Well I found another one of those “button” pictures… This is a lot more “grainy” somewhere I’ve got the original 8×10’s if I come across them I’ll edit this one and fix it – Here’s me as a kid (on the right) with the Bill Monroe the man who invented Bluegrass Music. Gosh he was old when I was a child and I’m over 50 now — Bill Monroe died in 1996
This was taken at Hillbrook Recreation Center (Ohio National Bluegrass Festival) that my Dad started with Henry Verhoff (the guy that owned the campground). Bill made several appearances in Ottawa along with Don Reno & Red Smiley – Don Reno’s banjo book has a pictures of him at Ottawa and my dad took me one year to a festival that Bill Monroe put on every year in Brown County Indiana called “Beanblossom”.
One of the things I remember well as a child was Bill Monroe coming to our camper, where my dad and his friend Junior Stennet always had a band playing and Bill would often play with them or stand around the fire and listen. I remember one of my Dad’s friends David Eisenburger thanking Bill for starting this wonderful music. Dave was from Cleveland where we had moved and I think he was amazed that we knew all these people? When I got my first guitar Bill signed the inside of my guitar case along with Jim and Jesse and I remember when I turned 16 or so, I loaned that guitar to a cousin who was visiting us in Ohio and I never got it back from her –
At the time I had upgraded from that no-name “first guitar” to a Fender accoustic that my Dad bought me so when she wanted to “borrow it” I had no problem doing that after all she was family and I had two…. Anyway — I really wish I had that guitar back mainly just to have case with all the signatures – I asked her about it once YEARS later and she said it’s gone….
Oh well… I’d learn later in life as I got older and started dating that — anything you give a women — you might just as well figure it’s a gift and if you ever happen to get the item(s) back… well it’s a BONUS… — Maybe that’s why I never got married, I probably didn’t give enough stuff away to the girls I was dating to make it worth marrying them just to get my stuff back LMAO… BTW Renee Cauley wherever you are? Where are all my signed albums you borrowed and ran away with?
Bill is best known for Uncle Pen – Here he is in his prime with Peter Rowan on guitar.
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I also love Christmas Time’s A’Coming – Tex Logan was a fiddler and engineer at Bell Labs I was surprised Ralph knew that…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXfBYXElPII