibson F-5 sound like a much bigger instrument. That F-5, signed by designer Lloyd Loar, was his main mandolin from the 1940s on. On fast tunes he played short, punchy phrases and left space between them. On slow songs he used tremolo, a fast back-and-forth pick that sustains a note like a fiddle bow.
His note choice came from the blues and from old-time fiddling. He bent and slid into notes, leaned on the flatted third and seventh, and played the same phrase in different places to build tension. He often sang in B, a key that suited his high voice and pushed his mandolin breaks up the neck, away from the open strings. Behind singers he played a hard chop, a closed chord muted the instant it sounds. You can hear his timing in three seconds: a little ahead of the beat, with the downbeat hit hard.
Influences and legacy
Monroe learned tunes and timing from his uncle Pen Vandiver and the blues from Arnold Shultz. His early bands included Art Wooten and Tommy Magness on fiddle. The 1946 band with Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, and Chubby Wise set the bluegrass template.
The Blue Grass Boys worked as a school. Singers Jimmy Martin, Carter Stanley, Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, and Roland White all served time in the band. So did fiddlers Kenny Baker, Vassar Clements, Bobby Hicks, and Byron Berline. Ricky Skaggs first played on stage with Monroe at age six. Mike Compton has spent his career teaching Monroe’s style note for note.
Signature tunes and songs
Rawhide Blue Moon of Kentucky Uncle Pen Roanoke Jerusalem Ridge Kentucky Waltz.
Essential recordings
Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen (Decca, 1972) Bill Monroe and Stars of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame (MCA, 1986) Southern Flavor (MCA, 1988)
Awards and honors
Country Music Hall of Fame (1970) Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1971) National Heritage Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts (1982) Grammy Award, Best Bluegrass Recording, Southern Flavor (1989) International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, first class of inductees (1991) Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1993) National Medal of Arts (1995) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, early influence (1997)
Watch and listen
Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys play Rawhide live in 1969. Watch the right hand and how hard he hits the downbeat.
What to learn from Monroe
Learn Rawhide slow before you learn it fast. It teaches you to play a melody with drive, not to fill every gap with notes. The technique to steal is the Monroe chop. Grip a closed, four-finger chord, strike it on beats two and four, and let your fretting hand relax a hair right after the strike so the sound stops short. Play nothing but that chop behind a guitar for a whole song. A mandolin player who can chop with Monroe’s timing will be welcome in any jam, long before the solos get good.
Sources
Bill Monroe, Wikipedia Bill Monroe, 1982 NEA National Heritage Fellow, National Endowment for the Arts Bill Monroe, Grammy Awards Bill Monroe, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Related players
See the mandolin players hub and the mandolin guide for more players. Jesse McReynolds and Bobby Osborne built their own styles in Monroe’s wake. Mike Compton and Ricky Skaggs carry his sound today.