Interview with Glen Duncan – 7 February 2004

Interviewer:  Tom Adler

Place: At Glen Duncan's home in Gallatin, TN

Present (at times): Glen's wife Marsha and son Duncan (6 yrs old)

Date:  2/7/2004

TA  = Thomas Adler

GD = Glen Duncan

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When GD (born May 26, 1955) was about 10, (c. 1965) he got "bitten by the banjo bug," felt compelled to learn to play banjo from hearing Earl Scruggs. He already played a number of instruments, steel guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, etc. 

GD's dad Carlton Duncan bought him a banjo, and he started to learn to play.  They had many records around the house for him to listen to, including the Mercury Flatt & Scruggs material. 

By this time, festivals had just started:  about 1965/66. 

GD could already play the fiddle, and would do so somewhat reluctantly when he went out to play banjo for square-dance groups, and would fill in for the fiddle player during breaks. 

At that time GD wasn't too motivated to see Monroe, because he had seen him so often before, and he just wanted to see banjo players.  So he and his father went to a BCJ show to see Ralph Stanley, whose version of "Little Maggie" had made a great impact on GD. 

"So we set through whoever would have been the first act, and whoever would have been the second act, and then Ralph. And this was when Ralph had Roy Lee . . . and we set through Ralph.  It was Roy Lee and Jack and Curly.   Man, they were nuclear-powered!  I mean, they wrecked that place!  And by this time, Sunday crowds were good.  It was crowded.  It was big-time, full--  and, uh, they were sensational.  I remember Ralph wearing a black suit.  I remember the conversation in the car being —-  I don't think we had seen him since Carter had passed away -- and so, I remember my Dad telling me, well, people didn't know if he was gonna go on and play, or what. . . .  "

"So we go over there, and we see his whole show.  It was great.  They do everything, and right towards the end he does "Little Maggie," and so I'm happy as I can be.  So Monroe's getting ready to come on.  And my Dad said, "Well, you want to stay and see Bill, or what?"  It's like, "Oh, I've got to go to school tomorrow, and gosh, we've seen him so many times, let's just go ahead and go."  So we're literally walking out of the old barn, and we're clear back by the concession stand, and knowin' what I know now--   Stanley had gone over so big, 'cause they'd encored two or three times, that Monroe come right out of the hatch with "Uncle Pen," which he never did.  The whole time I played with him, we had a very set show.  Now, he would move the banjo numbers and fiddle numbers around, if he was really trying to gouge somebody that he knew was there, but never, ever, did we ever come on with "Uncle Pen" in all those two-hundred shows I played with him, or whatever.  They come on with "Uncle Pen," so, I mean, we are literally walking out of the place, all the way at the back, and [Kenny] Baker's playing with him.  And we're all the way back, where they used to have some bleachers, clear at the back of the place, you remember that?  We’re back by those bleachers, and they do "Uncle Pen," and I mean, I had never heard anything like--  I mean, I literally froze in my tracks, and turned around, and heard them do it.  'Cause he had a great band, it was a great Bill Monroe band.  And I had never ever heard the fiddle played that well in a bluegrass setting.  I'd never heard fiddle of that quality, tone, smoothness, precision, and just an elegance and beauty about it that I just had to have it.   And then it was like, "well, can we go watch this?" 

  So we just go all the way back down, and sit in about the third row, and watched 'em do the whole show.  And of course in typical Monroe fashion they probably played ninety minutes, you know, 'cause he's trying to really show 'em, you know, "I'm the guy," you know, "pay no attention to the band behind the curtain!"   

But it changed my life forever;  then, from that time forward, I was a fiddle player.  It just changed the whole thing.  Changed the whole thing.  I'm a fiddle player today because of that.

They did Kentucky Mandolin, and Wayfaring Stranger, it was "advanced ensemble playing,"    "I'm a fiddle player today because of that."

[various minor topics: Glen rescuing Birch's old spiral notebook , in which he had recorded payments to BCJ artists in the fifties]

GD:  When I was with him in 1985, it was the last year that the BGB played the whole week.  I think they later might have gone back to that, but we'd go up there and do Friday through the following Sunday -- ten days.  And it was one of the Fridays. . . oh, it had to be the second one, because the first one we double booked: we played Lexington, Kentucky on Friday and then went up to Bean Blossom and played.  But on the Friday, we would do that Sunset Jam, and so we had just done that, and--   there was about a hundred guys out there, I bet, uh, some--   I remember the Cardinals were there, and In don't remember--   Josh was there,  and, I imagine probably Dallas Smith and his band. 

And so we do that whole thing, then we're supposed to play in the barn.  Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys.  So we go over to play the barn, even though it's the festival going on, we're gonna play a thing in the barn. 

So we go in the barn, and Bill's fooling around, playing this tune in B.   And, uh, "This is a new number I just wrote."  "Yeah, is that right?"  "Yeah."  And so he's playing it.  And asks, "What should we call it?"   I said, "Well, we ought to call it 'The Old Brown County Barn.' "  And he said -- kind of shook his head, you know, and didn't say anything for a while, then he played a little more and said, "How 'bout if we call it 'The Old Brown County Jamboree Barn'."   "That'd be a great title!" [laughs]  That was his--  he put "Jamboree" in there, but that-- 'cause we're standing in there, and I'm thinkin', "hey, man, you know, this is the reason I play the fiddle, this is the reason I'm playing with Bill Monroe today, it's the old Brown County barn." 

GD never heard any other reason why they tore down the barn;  he has a copy of the picture taken by Bernard Lee, which he had Monroe sign, and which he then matted and framed.

"It was dilapidated and everything, but boy!  Talk about having the vibe! That was the deal right there.  I saw so many funny things there, like Monroe having some of his hired help light those furnaces, [laughing] about blow the place up!"

GD: Silver Spurts Ragsdale -- that was like sound systems from the forties, or whatever, 'cause I can remember Monroe even at festivals having Silver Spur do--   Rosine, which would have been '72 or '73, I swear it was a car with the old ballyhoo speakers on top.  I mean, that's what I remember they used for the festival sound at Rosine.  Flatt came in with the Nashville Grass, and took one look at the sound and the next thing I know, it's Paul Warren and Lance [Leroy] bailing out of the bus, setting up a Shure Vocalmaster.  That's true!  And they set up their sound while another band was playing, so that when Flatt came on, he sounded like a big-time Grand Ole Opry act.

TA: horn speakers in the park?

GD: [first time he saw the Country Gentlemen was at Bean Blossom, and he recalls the clothes, and the show.]  "And the BG Alliance, with Tony and Sam and that bunch, that was spectacular.  That was so new, and you really knew that you were seeing something new.  New, new, new!  And great!"

GD: [seeing Doc Watson, and not knowing that Doc was blind]. 

And then seeing Doc and Merle.  The first time I ever saw them was there.  And I did not know at that time that Doc was sightless.  Through his whole show, I never got--  'Cause we're, like, at the top of the hill, watching.  And he was kind of doing his Doc deal, where he sang a lot, and he hadn't flat-picked yet, and they're done.  And they leave, and he encores.  And he comes back and says, "Well, people are after me to flat-pick one, I guess I'll play 'em the 'Black Mountain Rag.'"  And it was like--  Other than Dan Crary, I'd never seen anybody really play like that--   Well, Don Reno flat-picked fiddle tunes, but, my goodness!  That was just the best I ever heard in my life!  And then when he finished, Merle leading him up through the crowd, what a sight that was to see, at the time.

GD:  Anytime Monroe was there at the festival, stuff happened.  I can remember him playing a cassette of "My Last Days on Earth" through the microphone [on the outdoor stage].  They just had given him a mix of it, you know.  He said "You gotta hear this.  This is the most powerful thing I've ever heard in my life."  And he said, "There's a bunch of fiddles a-playing on it. And, now, they told me, 'cause they did that after I had gone, and they said that when all them people was a-playing, that there wasn't a dry eye among 'em.  Now, it's really powerful, and it tells the story of a man as he goes on up through his years" and all that, and stood there and held a cassette recorder up there in the mike.  And I just couldn't believe it!  And it was one of the most incredible things I ever heard.  He, like, literally ran out there in the middle of somebody else's show.  'Cause somebody came and brought him a tape, you know, while he'd already been up there for a day or two. 

[story about Rosine festival around 1973, and GD had heard them do Jerusalem Ridge on the Opry, and Monroe and the band played it there, the second time they'd ever played it in public. .Monroe told everyone to turn off their tape recorders, and so of course they all turned ON.  "Man, you could almost see a red glow come over the crowd, 'cause everybody was mashing "record."  I'm not kidding!  You could look across the crowd and see red dots! 

[on being made to work as a BG Boy]:

GD:  No.  He knew I wouldn't do it, I've gotta say.  It never came up.  Two things about my deal with Monroe, I found out later, that were pretty unique. That never, ever came up.  I guess he just knew I wouldn't do it.  'Cause I'd already been playing down here [in Nashville], I was actually with the Kendalls when I went to work with him.  And he knew who they were, and they were like a successful country act, which I also found out from being around him all the time, he thought that was--  that a successful country act, that was something.  It seemed puzzling to me at the time, but I understand his thinking on it as I analyze the man more, uh, in hindsight, he thought, "Oh, they're doing really good," you know, they got a new bus, and they're making a lot of money and stuff.  So that's how he thought.  So he never ever said anything to me about working on the farm, or any of that. 

And the other thing was, I was already recording with other people, with a lot of people.  He never ever said anything to me about "I don't want you to record with somebody else."  I mean, never, ever.

[Monroe would demand work of people that were new to town, and there only because of him.  Or people that had a rural background, unlike Glen Duncan.  

GD: By the time I worked for him, we were all paid by the day.  In the earlier days, he had 'em on a salary, so when he had 'em on a salary, I pretty well think he thought "hey, he works for me," so . . .   

[that came after he bought his farm in Goodlettsville and bought the BC Jamboree].

He'd kind of push people in his own way, to see what you'd take. 

Bill had a Japanese tour that fell through, right after I was with him.  

[GD agrees with me that the park at Bean Blossom is similar to other country music parks   But "since Monroe owned it, that steered it in a certain direction".  

"Bill thought of himself as a country act.  He thought of himself as part of country music.  This whole bluegrass thing, that never even occurred to him.  He was another country act.  Which explains everything about how he looked at other people playing what he thought was his style.   And like the thing with Lester and Earl, I mean, he was still friends with them when they left, I mean, he went by and guested on their radio show in Bristol, and stuff. Until Martha White got 'em on the Opry, you know, started putting them on the Opry.  That's when he couldn't, in his head, he couldn't have that.  That's when he got worried and went to all kinds of lengths to try to—   Almost got himself thrown off the Opry, trying to block them.  And that whole thing will all come out at some point in future books, but that's an interesting story, 'cause that's all so different than the story that is kind of the accepted story, that he got mad because they left.  And it wasn't that."

[After GD left Monroe, Bill wouldn't talk to him when he saw frequently him with Jim & Jesse, or (later) the Osborne Brothers.  But when GD went to work with Reba McEntire, it all changed: "It was like, old buddy, old pal, here' s the greatest fiddler and all."  And then I thought, 'you know, that's the deal. He thinks, like, oh well, if you're gonna be at the Opry, and playing that kind of music that you played with him, you're supposed to be playing with him.  The minute I wasn't playing bluegrass, or whatever, then it was a whole 'nother deal.  Then he'd grab me out of a crowd, he introduced me to Chet Atkins, [saying] "he used to be a Blue Grass Boys" and all.  It was like a complete overnight switch."

[When GD was with Monroe, the Skaggs thing was hot, with the video of Uncle Pen.  They'd do some package shows with Skaggs, and put Monroe on first, and never a word was said. 

"But the first time we played a bluegrass festival, and they were gonna put Monroe on, and then bring Skaggs on -- 'cause I mean, with Skaggs there was a lot of staging, because they had to re-do the stage because he had drums and electric instruments and his own sound crew and all that stuff -- so we're gonna play, and then Monroe threw a fit.  And I heard him tell the promoter, "No, I'm not gonna do that."  He said, "when it comes to bluegrass, I go on last."  So he saw it as two whole separate things.  Monroe saw himself as part of country music, and liked that. 

[Bill buying into the "Father of Bluegrass" name.  "He went from 'Don't do that, that's mine!' to 'Do that, that's mine!'  Like a complete 180!   ]

GD:  To me, [Bean Blossom] is a microcosm of what happened to bluegrass, I mean, the bluegrass industry.  Because to me, Flatt & Scruggs and Monroe too, they got bigger than bluegrass.  They were as big an act as Johnny Cash.

[end of Tape #1 of 3].

000  Flatt and Scruggs did everything right; had a good business model, did things professionally, and so did better than everyone else.  When the first festival was held at Fincastle, the price asked by Flatt & Scruggs was more than all the rest of the talent put together, because they were doing that much better.  And were not stylistically into Monroe at all.

014  "Bean Blossom -- going to those Sunday shows, here's Bill Monroe, a Grand Ole Opry act, and his band, coming on those Sunday shows, and there's not sixty people -- there's not fifty people, sometimes.   Knowing what I know now -- man, they weren't making anything!  I mean, he wasn't making anything.  I mean, appallingly low, having trouble getting by, I'm sure, as I look back on it.  Festivals came in--   All of a sudden, if you take that same little --   Me and my bunch, six of us, all buying a ticket, sitting there, and looking around, and almost knowing everybody in the audience -- to then, a festival in 1971 or something, where that hillside is covered with people, thousands and thousands and thousands of people -- that's what festivals did, period."  

025  When the banjo became so hot, after Bonnie & Clyde, everyone was wanting to learn to play the banjo, and that brought a lot of new people into this music.  Lots of big-time professional guitar players in Nashville also learned banjo at that time. 

033  "Festivals hit, then all of a sudden you had what has become an industry.  You had places for these guys to go play.  And Bean Blossom, instead of being that--   sixty or seventy-five -- or forty-five -- paid people on a Sunday afternoon, all of a sudden was thousands.  And instead of Bill getting a few hundred dollars for playing on a Sunday, he's got that place full of thousands of people for ten days.  'Cause it was an event.  It was a happening."

039  It was a confluence of events: Woodstock, and outdoor festivals.  "It created an industry.  Without the festivals, there is no bluegrass as it's known today, none, still yet.  I mean if the festivals overnight went away, three-fourths of the bands would be out of business."

050  The only ones doing top-notch shows before festivals were Flatt & Scruggs.

060  Bean Blossom was an event, because it was a Monroe event.  You'd have Jimmy Martin, who'd played with Monroe, you'd have Del McCoury, who had played with Monroe, and you'd have Monroe every day.  And playing twice a day, and then getting Mac Wiseman up to do "Can't You Hear Me Calling" and "Traveling Down This Lonesome Road," you know, you got to see guys who had done those songs with him get up and do those songs with him.  Or you got to see Vassar play, or Vassar and Baker play.  You gotta see, it was event programming, it was what other festivals later did some of, he was doing it.  You got to see Lester Flatt and Bill Monroe sing "Little Cabin Home on the Hill."   You got to see Earl Scruggs and Monroe, you got to see Chubby Wise get up there and play with Bill Monroe.  It was such an event, and Monroe was such a presence. 

075  "The park changed when we would pull in.  The whole park would change.  If we were playing a festival someplace, the park changed.  The minute that Monroe was there, it changed, because people know Monroe was here.  So -- it changed.  Because people tried to do better, because people wanted Bill's approval, and people didn't want his disapproval."

085  It’s the Monroe thing.  So many people that I know -- the Jim Pevas, and the Raymond Huffmasters and people who've been going for ever and ever -- they have almost as many great memories of like Baker, as they do with Monroe, cause Baker was out jamming.  And I used to jam like crazy there in the 70s.  It was the best.  It was just the best.  I don't see that anymore.  I mean, I know people jam, but it's like a whole different deal.  And part of it is, there were so few bands, that all of us guys who would be jamming -- and now have music careers of our own -- but at that time, think about it, Curly Ray was older than my Dad, Baker was older than my Dad, you know, Joe Meadows and those guys, they were as old as my Dad.  So all those jobs were locked up.  It wasn't like it is now, when there's, who knows how many, maybe thirty bluegrass fiddle gigs or whatever.  At that time there was Monroe, Ralph, Lester, and Jim & Jesse, you know, where do you go after that?"  It was all so new.

100  There was a feeling of newness.  

120  There's a whole generation of fiddlers who play because of Kenny Baker: Glen, Blaine Sprouse, etc.

135  Bands back in the 70s didn't have to leave a festival too quickly. 

140  GD with the Boys From Indiana used to play Haspin Acres (owned by Bill Minelli), for 4 days straight (unlike today).  Now GD and bands never play for two days in a row at a festival.   Hence, no jamming, because the musicians are traveling, resting, or on stage.   Now, for bands, festivals are one-nighters.

160  In the mid-sixties through the mid-70s, all genres of music were like bluegrass then: people were more INTO traveling to get to a festival and spend time.

170  Bean Blossom was different than other festivals:  "there was a vibe there, and it was all because of Bill Monroe."  

180  Negatives:  Any of the service side of things, it [Bean Blossom] would not be your model for sanitation or refreshments, or any of that.  Which really, to me, speaks again to how much of the other it had.  'Cause there was no good reason to go there, because "Boy, the restrooms are great!" and-- "No sir!"   'Cause that, harking back to that 1911 birthday, that just didn't occur--   He said--  That was just so foreign to him.   Festivals are light years ahead of that.  He wouldn't even think about it."

200  "They would be working on the park the whole time the festival was going on.  You know, they had chainsaws,  r-r-r-r-r, back there like clearing things, and--   It's, like, Thursday, and its gonna be over in three days!   But that was just kind of the deal, hey, this needs to be done and that needs to be done, and it's like--   "Well, yeah!  Probably so, in March!"   It was not on his mind until it was time to go do it."

210  Bands were eager to play Bean Blossom; if Bill was at another festival and heard a band he liked, he might invite them to play the park, and they jumped at the chance, often never asking about the pay they might expect for the booking.  "That was such a big deal for them to get to go play." "It was a big deal for so many of the bands that were playing there." 

225  "Roger tells about judging a banjo contest, and it was Butch Robins, Al Osteen, and Alan Munde, and maybe Jack Hicks.  I mean, it was like household names, half a dozen of some of the best banjo players of the 70s and 80s, and they were all in the banjo contest."

235  "People came there to see Bill.  All these other guys, your Art Stampers and your Roger Smiths and your Vernon McQueens and your Rual Yarbroughs, and Jake Landers and all those guys, so it was also a place to go for all the ex-Blue Grass Boys to go, too.  'Cause you could go there and, you know, "Oh, gosh, I'll go there and say hi to Bill, hang out some with Bill and see how he's doing," and all that kind of stuff.  So you would have Peter Rowan coming by when he was doing Seatrain or whatever else, but he would come by Bean Blossom."

245  "And, you knew when it was.  You knew in June, "Hey, it's Bean Blossom week, well, we could go see how Bill's doing.   And I mean, he was there for the whole time. You could go at five-thirty in the evening, and unless he'd gone into town to eat or something, he's there.  Looking back on that, man, is that unique.  That is really a unique deal.

252  Ralph modeled his festival after Bean Blossom.  "I played it with Sparks, and it was like-- we'd do stuff with Ralph, you know, it was kind of the ex-Ralph musicians.  And Bill Monroe was the same way.  If I'd be up there playing with another band, you know, or something -- he'd get me up to play. 

267  So--  so many unique musical things happening in a ten-day period, as opposed to what we're talking about now, where bands now, you just slug around from festival to festival and you do your show.   It was an event.  I mean, it was an event, from beginning to end.  I mean, you know, you got one of the icons of twentieth century American music, and-- It'd be no different than, there's Duke Ellington, and he's here for ten solid days, and you can go see Duke Ellington, go talk to Duke, "how you doin', Duke?"

285  That all changed in bluegrass in general when it started doing so good.  'Cause then there were so many other festivals.  Then -- instead of Jim & Jesse being there for two days, or Ralph being there for two days--  Instead of bands being there for several days, then it became, "well, we've gotta be in Hurricane, West Virginia the next day, and then we're down in Dahlonega, Georgia, and then we're in such-and-such the next day . . . "  Which was great for all of us, but not as good for the place was the huge dilution of the talent pool, in that instead of having six bands, period, then there was six hundred.   [i.e., bands with several strong players or stars turned into separate bands led by each of the strong players.]  Then, pretty soon, once festivals hit, there was so much more opportunity and so much more work for all the bands, that it changed Bean Blossom, sadly. 

325  But for that moment in time, it was incredible.  Late sixties up through the mid-seventies.

325  When I played with Monroe in '85, we were the last time that he ever played there from [the first] Friday to the following Sunday.  The next year, '86, they didn't do that.  That's when they played, I guess, both weekends.   We were there for ten days.  But even in '85, we played the Festival of the Bluegrass on Friday, and then went to Bean Blossom.  Which would have been unheard of, but there wouldn't have been a "Festival of the Bluegrass" in the late sixties.

335  It's pretty interesting that Monroe grabbed that idea [i.e., of festivals] that fast, in hindsight.  'Course, he would only have been in his mid-fifties at the time.  Festivals.  Think about how fast he grabbed hold of it.  "Hey, I need to do this, hey, I can do this at Bean Blossom."  And then, you know, Hugo [Oklahoma], Bill Grant said "I got a place out here, you ought to do one out here too." 

348  "If he'd have had somebody like a business manager or something, God, he'd have been a multimillionaire from all that.  Could have just been a zillionaire from the marketing of a Bill Monroe event."

370  "Bill Monroe, his father was born in 1857.  Bill Monroe's father remembered the Civil War.  Bill Monroe's father lived during the start of the Civil War.  Can you imagine how a man's worldview was different, who had been raised by someone who was born in 1857?  And not in New York, but in a remote part of western Kentucky.  He's from out here away from anything.  Rosine is a remote place.

400  Thumb pickers from Western Kentucky, southern Indiana, southern Ohio.

[TA: Hazel Smith told me about Bill Monroe coming to visit her after Bean Blossom, and the car floor was covered 8 or 10 inches deep in coins and change from there.]

[end of side one, tape 2]

000  [Bill would call him at five in the morning to suddenly tell him about a last minute job, then perhaps not call him back to say the job was called off.  They never could tell when they'd leave for a show, and were sometimes hours late.   

030  "If he'd have had any kind of business management at all, apart from himself, when that Bean Blossom thing hit in the sixties, what he could have done with that--  He could have had a dozen of them over strategic parts of the country, and just made millions and millions and millions of dollars.  'Cause all these other festivals that have done so well are launched from there.  You know, if it had only just been Fincastle or Luray, Virginia or somewhere, it never would have happened.  I mean Bean Blossom was it.  It inspired the other festivals, I guarantee you. It's the reason there's festivals today.  I mean, it wasn't THE first festival, but it was the one where--  You know, somebody else came up with the model of having a Bill Monroe reunion show, which was why all those other bands were there, Carlton wanted Don Reno, Benny Martin and Mac and everybody to play with Bill."

045  GD: I've got a copy of Monroe's contract for that show, and I know what he got for that first festival.  It was wild.

050  TA: Did Bill pass money on to the bands when the festival was making a lot of money?   Who benefited? 

         GD:  Bill.   Very much so.  And bands would always cut him slack on price, partly to say thanks for coming up with something that allowed them all to go do something that they wanted to do. 

055  Bill was worried, after Baker left in 1984, about finding fiddlers who might know his catalog of songs. 

090  Other bands who played Bean Blossom would not play hardball on price with Bill Monroe, they cut him some slack on price.

095  Did Bill negotiate deals?  "No.  He wanted Lester, because he knew Lester would sell tickets.  And with Ralph, they had the back-and-forth deal, so we'd go play McClure for one day, and Ralph would come up there for two.  I never did know, I always just assumed that was a straight trade-out.  And like Jim & Jesse and people like that, they were gonna play for him cheap, as cheap as they played anywhere, they played for Bill. 

118  "But they'd go in the bus, and--   Until his health got bad, he'd do the paying himself.  I mean, he'd sit there-- He'd go in the back of the bus, and he'd be there --  You know, in that bus, before the one I was with,  you know, the bed was in the back, and he'd be back there in the back, just money spread all over the bed, and-- 'How much do I owe you?'  You'd tell him, he'd count 'em out a little bit of money."

123  [Buying the park, and why?]  GD:  I do know why.  He went up there and played, and had a huge crowd, and thought, "Oh, boy!  I have got it!  This is great! "  And when I was with him, he still had this in him--   We'd go play a place one day, and have a huge crowd, and he already started talking about wanting to come back, "and now next year, we need to play two days."  That was still his thinking, left over from the forties, and it wasn't right in the forties.  Actually you need to keep your supply a little more limited, but he didn't think that way.  He still was from the-- "hey, there's a lot of people willing to pay."  So he bought the place, and as it's been told to me by the locals, never ever had that kind of crowd again!

154  You know how Bill was booked back then.  He had guys that worked for him, and he paid them a straight salary, which was not the way to do it, but he did it a lot -- or he paid them a commission, which was the way to do it, so if they didn't have a crowd, they didn't make money either.  'Cause when he had everybody on salary, then their motivation was -- hey it's another day.  So he had a guy who booked -- it was different people for different periods of time --  and they would travel around, out ahead of the band, and they would be booking them in movie theaters a lot, was a popular way to do it, you know, they'd play before, and in between the reels and all that.  And they were just scouting out schoolhouses.  'Cause he was on the Opry since '39, so his deal was different from Flatt & Scruggs and everybody, 'cause they got to the Opry in '55, so in '51, they would have still been doing Versailles, Kentucky until they played out for a couple years, and then Hickory, North Carolina, you know, around the country, people were doing that.  When he went to the Opry in '39, then he wasn't playing Hickman County, or Gallatin, he was playing everywhere that that signal would blast. 

176  So he had a guy out trying to sell, and the way they sold was they'd go and-- "Okay, I'm representing Bill Monroe from the Grand Ole Opry," and they'd get whatever they could get.  They'd get what they could from these little theaters.  A lot of these guys owned six theaters.  So they'd do all six of 'em, you know, that would have been a good Monroe week.  So we'll play six theaters.

183  We played West Grove, Pennsylvania in '85, and the guy brought him an original show card from 1945, and he'd been there for a week!  Monroe had been there for a solid week!

190  By the time I came along, Buddy Lee was booking him, and he was in good shape.  That was a legitimate big Nashville booking agency.  He had a good agency by that time.  And Tony Conway, who now runs Buddy Lee's thing, was Bill's guy at Buddy Lee, and he paid a lot of bands, or took care of telling bands how much they had to play.  And I guarantee, tons of bands went up there without ever having any idea what they were gonna get.  They'd just say, "Well, he told us he wanted us to play, he did say Thursday . . . well, I saw an ad, we're in it!" 

205  Bill could be intimidating, and could ratchet that up if he felt he needed to.

215  Birch's role, according to Bill.   Bill would tell them to stop the bus so he could talk to Birch, and then they'd stay there and not say much.  It always struck GD and other BGB's as something from the 19th century.

230  Birch's role:  "Birch, he 'ran' the park, which consisted of-- He would get bands to play.  He would call Bryant Wilson, he'd call Sonny Osborne, and then he would drive around in his Chevrolet and put out those showcards, like at Cummins Bookstore [in Columbus] that I told you about, that I know now were Hatch showprints.  

242  GD has some posters; he brings one or two out for me to see.

[end of Tape 2, side 2]

[begin Tape 3, side 1]

000  [GD is discussing the sale of Monroe's farm.  Only a few ex-BGBoys went, just Glen and Wayne Lewis.  GD thought Monroe would be distraught, but he was just fine.  Big crowd of people, not many people coming up to him.  The first thing they did was sell the farm; they had old farm equipment lined up along a fencerow.  Lance Leroy was there, and Larry Cordle.  Then they started to auction; GD observed:  auctioneer explained how special the property was, and asked Bill to stand up; Bill stood and sang "Blue Moon of Kentucky" all the way through, a capella.  People were crying, women sobbing.  

030  Birch.  "It was just a throwback, I mean, it was a complete throwback to how they had done shows in the forties.  You had a band come, and you put a few showcards around.  'Cause I mean, it wouldn't be in the Indianapolis Star, it wouldn't be on the radio. That's all they knew, and they never, ever changed."

[TA: Francis Rund's advertising was prominent; it changed when Monroes bought the park. Use of both Hatch Showprint and Tribune Press.   GD had seen the bus refused service by shops that had been stiffed by Monroe.  When they would blow a tire, Monroe would want the driver to take the tire back to where they got it to return it.

065  Birch, at the time I knew him, was living in Martinsville, Indiana.  He still worked at the factory, at GE or something.  He worked for a Fortune 500 company. 

075  I'll tell you what he could do though, I saw this old man do this myself, and I thought--  Again, it's Monroe--   He was way more old-timey than Bill.  As hard as that is to imagine.  He had that white longsleeve shirt on, and that tie with the tie clasp, but I've seen him--   And just shake hands, them old dry hands, you know, "how you doin'?" you know, he had that old-timey way of talking.  And just look so frail and everything, and he'd move around so slow.  And they'd need to build a fire, it'd be cold, and I've seen him out there splittin' logs, and, I mean, I would have bet a hundred dollars he couldn't have done it, he'd have that axe, and WHAM!  Hit 'em one time, next one, WHAM!  Just-- He knew how to hit 'em, and knew just how to put his-- You know, knew exactly the right-- where to hit 'em, and he'd split them things just like--  A young guy couldn't have done it like that for nothing! 

085  But him and his wife, they'd both be over there, and he'd have on, like his Blue Grass Boy hat and he'd have his fiddles -- he had a twin fiddle case.  And he'd have one of 'em tuned for "Black Mountain Rag."

[story about a teenage GD playing Black Mtn. Rag for Birch; then Birch played it back to him, poorly, with an almost unrecognizable melody, and then said "Now, when you can play it like that, you'll have something!"  and GD thought "Yeah, arthritis!."

100  GD's favorite Birch Monroe story.  The fraternity of pickers, people who know how to "play it like its supposed to go."  Bill got to having Birch do Rosine, and Beaver Dam, and these other festivals, and Birch'd be up there selling stuff.  And so he'd have that fistful of money in that left hand.  And somebody'd go -- they'd want to mess with him, and would wait until the last minute, then "Birch, you're on!"  So he'd just get there, and when he got there, he'd just take his fiddle backstage and just leave it.  There'd be his fiddle.  And so the Boys, they had to back him, the Blue Grass Boys had to back him.  So they thought, "we'll fix him!"  'Cause he said, "Where's my fiddle?"  and they thought, "we're having to back you, and getting no extra money for this," and "I don't know where your fiddle is."  So they thought, we'll fix him, we'll hide his bow from him.  So you know, "Birch, you're on!"  So he comes flying down through there and gets backstage, opens that case, his fiddle, and no bow.  He had one bow, and never let the tension down or anything, there it sits -- but there's no bow.  And they've hidden it in a bunch of, like, bushes, behind the stage.  This is at Rosine, or Beaver Dam, I forget which.  And -- "I ain't got no bow!  Where's my bow?"  "I have no idea."  "Go see if you can borrow me one!"  So they just go right back there and get his own bow, and bring it to him.  He goes up there and plays his two or three little songs.  Comes back there and puts his fiddle up, and you know, and gives 'em the bow, and he says, "Here's that feller's bow." And they said, "okay."  And he said,  "Tell that feller I appreciate him loaning me that bow -- but that's the sorriest bow I ever played!"

135  Bill would get him up and play stuff too fast for Birch, and then stand back and just roar laughing. 

According to GD, Bill's routine rough treatment of Birch ("messing with him" e.g., pranks, musical tricks, etc.) was part of getting back at his older brothers who had treated him badly in his first 25 years, e.g., when he, working at Sinclair Oil in Hammond, Indiana, bought a car that Charlie and Birch, as the older brothers, simply appropriated. 

158  That was the whole story on Bill Monroe, "he'd show 'em."

161  How Bill felt about Bean Blossom:  "He was so proud of Bean Blossom.  That was a big, big deal to him, and the festival was a big deal.  He'd talk about it, he'd plug it on the Opry, and on the road.  Now, if it was a real good crowd that had been real receptive, he'd say, "Now come to see us at Bean Blossom, we have a festival there every June.  And it runs from Friday to the following Sunday, come see us!" 

170  And he'd talk about it, and describe Bean Blossom, what it's like, and--  It was a big deal to him.  And that all appealed to his--   I always look at Bean Blossom, the festivals, they were like a Monroe Fest anyway.  People paying--  almost like--  worship.  People'd come to worship Bill, I don't know any other way to put it than that.  And, oh, he loved that.  That's his deal, you know.  That was right at the core of who he was.  I mean, Bean Blossom and him are forever intertwined.  You know, there is no Bean Blossom without Bill Monroe.  And Bean Blossom, that's Bill Monroe.  When you say "Bean Blossom," that's Bill Monroe.

188  And it's a shame, I've thought about it a million times, that more people couldn't have experienced what we got to experience, goin' to Bean Blossom.   Your whole life'd be different, mine too, and what I aspired to do, and what I looked at and said, "Oh, I want to do that," is there.

195  TA: Raymond Huffmaster says it meant a lot to him.

199  GD: Monroe's passing was such a big deal to so many of us, that--  To me it was like, beyond the fact that we were friends and all that, but--  It was like the death of your childhood.  It was like the whole passing of your childhood.  

200  GD: It was the same way with me with Acuff.  Acuff was a tremendous manager, the total opposite of [Bill].

220  GD: It's like the world is forever changed.     [When Acuff died and then Monroe and Hank Snow and others, the Opry dwindled. ]

230  GD: "Dwight has done a fantastic job.  Could not be better.  And, now, he has a love that goes back, he remembers what all that was, the seventies and all that.  Being from Indiana, too, you know, I mean, that was such an iconic spot.  I mean, he has a love of the place.  Nobody else would have had the same thing, that would have had the wherewithal to not only buy it, but to keep it going like he has.  I mean, it goes way beyond a business man's decision.  There's a love--   I've heard Raymond and Peva and different ones --  Roger -- talk about how much they appreciate what he's done.  

248  When Monroe had the stroke in March of '96, from that point we knew he's not gonna be at Bean Blossom again.  Even though Bean Blossom had evolved, because there all of a sudden there was Dahlonega, and all these other festivals, still yet, with Monroe roaming the hills up there, it was still a place where a guy--   And I think that had a lot to do with it too, Bill was such a ---   uh, he loved the way the land looked up there, and it did something to him that didn't have anything to do with the crowds of people and stuff, he just liked the idea of being able to look across--   Well, if you think about it, Rosine and all  -- Brown County's more rocky and hilly, but around where Bean Blossom is, you know, you got those big rolling hills and stuff, and it probably did something that made him think more of when he was a kid, or something.  'Cause he was that way.  He would have liked things that made him think of when he was a kid.  That would have appealed to him.  But if you think about it, I mean, that place -- that changed his whole career.  

270  "Like we talked about, had it not been for festivals, none of that would have been like it was.  And to think about a guy bein' the age he was, up in his fifties, and not being financially fixed like people would have thought he was, and then all of a sudden for festivals to come along, and now all of a sudden he's got cash flow and stuff.  And, to go from being, you know, nobody at the shows and stuff to being the Father of Bluegrass, you know, being an iconic figure, and the Country Music Hall of Fame, that was all later.  That all came later than Bean Blossom being a big deal.  It was a big deal!  And MCA doing live albums there . . . You think about all that now, and you think about how that would be . . .

288  A real businessman might have operated very differently with Bean Blossom:  when it was not really successful, it might have been sold off; when festival hit and it was very successful, it could have been duplicated around the country -- Monroe did neither of those things.

310  Music parks after WWII - Gordon Terry's Terry Town, in Loretto, TN. 

320  Texas and Oklahoma didn't have music parks; clubs instead.  Bob Wills used to play at house parties, standing in the doorway between two large rooms where dancing took place; then later, he went into clubs.

345  Lester, Earl, and Mac were all good businessmen, but Bill wasn't.  His success was at "being Bill Monroe." 

355  That had to do with why Bean Blossom was such a deal, because he loved that part of that.  That had way more to do with it than the money, it had to do with the people coming to see Bill at the park.

365  Roger Smith wanted to drive the bus for the BGB when GD was with Monroe, but his perspective had so changed between the fifties and the eighties he couldn't believe--  He could not believe--  "He'd tell me lot's of times, 'he would rather have someone tell him, "Boy, Bill, that's a good number you just wrote," as to have a million dollars, wouldn't he?'  I said, "Yes, he would."

385  Money didn't do it for him, being Bill Monroe did it for him. 

390  Bean Blossom was Bill Monroe - having it, sticking with it when it was going down, then succeeding with it when festival came.  It was parallel to Bill's career.

400  [Tunes named for places].  Bean Blossom makes you think of Bill Monroe, so does "Brown County." You think of Brown County Breakdown, and Stoney Lonesome...