Monroe, William Smith

▪ 1997

      ("BILL"), U.S. musician (b. Sept. 13, 1911, Rosine, Ky.—d. Sept. 9, 1996, Springfield, Tenn.), originated the bluegrass style of popular music in the mid-1940s with his wailing tenor voice and frenetic mandolin playing. Identified by his white ten-gallon hat and bushy sideburns, he was a practitioner of traditional bluegrass, which features a driving syncopated rhythm and tight, complex harmonies. Monroe grew up in poverty in Kentucky and Indiana. His early musical influences included his uncle Pen Vandiver, a fiddler, and a local blues guitarist named Arnold Schultz. In 1927 Monroe began playing the mandolin professionally with his older brothers in a band that appeared on local radio stations; they later toured with a barn-dance show and, from 1936, recorded songs. In 1938 he formed his own band, the Blue Grass Boys, which had an impressive debut the following year during a radio audition for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn., where Monroe later became a regular performer. By the mid-1940s he had perfected the classic bluegrass sound, with a lineup that included singer-guitarist Lester Flatt, banjoist Earl Scruggs, fiddler Chubby Wise, and bassist Howard Watts. Although Flatt and Scruggs left in 1948 to form their own band (much to the consternation of Monroe), he continued to work with premier musicians. During the 1950s country and western and rock and roll overshadowed bluegrass, but the music enjoyed a revival during the '60s, especially at annual festivals, such as the one founded by Monroe in 1967 at Bean Blossom, Ind. Late in his career he was honoured with the election (1970) to the Country Music Hall of Fame, a 1989 Grammy award, and a 1993 lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1994 a retrospective, The Music of Bill Monroe: From 1936 to 1994, was released on compact disc.

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