Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 15, 1993 TAG: 9305150195
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Physicists know they'd better not hold their breath waiting for time machines, but lovers of American roots music are luckier. Sony Music has released a CD boxed set that gives acoustic music fans a ringside seat at bluegrass music's Big Bang.
"The Essential Bill Monroe 1945-1949" is one of the finest reissue compilations to appear since the dawn of the CD age -- and that includes all musical genres, not just country and bluegrass.
The 40 tracks from Columbia's vaults on these two compact discs include 16 never-before-released alternate cuts, nine of which feature the classic bluegrass band that included Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. They give today's listener an unparalleled opportunity to witness the beginnings of a new musical genre that was born between Feb. 13, 1945 and Sept. 16, 1946 and entered its vigorous youth between then and 1949.
As Mark Humphrey writes in his notes, these two CDs offer "glimpses of the forge that fired this music before the steel cooled; snapshots of the master and his disciples crafting and subtly revising their exhilarating New Testament of old-time stringband music."
The master, of course, is William Smith Monroe, born on Sept. 11, 1911 near Rosine, Ky. Bill Monroe can be said to have invented bluegrass; no other music, in America or elsewhere, is so closely associated with a single individual. Most scholars agree that the crucial ingredients came together sometime in 1945; Monroe testily labels such dating "damned lies" and insists he was playing bluegrass in the '30s.
No matter the exact chronology, one fact is beyond dispute: Bill Monroe is a musical genius and one of the towering figures of American music. His soulful amalgam of white southern Appalachian folk music and African-American blues had an immediacy and power that gained converts thousands of miles from the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains, from Japan to Eastern Europe.
In fact, given Monroe's exalted station among acoustic musicians and historians of American music, his relative anonymity among the general public is little short of amazing. The 81-year-old band leader plays at high schools and American Legion halls when he comes to the Roanoke area, while far less significant figures in jazz and country music are household words.
Mitch Jayne, the bassist/raconteur of the Dillards (better known as the Darlin Family on "The Andy Griffith Show"), frequently tells the story of how Monroe stumped the contestants on the TV program "To Tell the Truth." This was, in the words of writer Bob Artis, "Bill Monroe, the father of a complete, dynamic chapter in American music. Bill Monroe, the legendary, living father of a worldwide music movement. The Kitty Carlisles and Bill Cullenses not only failed to recognize the man, but they'd never even heard of him or his music."
This compilation will go some way toward rectifying that situation. From the caliber of the performances and the audio quality to the content of the notes and the looks of the beautifully detailed booklet, this lavishly produced entry in the Columbia Country Classics series is an award-winner every step of the way.
The sound quality is equal to or better than the best previously available versions of these tracks, in most cases dramatically better. The geeked-up fake stereo and muddiness that plagued some of the LP versions of the cuts has been replaced by honest monaural sound. The Rounder reissue of some of these same tracks is now out of print, as is the RCA Bluebird reissue of other early Monroe material, circumstances that make this set all the more valuable.
One of the beauties of "The Essential Bill Monroe" is the chance it affords to hear these powerful songs and tunes arranged in session form. Listeners have a chance to hear the sound as it came together, and the progression is dramatic. Despite Monroe's protestations, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that something momentous occurred between the Chicago session of Feb. 13, 1945 and the Sept. 16, 1946 session in the same studio.
Mark Humphrey calls it "the great leap." The earlier session, for example, featured Sally Ann Forrester's accordion. Though not as offensive as later purists would have it, the reed sound was simply not to find a place in Monroe's evolving conception of the music. The performances were strong renditions of good material, but there were many contemporary bands who could do as well.
But by the 1946 recording date it was all there: Earl Scruggs' astonishing banjo, Lester Flatt's rock-solid guitar and mellow lead vocals, Monroe's fiery mandolin and the hair-raising wail of the master's lonesome high tenor. In the musical crucible that was Monroe's band, the essential reagents had undergone a mysterious transmutation -- something essentially new and different was born.
Check out the hillbilly bounce in "Heavy Traffic Ahead." Monroe wails boastfully about all the places the Blue Grass Boys have traveled, breaking into a shivery falsetto at the end of his phrases. The young Earl Scruggs laces his driving leads with funky blues licks, and Chubby Wise's jazzed-up fiddle says in no uncertain terms that these country boys have been to town.
Or listen to Monroe's blistering mandolin lead on "Why Did You Wander," a performance that evokes a veritable nuclear reaction up the neck of Scruggs' five-string banjo. And on "Wicked Path of Sin," Monroe's high tenor phrase "I can hear the angels singing" will still raise goose bumps on the flesh of anyone who has a temperature.
This is the real thing, the hard stuff. I have always liked newgrass and I still do, but the older I get, the more this music communicates to me with its honesty and simplicity and power and directness of expression. The prodigiousness of Bill Monroe's musical conception, the magisterial authority of his playing and singing, are captured on these two compact discs.
This set is not for everyone -- if your idea of good country music is Alabama, the voltage here may just be a little too high for you. But if you're seriously interested in what is meant by the phrase "American music," if you're ready for an intense encounter with one man's genius, you need this compilation.
by CNB