Bill Monroe and the Invention of Bluegrass

Tristan Rios, On the Road Radio

Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Source: Alamy

To understand the origin of Bluegrass, it is important to first have an understanding of the genre's inventor, Bill Monroe. Bill Monroe was born on a farm in Rosine, Kentucky, in 1911, the youngest of eight children (Kochman 8). Monroe and his siblings were surrounded by music from a young age. His father was a dancer, and his mother was a multi-instrumentalist who played old-time songs and ballads (Rosenberg 28). Monroe’s uncle, Pen Vandiver, a talented fiddler, played gigs regularly around town and was a huge inspiration for Bill.

Kentucky in the early 1900s was a melting pot of musical genres, so not only was Bill hearing the old-time music that his family played, he was exposed to a variety of black musical traditions from gospel music to the blues. These various styles of music had a great influence on Monroe’s creation of Bluegrass. When Monroe was 16, his father died, and his Uncle Pen stepped up as a role model for him and his siblings.

By 1929, the country was on the brink of the great depression, and Bill decided he would leave home to join his brothers who had found employment working at an oil refinery in East Chicago. Here, the three brothers began playing gigs at dances and local radio stations around the East Chicago area. At one of these gigs, the brothers were discovered by WLS, a major radio station in Chicago that sent the brothers on the station's “Barn Dance Tour” (Kochman 10).

After some touring as a trio, Bill’s brother, Birch, decided it was time to settle into his day job, and he left the trio. Bill and his brother Charlie continued as a duo, calling themselves the “Monroe Brothers”. Committing to music full-time meant leaving the stable jobs they had secured in East Chicago, and at the height of the depression, this was a risky maneuver. Bill, however, insisted that he never chose a musical career, instead saying that playing music was all he ever knew (Cantwell 27).

The brothers continued to play dances and radio stations, expanding their tours all over the south and midwest. It was on a broadcast in North Carolina that the duo caught the attention of Victory Records (Rosenberg 33). The duo released several recordings with the label, and they sold well. It seemed like the two had found a successful career path; however, a strong sibling rivalry drove the two apart, and after six years of playing together, the Monroe Brothers split up (Kochman 10).

After the split, it seemed as if Bill was left with some major disadvantages compared to his brother. Charlie kept the Victory Records contract and was able to continue using the "Monroe Brothers” repertoire . Charlie had also done all the lead singing. Thus, Bill found himself having to learn how to play the role of a lead singer. It was because of these setbacks that Bill decided to set out to create his own, unique style of music (Rosenberg 40).

This style came to fruition in 1939, when he debuted his new group, the “Bluegrass Boys” on WSM’s Grand Ole Opry, a highly influential country radio show. The group was very well received. Opry representatives said to the group, “if you ever leave the Opry, it’ll be because you fired yourself”. Even in its earliest iterations, the “Bluegrass Boys” played faster than anyone else at the time, and the group often experimented with unconventional keys, setting them apart from other Opry acts (Rosenberg 46).

This was just the beginning, however, and throughout the 40s Monroe experimented with different musicians and instruments before deciding to add the Banjo, and introducing a young Earl Scruggs to the group. Earl Scruggs and his lightning-fast three-finger banjo playing came to define the Bluegrass sound (Kochman 10). Combined with the distinct rhythmic chop that Monroe had developed on the banjo, Bill had pioneered a whole new genre, meant for the radio and the Grand Ole Opry.

Works Cited

Cantwell, Robert. Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound. University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Kochman, Marilyn. The Big Book of Bluegrass. W. Morrow, 1984.

Rosenberg, Neil V. Bluegrass: A History. University of Illinois Press, 2005.