LINER NOTES in their ‘introduction’ form…

“When somebody says the word “bluegrass” the first thing that crosses one’s mind is not usually Mississippi, but that’s where I was when it hooked me. I grew up in a household where slick recordings by Ray Charles, Eddie Arnold, Herb Alpert and Strauss dominated the Magnavox tv/stereo side-by-side combo. Hank Williams was the only gritty music on the turntable. 

I don’t remember really when or where I first heard Bill Monroe but I do remember it being quite a jolt. The primal sound of his style made me a bit uncomfortable having grown up with more polished recordings but I couldn’t stop listening to him. As the time went by seeking out that sound and trying to understand it and reproduce it became my all-consuming obsession. Not a bad way to keep a teenager out of trouble I guess, but not the most pleasant times for the rest of my family who had to endure hearing hundreds of needle drops from behind my bedroom door. 

I played Monroe’s recordings to the point I knew what was on each one by the color of the spine, whether I had to tune up or down to synchronize my mandolin with the LPs. There was only one record store in Meridian, MS that consistently had a selection of bluegrass and I darkened their doorstep frequently. I can remember being so excited with my latest purchases that I’d have dry heaves on the way home before I could get the disc on the turntable. I had it bad. Almost 50 years later it’s still nearly as intense. 

The late 70’s found me living in Nashville, TN surrounded by musicians who shared my obsession and who were collectors of Monroe’s music long before I came on the scene. I began meeting and getting acquainted with the people who made the records I listened to who had only been names in liner notes before. I began filling cassette tapes with everything I could find that related to early bluegrass. Before long I had accumulated a couple suitcases full of tapes of live shows, interviews, noodling, work tapes, rehearsals, source material, festival workshops, etc. So much to learn. All these kept me happily preoccupied for years.

When the internet and personal computers came along it was pretty staggering what was surfacing. I spent many happy hours hunting down and copying performances onto my hard drive and obtaining copies of bluegrass shows from the early 1940’s through the 1990’s. Volumes of CD’s with all of Monroe’s bands, some with substitutes, some partial bands, videos of significant performances, old country music television shows, some shows with Bill and Charlie reunited, a couple shows of Monroe and Doc Watson at the White House with President Carter telling everybody to be quiet and listen, and a show where Monroe had one of his regular sidemen fill in on mandolin because he had been in an accident and had his arm in a sling. The variety seemed endless. 

When Bill Monroe passed in 1996 it took a while before it started to sink in that there would be no more tunes. I thought noble thoughts in the beginning that I would try and carry on the music Bill had put in place but I realized deep down that I needed to concentrate on the sounds in my own head and stop trying to be Bill Monroe. That is when my understanding of the style began to fall into place, understanding how the pieces fit together in infinite ways, how to use the vocabulary Monroe had invented, how to play new material in Monroe’s style. This only made me more interested and dedicated. 

The music in this project comes from material spanning most of Monroe’s career. Some of it has been recorded on a couple projects by acquaintances and some on projects that were never released to the public. Some have not been recorded ever. All were penned by Bill Monroe save “Galley Nipper”(He said it is a tune  “not from this country” so I assume he picked it up someplace but I may be mistaken). This is not meant as a solo mandolin recording. Sure, I’m paying the bills, but the point is to illustrate Monroe’s use of single, duo and triple fiddle formats and to celebrate that sound. All I have attempted to do with the mandolin is to play the melodies straight so that people will know how they go and will have a fair chance at learning them if they choose, not see how many notes I can get on the head of a pin. 

I hope that you enjoy the sounds included within these covers. It appears that there are enough tunes floating around yet to do “Part 2” of this project at some point and then there will be scant few tunes left. It saddens me to think of this but Bill Monroe’s creative output was tremendous and I will keep looking for more tunes. I only recently received a copy of his very first guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry from 1939. It sounds like it was recorded yesterday. There are still gems about…

Life is good. MC”

Okay, so that’s the story behind all of this. Now for the descriptions of the tunes. These are based on known info or descriptions from private/public conversations…

1. “The Old Stagecoach”- Honestly I know very little about this one. I remember talking Julia Labella about this one quite some time ago and remember she said that she really likes it but I don’t know any more about the tune than that. It sounds to me like a reworking of one of the prominent phrases in “Ebenezer Scrooge” but this time the phrase is used as a suffix instead of a prefix. I love how Monroe uses a single solitary A note and lets it sail over the top of the chord changes in the B part.

2. “Trail of Tears”- From a practice tape done backstage someplace. The fiddler on it is Billy Joe Foster. Billy Joe shared a strong interest in the western culture as did Bill Monroe. During Billy Joe’s tenure in Monroe’s band Billy Joe came up with several fiddle tunes that had a Native American feel, one entitled “Blue-eyed Indian”. I think Billy Joe’s presence in the band enhanced Monroe’s fascination with the Old West and prompted him to write this tune. I think it is safe to say that Bill realized that the ‘trail of tears’ ended in Billy Joe’s home state of Oklahoma. This is a lovely and haunting piece of music, IMO one of Monroe’s best.

3. “Reelfoot Reel”- This is a tune named after Reelfoot Lake up near Tiptonville on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River. Okay, I don’t know this for sure but I’m making that assumption. Also not sure if it’s a reel at all. Not really a real reel. I first heard people play this as a two part tune but I got to listening the source tape of Monroe noodling on his bus and heard a distinct third part in the mix so I added it in. There were lots of variations all over the few passes of it on the tape so I went with the most identifiable one, in my opinion.

4. “California Forest Fire”- One of my favorites of the rare tunes. This one is another gem in the A “major/minor” scheme that Bill came to love so much, the same sound that turned him onto “Ebenezer Scrooge”, “Land of Lincoln”, “Old Dangerfield” and a number of others. It comes from another backstage tape recording of the band playing along to Monroe working the musical puzzle. This tune first appears as a two part statement as did “Reelfoot…” but after a couple passes another part emerged that fit with the rest so I joined the two. After that section in the tape Monroe’s mind seems it went in another direction and the tune started to unravel. So the bit on the recording is the part I saved. I love how the first half of the A section is characterized by strong accents on the downbeat chord changes and how the second half explodes into a crescendo when Bill works his way up through the E chord and back to the A minor. I have yet to figure out how he does it. When I try to repeat his performance I just overdo it and bog down.

5. “Galley Nipper”- An odd bird for sure, or mosquito as it were. This tune is one of the ones that Monroe liked to mess with guitar players on due to the odd chord scheme. He says on one informal recording that the tune is “not from this country” so I assume it came from someplace else, likely not written by Bill at all but that is another assumption. Bill says on one tape copy, “I’ll tell you what…if every one of you knew the story of this number here, you wouldn’t believe it, you wouldn’t think it could’ve happened, you wouldn’t think it did happen, you wouldn’t think where it come from, where it was put together at…there’s a story behind this one and I ain’t kidding you, boy. This number didn’t come from the United States.”

6. “Orange Blossom Breakdown”- This tune comes off a home recording of a Grand Ole Opry performance sometime in the late 40’s I suspect. After Flatt & Scruggs left the BG Boys. I don’t know who’s playing the banjo on this clip. The announcer says, “this one is the latest I believe isn’t it, Bill?” Monroe says in the background, “it’s a insta-mental” and the announcer replies, “It’s an instrumental alright. It’s called the Orange Blossom Breakdown”. Monroe must’ve been rarin’ to go because the tune starts in a New York second after that, off a’running about 175 bpm. I can’t think of one other tune out of all the instrumentals Monroe put together that has the same chord progression as this one, much less the bit of acrobatics on the third part unless we take into consideration the ending on the original version of “Pike County Breakdown”. Just a good solid breakdown that is deceivingly hard to play for yours truly. But it’s not really that much different for the rest of Bill’s body of work, come to think of it.

7. “Bill’s Blues”- This is one of the more difficult tunes for me due to the hand positions and stops and starts and chord forms, one a 3-finger C chord played at the top of first descending line in the A section. The only version I have of this tune comes from another informal taping of a Monroe mandolin workshop, I believe in California or someplace out west. I use the word “workshop” loosely because it’s mostly Bill answering random question about how he holds his pick, how he uses his wrist, etc. “Here’s a new number that I have and I’d like to play it for you and I don’t have a title yet and see what you think”, he says. The longer he plays it the more it comes together laced with random extra beats and octaves. At the end he asked, “Is it alright?” and everybody laughs.

8. “Mississippi River Blues”- One of only two or three instrumentals by Monroe about Mississippi. I like the laid back sauntering feel of the groove in this one. Norman & Nancy Blake, James Bryan and Larry Sledge made a visit to Monroe’s place on day and the resulting jam tape is where this comes from. I was told that Monroe came out to the car to welcome them and asked, “Did you folks bring your music with you?” They sure did. The resulting recording is amazing. Larry started this off and then stops and says, “I may lose it” before he plays on through. Monroe picks it up afterwards and does a few improvisations before he gets it solidified. At the end of it you can hear Julia LaBella say that she liked it better when he played it in the key of D. So far I haven’t tried it in that key.

9. “Let’s Get Close Together Blues”- From a tape fragment done in 1978. I’d say that this is “Tombstone Junction’s” grown-up and bluesier big brother. I’d say it’s most striking characteristic is that it is played in the key of E flat major on the informal recording. I thought at first that Monroe was playing a mandola but on closer inspection it sounds like he’s playing a low-tuned mandolin. It is a collection of vocabulary licks lined out and played enthusiastically at a fast clip undoubtedly to impress an unidentified lady-friend who is sitting in close proximity to Bill it seems. After an energetic rip through the ‘tune’ the woman is heard to ask what the name of it is. Monroe says, “Let’s get together blues” at which point she laughs. Then he corrects himself and says, “Let’s get CLOSE together blues. That will be good if I can get that to Kenny (Baker) and he can get that. Do you think you can learn it”?

10. “Big Spring”- A tune about Big Spring, Texas. It is the largest community in Howard County and takes its name from one large spring in the area that was a popular watering hole for native American nomads and residents including Apaches and Comanches. The original white settlement was built to support buffalo hunters and was mostly hide huts and bars. Another tune that probably came from Monroe’s fondness for Western themes. He wrote the tune for one of his favorite fiddlers, the late Benjamin Franklin “Tex” Logan. I originally learned this number from ex-BlueGrass Boy Butch Robins and it comes from an unreleased project of tunes that was never released.

11. “Nanook of the North”- This number begins with an introductory phrase that sounds suspiciously like “Monroe’s Hornpipe” but continues onward in much different fashion. This comes from the “Bus 66” tape that has been floating around for decades. The tape was a gem of seldom-heard tunes when I first acquired it but has pretty much made the rounds at this point. The tune is another fine example of playing out of chord positions, slides, and shifts and has one of my favorite sliding licks at the end of the B part. Fiddler Laura Orshaw looked up what “nanook” means, apparently so she would know what in the world the tune is about. Turns out that “nanook” is the Inuit (eskimo) word for a polar bear. Learn something new every day…

12. “Up in the Front & Out in the Back”- A peculiar title to say the least, it relates to the humorous side of Monroe’s viewpoint on things. Apparently one day Bill was out and about and happened to see a side profile of a woman that was very much pregnant and to him the shape of her body suggested to him the title of the tune. With the twin fiddle arrangement the tune takes on quite a more significant identity than I first thought it might. Shad and Laura nailed it pretty much, as did Russell. I love the joyful and playful nature of it.

13. “Jemison Breakdown”- Another of Monroe’s “I just wrote this number on the way here today and I need a title” tunes. This one has an A, B, C, B, A scheme that I don’t recall hearing anywhere else in Bill’s catalogue. Also, the use of the long E note on the B section does not suggest a definite chord change but allows for interpretations using either an A major, A minor, E major, E minor or even a C major, all with reasonably equal satisfaction. Bill says, “Now, I just put this number together and I need a title for it. I want you to think (thank), and if you can come up with some really old time names here…uhmm…some town or some railroad crossing or some ahh…river or ahh…something like that (A man in the audience yells out an unintelligible title). So I want you to listen close to it and think about it and write it down if you have a good name and I might use it”. I appreciate how Bill gets his fans involved in his own creative process and gives them the opportunity to make it their own.
    
    So these are the descriptions of the tunes on “Rare & Fine…” as I see/hear them. I hope this gives a bit more understanding and interest to what’s laid out musically. Maybe a little something to read along with the tracks as you listen. Don’t have the project you say? Why the hell not?! You’re on the website. It’s just a short walk from here…

    
    Life is good. MC