Interview with Miss Hazel Smith and Billy Smith – 6 February 2004

At her home:

130 Port Drive

Madison, TN 37201

(615) 865-0978 

TA = Thomas A. Adler

HS = Hazel Smith

BS = Billy Smith

000  TA:  How did you meet Bill Monroe?

HS met BM first at a festival in Ohio, then saw him at different places, festivals and so forth.   Carlton Haney used to tell Bill years ago that the prettiest woman he ever saw was Hazel Boone Mac Smith, and that was her.  So maybe Bill remembered that. 

After divorce, she began to write songs, and she moved to Nashville and became very close to Bill Monroe.   "I feel like that I was his confidante."  HS went with Bill to Charlie's funeral; at that time there were problems between Bill and Charlie over the lady that Charlie had married, and that was their problem. 

"It didn't matter what it was, whenever he would get in dire straits he would always come to our house.  The night Charlie died he talked all night to me and my son Billy.  He came to our house and we talked."

016  Both HS's sons had worked on the farm with Bill when they were teenagers, so he knew them well.

020  What she knows about the park at Bean Blossom:  "I did go to the park, I can't remember if I went up there three or four times."  The year Terry turned 14 years old, he and Billy and J.B. Prince and Alan O'Bryant were calling themselves "Blue Haze," and they went up and played at BB.  HS: "I had a tent set up, and had me a mattress there, and I had all those boys sleeping in the tent with me, I was looking after all four of those boys.  It was an excellent little band.  Like I said, Terry was 14, Billy was 17, Alan was 18, I don't remember how old J.B. Prince was."

030  "I thought it was a wonderful place to have a festival.  I thought the location was good, because there was a lot of bluegrass bands in the neighborhood, and all the people in the area seemed to love bluegrass music and they all was crazy about Bill Monroe.  And I would say that that part of Indiana was his adopted home. 

035  BM loved Kentucky, and loved Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry.  "But he also loved that ground up at Bean Blossom, I've seen him stand and look--   I remember one time that I was up there, and we were walking, and somebody was working out there on a fence, trying to fix a fence or something, and he was using a lot of swear words.  And Bill just laid him out, right there.  He said, "There's a lady here, and you can't talk like that in front of a lady."

040  "Another thing about that park that I will never forget was--  I was sittin' out there on the second row, I believe, and John Hartford was on the front row, when Lester Flatt came out, and he and Bill reunited at that park.  And that was a very special moment.  They walked out, shook hands like they'd just seen each other last week or last year.  And it'd been, I believe, twenty-six years since they'd spoken.  I believe that's the year, I may be wrong, but--  It was at that place that this happened.  And they shook hands, and they sang "Little Cabin Home on the Hill," best I remember.  But I remember John Hartford was the first person that stood.  I know that when I was standing, I saw that John Hartford was already on his feet, to applaud, because he was so happy that they had gotten back together, you see.  It was a special moment in the history of music."

050  [HS points out a quilt that one of Hartford's children gave her, because Marie was a close friend of hers.]

053  "It was a very special festival. I don't know if that was the time, Tom, that-- if Doc Watson was there or not."  HS and Doc talked for a long time; maybe Mac Wiseman was there too.  Doc said to her:  "Mr. Bill is the greatest musician in the world, Miss Hazel."  And I remember him telling me that, and I thought, "What a thing to say!"  \

HS says Doc's senses were more acute than everyone else.

070  Did Bill ever talk to her about getting Bean Blossom?  "He done things so old-timey, and it was such a run-down place when the Dillman boy that got it, he has really made a wonderful first-class place out of it, so I've been told." 

"I can remember goin' up there, it would be dirt flying everywhere, it would be people stuck, and send Birch to go get some some toilet paper and instead of getting' four huge boxes, he'd bring back with a roll with--  one package with four rolls in it.  It was just hilarious things that happened.  Just unbelievable. . . "

"I never will forget, the facilities were horrible.  I mean, those outdoor johns weren't fit for man nor beast, it was the filthiest things I ever saw in my life." 

090  "The thing about that, though, Tom, was this:  Bill still fancied himself as being old-timey.  He really did!  I mean, even out here at his farm, he had a mule, and a horse, or a mule and plow.  He finally got a tractor, but he still preferred to plow with a mule, you know?  He even had the kind of cow, or cattle -- the red cattle -- that his father had.  He found some, and he had a bunch of 'em out there at his place.  You know, because, it was like he wanted to be old-fashioned.  His father was his hero.  But you have to remember, his mother died when he was ten, his dad died when he was sixteen, and that's all he had, the memories of that as a child.  And he still would want to go back to that. . ."

100  HS: I think he would add just a little on to it, you know.  And Bill wasn't anybody to go buy something new.  He would straighten nails, re-use nails, and re-use boards and planks, rather than get new pieces of lumber, he would use old lumber to fix things.  And that's just the way he was.  That's the way he was raised up in Kentucky, and he just continued on that all through his life, you know.

115  [Why Bill bought a park?  Did it have to do with Acuff buying Dunbar Cave?] 

HS:  He probably did it because they did it, don't you imagine?  You know, they always silently competed with each other.  I believe they did, yeah, because when he would tell me stories--  He loved to tell the story about, he got the first standing ovation at the Grand Ole Opry, was Bill Monroe, in 1939 when he appeared there the first time.  [Hank Williams in 1949 or 1950 got seven in one night].

125  HS: "Until he got old, and Mr. Acuff was old, he would always tell things where he had outdone Roy Acuff.  And I can remember once him telling me he played a song for Chet Atkins, and Chet couldn't play it!  I think that was so funny!  So I think they did compete with each other.

130  I knew Mr. Acuff had Dunbar Cave, because I remember he used to appear out there on Friday nights, and they would broadcast from there.  So I knew about Dunbar Cave, because of that, and I was living in North Carolina at the time.   [HS is originally from NC, near Reidsville]

135  [I want to know why he bought it, but haven't had much luck; she says no one is alive who knows.]

149  HS: "You know, there was some talk that he was about to lose the park up there.  Early on, there was some talk, there was always talk about Bill, you know, needs to do this, and he needs to pay this bill, needs to pay that bill.  I don't know how well things were taken care of for him, because he actually, until they got this office up here, I don't think that he actually ever took care of anything like that.  I think the children's mother was taking care of that, some of that, I don't know how well it was taken care of, to tell you the truth, Tom.  Caroline.  I think she was the one that was writing checks, and taking care, doing some of the business and stuff for Bill.

160  HS: "Birch lived in Martinsville.  I went to their house and stayed there one time when I went to the festival.  Another time I fixed a bed in my car, another time I slept in a tent with the boys; I think I actually got me a hotel room one time, I can't remember.  But I'd always figure out some way and I'd go up there."

167  "I'll tell you what I really loved, was the sundown, on the first day, when he would have that sundown pickin', it was wonderful.  He'd go around with the microphone during that jam session, and let different people sing and play and what have you."

170  Terry's birthday is the 15th of June, and he turned 14 up there, then last played there with Mike Snider, and turned 42, laughs Hazel.

175  The next year, [1975] when Terry turned 16, Bill took him to get his driver's license, and Terry drove his truck all the way to Bean Blossom from Tennessee, bringing Bill's wagon and midget mules.  There Bill instructed Terry Smith and Monroe's Goodlettsville neighbor, Archie Martin: "Now listen, when I sing 'Muleskinner Blues,' I want you all to come down through here with the little mules and the wagon."  So he's up there singing, and they come around the whole thing, you know, they circled the whole park area down there.  They went around one way, back behind the stage, and up the other side, he said "Terry Smith and my friend Archie Martin, they gonna come down here with my little mules, and he's gonna be drivin', and I'm gonna sing 'Muleskinner Blues.'  It worked great.  Well, they went back, Terry cleaned the mules up, got 'em some water, give 'em some hay.  Bill never mentioned anything about it-- them doing it but one time.  And Bill does the second show, he starts that same routine again. So Terry jumps up, and he runs up there, hitches up the little mules and just as he starts down across the hill, and they get down to the bottom right there at the stage, Bill is now singing "Old, Old House," just staring at Terry!  He'll never forget that as long as he lives, 'cause they had really messed up.  And Archie saying, "I don't care, Monroe shoulda told us he wanted us to do it twice."

200  Terry was young, and would argue with Bill.  They argued about the mule-bit.

         Billy met his wife (they're now divorced) when Sab Watanabe brought her over from Japan to go to Bean Blossom in 1976.

210  [Billy Smith comes in, sits with us as the interview proceeds.]

230  Billy recalls enjoying picking with Kenny Baker and Bob Black, did that a lot at the Wards camp. 

245  Calvin Robins.   Why I didn't know him.  Billy: CR had a Martin guitar with a Kay sticker on it. 

250  "The year Calvin Robins died [1980], a little tornado came through Bean Blossom and tore up the ground right near where Calvin had camped, and "Butch swore it was his Daddy come back."

270  I'm trying to understand why Beany was special.

Hazel:  "Bill made the difference.  Bill was totally in control up there, as out of control as it was, and as loose as it was, and nothing fitting in place.  It was Bill's thing, and everybody just--  "Yes sir, yes sir!"  The buses couldn't even drive down there, they had to park way away because there wasn't a decent road for 'em to drive."

285  People around Rosine did not always like or welcome Monroe when he returned to do festivals; resented the Monroe's relative wealth -- they could ride wagons and horses, when others had to walk.

290  [I explain my own background to HS and BS.]

310  [HS tells "second-hand" story about Richard Greene and Lamar Grier] 

320  "If you worked with Bill, you had to go up there and dig at Bean Blossom.  There was no way out of that, you had to do it, you had to get in the poison ivy and all this stuff.  Bill was somewhere, I don't know where he was, and he sent Peter Rowan and Richard Greene and Lamar Grier with Bessie Lee Mauldin and Del Wood.  Well, both of them was hefty women, you know,  that liked coffee and pie every day.  And they stopped at every town between here and up there -- and EAT!  Peter said, "I never seen people eat so much in my life!" He said, "Those women would get a complete meal and a great big piece of pie about that big, with icing on it."  And they got up there-- They was just amazed, seeing 'em eat that much!"

350  HS thought that was funny, for Bill to send them up there with those big women.

360  Story about Birch and Bertha in Nashville, visiting Bill.  While there, Bill got a call from a veterinarian saying that Bertha's dog had died.  When he offered to put the dog's body in a freezer to keep for Bertha to make a later decision about disposing of the carcass, Bill agreed, and then hung up.  After Birch and Bertha returned to Indiana, Bertha found out, and cried and carried on.  Six months later Bill got a call from the vet, complaining that Bertha would keep coming by to visit the dog and rub it, and wondering what to do!   Bill got mad, and told the vet to get rid of the dog's body!

390  HS: "Another funny story about Bean Blossom.  Birch was supposed to be runnin' Bean Blossom, and Bill had told him, "Don't you have no rock'n'roll up there!"   Well, he'd slipped around and had Newgrass Revival, and didn't tell Bill, and Bill found out about it and got on him about it.  Then-- Birch had booked a rock'n'roll show at Bean Blossom.  Then -- I was privy to Bill getting' on Birch about it -- and Birch denied it at first!  Bill said "I know you did --" and they were arguin' about it.  Bill said, "I want clean music up there, I don't want that rock'n'roll stuff with all that long hair!  My people up there, they won't want to come if they know that kind of stuff's being played!"

[side 2, Tape 1]

000  BS: "My favorite story of all time about Birch and Bill at Bean Blossom.  They had run out of toilet tissue there.  You probably remember that, but it's like the whole place had, I don't know, it's like two male and two female toilets there, and twenty-five or thirty-thousand people there.  And they'd run out.  And they ran --  needed hot dog buns.  So Bill said, "Here, you gotta take some money, Birch, and go get some stuff, we're running out, you gotta go get some things.  So when Birch returned, he had two eight-roll packs of hot dog buns and one four-roll pack of toilet tissue, for thirty thousand people."

008  HS: I forgot about the buns, the buns was in there too.

010  Birch was something else, he would spend the whole day out at Bill's farm, where we built a shelter by the barn, Terry, Birch, me.  A shelter by the dairy barn, we built that.  We came Thanksgiving Day and sung a quartet, with my mom. . .   [time spent at Bill's farm Bill

012 BS:  Birch would spend a whole day straightening rusty nails.  I mean, just like-- He tried to lure me into that world, and I was like, "uh, Bill said I've gotta do -- " -- whatever.  I had to get away from that. 

017  The used wood that Monroe got for them to build the shelter at Bill's farm.  Bad wood, some of it like

BS:  One of these rafters was, like petrified, it was like rock.  So-- we used it anyway, and we line it up and try to get it to where it'll stay, and --   So Birch was trying to nail these straightened-out nails, and it'd be-- Hit the nail, and of course it'd bend over, just like Bill and--

We see Birch get red in the face, then he went into the dairy barn and came out with a brace and bit,  and no one says a word.  He actually drills a hole through it, he slides the nail in there, then hammers it the rest of the way.

[go to dairy barn, and having sandwiches, with Bill and Billy and Bro. Terry, and Bill looks over at Terry, and he said , "If I put a nail over here, Terry," he said, "you want a hammer?"   He said "Yes, most people use a hammer to drive nails."  And then he looked up at Birch, and  said, "although some people use a brace and a bit!"  Birch's face got red once again.

035  A lot of stories are small things, says TA.

038  BS:  [He says this is awesome, one of the best Bean Blossom stories.  Terry had got midget mules . . .

[they realized it's the same story Hazel told me, and BS notes. "it worked so well on the first show!"

TA: You didn't want to be on the wrong side of that [Monroe's] stare!

042  BS: That was a terrible thing, that's what made it so great, that's why Bean Blossom was great was because of him.  That power that he had, that charisma.  [And it wouldn't work in Rosine ]  Bean Blossom's always, "God, this is great!"

050  HS: [says Bill had enemies around Rosine because of the history, people that knew them before, some didn't like him.  And Bill wouldn't speak to them, because they didn't do it they way he wanted it done.  He had no enemies at Bean Blossom.

059  BS:  [Bill got to where he wouldn't speak to Billy Smith, but when BS confronted him, he recanted his position.  Then:  how much Jimmy Martin loved Monroe.

070  BS:  Buch White said it best, he said, "We're all step-children of Bill Monroe's."

080  [TA explains his background, and asks how heterogeneous the festivals were]

HS:   "Too-- it wasn't hardly any blue collar, I mean, it was--   Middle class America was not there.  But it was the very well educated, or the very poor.  Was to me, what came, mostly, the--   The people that learned to play bluegrass, the Lester Flatts and the Jimmy  Martins, and even Bill himself, and Ralph and Carter, those people were poor people, and they didn't have hardly any--   A lot of 'em got radios, eventually, but they played music for entertainment.  And they were in competition, trying to do it as well as they could, and what they had to look to was to play as good as Bill Monroe.

[It amazes her that middle America likes bluegrass now, and she things that has to do with TV, and CMT, and Tracy Todd getting Alison Krauss on there, and Ricky Skaggs and people like that.  She notes the bitching at Bluegrass Unlimited about whether or not it's bluegrass.   Wasting their time trying to figure out what it is.  Earl don't care, and Bill didn't know.  And they were too busy making music to worry about what those people were thinking.   They ought to enjoy it all, instead of trying decide if the Dixie Chicks has got any business on bluegrass radio, or not. 

115  HS once heard Monroe say when he heard of criticism of Bill for having an accordion on one of his songs, cause Owen talked him into it., and Bill said, "You tell 'em it's my music, I'd put a flute in it if I wanted to, it ain't none of their business!"

HS used that in her column, because she knew Monroe was just telling the truth, and had performed at the Opry with piano, etc.

[Bill tells story of a banjo player playing a Bach piece for Monroe, who says, "Well, I think we need to progress bluegrass music one year at a time."

[Bill's other music, that he wouldn't let out, because he had to be true to the bluegrass fans.

BS:  "As I got to know the man, I'd look at him, he'd like look into the distance, and I used to think, "Man, he's like creating some great music or something, in his mind," but really, he was thinking how good the peach pie was over at the Mason Jar today, and they got peach pie over there, and -- let's go get us some!"

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