When Bill Smith Monroe of Rosine, Kentucky, at the age of eight decided to play an instrument like many in his musical family did, nobody imagined he would forever change country music. As singer and instrumentalist he not only revolutionized mandolin playing as he could play the instrument faster than anybody else: he was the […]
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Tag: Bill Monroe
Folk Music in Overdrive: A Primer on Traditional Country and Bluegrass Artists by Ivan Tribe (2018)
By now (actually since the 1970s and thanks to a number of folk revivals) it is no secret that the geographical region of the Upland South was actually exploding with musical talent at the beginning of the 1920s. The states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Carolina produced countless masters and some tuneful virtuosi. The artists […]
Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler: My Life with Jimmy Martin… by Barbara Martin Stephens (2017)
There are several unusual aspects of this very honest and at times hard to read biography nut not because the author Barbara Martin Stephens, once the wife of famous bluegrass musician Jimmy Martin (1927-2005), chose to write in incomprehensible sentences or wrote her story very badly. The reason this title has some very difficult parts […]
Bill Clifton: America’s Bluegrass Ambassador to the World by Bill C. Malone (2016)
The careers of most classical bluegrass musicians in the US more or less resemble each other, except for a few details. The typical biography finds them raised essentially in poverty, born into a family of four or five children, equipped only with the most basic schooling and after some amateur nights in between shifts in […]
Lonesome Melodies: The Lives and Music of the Stanley Brothers by David W. Johnson (2014)
“… In constant sorrow, all through his days….” Now, if that passage sounds familiar to you, you will probably like David Johnson’s deep and solid book on The Stanley Brothers. For that chorus is from a recording of the song “Man of Constant Sorrow,” originally done by Ralph Stanley in 1951 and the composition (which […]