When I reflect on how many of my favorite musicians have pledged alliegance to Bill Monroe, I am happy to admit that he is the King of Bluegrass. In good conscience I have to increase this score to 7.5/10, which by my scoring makes it an exceptional book. I just reread this book and finished it on 7/3/20. My son Andrew gifted me with a copy of this book. He will never be forgotten, My rating: 7/10, finished 8/29/14. Yet for all his faults, he created one of the sweetest genres of popular music: bluegrass, an instrumentally-driven offshoot of country music. Nobody could hold a grudge longer than Bill Monroe, according to this biography. He was married four times and had at least one illegitimate child. Touring as much as 200 days a year with his band the Blue Grass Boys, he always left his wife at home on the farm and openly took a woman on tour with him. Yes, he was a skirt chaser in the worst way. He neither smoked, drank, or used drugs his principal vice was that he was a perpetual womanizer. As a young adult, he was gruff, unapproachable, and downright unfriendly. When he died in 1996, he was universally lauded as "The Father of Bluegrass." A proud native of Kentucky, he was an enigmatic man. Bill Monroe was a star of the Grand Ole Opry for sixty years. Can't You Hear Me Calling: The Life Of Bill Monroe, Father Of Bluegrass by Richard D.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |