Kentucky Traveler (40 page)

The event at the Ryman was scheduled for the day before the picnic. It was a solo gig without the band, so I asked Dad to be my surprise guest and bring his guitar so I could play fiddle and we could do our little old-timey duo like we used to. We were there backstage getting ready for the show, and Bill asked us to join him for a few songs. Talk about a dream come true!

Here was Dad on stage at the Ryman with Bill Monroe singing “Little Cabin Home on the Hill,” a song he'd seen Lester Flatt perform with Bill in '47. It was truly a highlight of his life. Even better, Dad and Mr. Monroe hit it off great. After the show, they sat around and swapped stories about fox hunting and farming and gardening. Dad talked about taters and sweet corn and those huge tomatoes he raised. Bill just loved that kind of farm talk.

You'd a-thought they'd been buddies for years. One time, when he was working on his
Southern Flavor
album, Bill told us there was an instrumental he was getting ready to cut in the studio in a few days and that he needed a title for it.

He asked my Dad, “Hobert, is there a creek that runs close by your house up in Kentucky?”

“Yeah,” said Dad. “There's a little branch.”

“What's the name of it?”

“Well, it's called Stone Coal.”

Bill smiled, and he said, “That's what I'm gonna name this tune right here!”

He did. That album won him his only Grammy.

Mr. Monroe and I ran into each other a lot in those days. One night at the Opry I asked him to help us out on “Wheel Hoss” so he could show the crowd what an eighty-year-old icon could do. This was my full country band, with drums and steel guitar and electric guitar, but he didn't flinch one bit. Something clicked, everybody got in the right groove. It wasn't too fast, and it wasn't too slow. It was just right for Bill to get in there and tear it up with his mandolin.

“Wheel Hoss” was the last song of our set, and as we walked off the stage he was still fired up. He looked at me and said, “That song ain't never been played no better than that right there!” I was thinking of all the great bands he's had over the years, and I knew what a compliment that was. Notice he didn't say it was
the best
. Just that it ain't been done no better!

I remember another night at the Opry when I found myself standing alone in a dark corner. The pressure of trying to balance career, family, and business was a little overwhelming sometimes. I guess Bill sensed that I was carrying a heavy load. He sort of took me aside backstage, where it was just the two of us, and said, “Ricky, I'm really proud of you, boy. You're a good daddy and you're a good husband, and you're a fine musician, too. You love bluegrass, and you love Kentucky. And the way you love God, you're just a fine man to know!”

Lordy! He'd never said anything like that to me before, and hearing his words during such a rough period meant a lot. Of course, my dad affirmed me many, many times, and he was as proud as could be. But this came from my musical father, and at a moment when God knew I needed to hear it. It was so heartfelt, and he didn't expect anything in return. I'd never seen that side of him before, but I could tell he meant every word he said.

* * *

A
fter that night, I knew there was so much more to Mr. Monroe than just music. There was a deep well of wisdom in him that I wanted to tap into. I wanted to learn from him as much as he wanted to teach. Music-wise, of course, there was nobody I respected more. He was a genius, up there with the great innovators like Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker, and Duke Ellington. But there was something more than his musical knowledge and wisdom I was longing for. I wanted to experience that awesome mantle of creativity.

It wasn't easy getting close to him, though. I had to push my way into his life. Lots of people were scared of him, but he was really a shy and lonely person with a fear of betrayal and being abandoned that went back to childhood. He was an artist, of course, and he turned a lot of that pain into great music, but that goes only so far.

Some of us younger musicians, especially Marty Stuart, Vince Gill, and Alison Krauss, we showed him our love and respect, and it helped to break down the walls he'd put up around himself for protection. In his last ten years or so, he started accepting things for what they were and opening up a lot. I was glad for that.

He also had open-heart surgery, and that sure got his attention. He knew he'd hurt people over the years, and that he'd made enemies, and what hurt most was that so many were former Blue Grass Boys.

Everybody who knows their bluegrass history knows about the feuds Bill Monroe was involved in. It started with Flatt & Scruggs leaving Bill to form their own band, the Foggy Mountain Boys, in 1948. Bill didn't speak with them for a long time. Lester and Earl were only the first in a long line to feel the wrath of Monroe. The Stanleys used to listen to Bill on the Saturday night Opry broadcasts and learn his songs, writing down the lyrics as best they could; then they'd perform those songs on Monday at noon on their
Farm and Fun Time
radio show on WCYB in Bristol, Virginia. The Stanleys worshipped Bill and his music, and they were playing his songs out of respect more than anything. Well, Bill sure didn't see it that way, and he called Carter and Ralph “cutthroats.” There was bad blood for years.

And then Flatt & Scruggs came to Bristol to play on WCYB, and Carter sure didn't like that. So Lester and Carter got into a shouting match about Carter singing songs that Lester had sung with Bill. Jealousy was at the root of it all, but that shouting match caused Carter to start writing his own material, and he became one of bluegrass music's finest songwriters.

With Lester gone and Carter gone, I think Bill realized he was running out of time to make up with the people who were still around. So he starting making calls to say he was sorry, and he did his best to mend those broken fences, with Earl Scruggs, Kenny Baker, and others.

So I got close to Monroe at a special time in his life when he was given the chance to grow as a person. We became real good friends, me and Mr. Bill. I'd go to his place, the farm he had a few miles away in Goodlettsville, and we'd play music the whole afternoon. At night, we'd set out by the fire and turn his dogs loose and let 'em run. We'd listen to the hounds in the woods, and we'd talk about life and music and whatever came to mind. Now, he couldn't explain much about his music, and I'm the same way. Sometimes I'd go over to his house early in the afternoon before I had to pick up the kids at school. We'd sit there and swap tunes back and forth and maybe fifteen words would pass between us, and when I'd get up to leave, he'd say, “Believe we done good today.” It was his way of talking, all through his music.

He had his own way of expressing things, too. If he was talking about how Kenny Baker was one of his best fiddle players, he might say, “Kenny sure could drive a nail.” Talking about another Blue Grass Boy, he wouldn't mention the guy's musical ability at all, he'd just say, “He was a powerful bus driver.”

Mostly, we just spent enough time together that stories started to come out of him. Things from his childhood, memories he treasured, and things he wanted to share. He told me about a time when he was growing up in western Kentucky. After his folks died, he was a teenaged loner living with his uncle Pendleton Vandiver, the fiddler he later immortalized in “Uncle Pen.” Bill said he used to go out in the woods by himself and cut big timber down and saw the limbs off the trunks and roll 'em down the hill and pile 'em up and then load these huge logs on a wagon. All by himself. The only help he had was a team of workhorses pulling the wagon.

“Ricky,” he said. “I'd ride that wagon out of the woods, and when I got close to Rosine, I'd stand up in the driver's seat, and I'd let everybody see the man that cut them trees and loaded that wagon. Them people would start clapping their hands when they seen me comin'. It was something powerful, man!”

He was as strong as a brute, but he had a soft heart. Sometimes I'd take him out to lunch, and I used to watch him hand out quarters to little kids. It was a kindness in him that went back to his lonesome upbringing. Folks in the restaurant would say, “What you all doin' today?” I'd say, “Just the student following the teacher around.”

Sharon and I used to invite Mr. Monroe to prayer meetings at our house, and he always brought his mandolin. He wasn't playing as much then, but he still never left home without his instrument. Once we were praying for each other and all of us husbands and wives paired off. Well, Bill was odd man out, 'cause he didn't have a spouse, so he asked, “Would you all pray for me?” and we all huddled around him and prayed. He was so appreciative.

I remember one night getting on my knees at his feet, and asking him, “Would you bless me like a father blessing a son; would you pray that I'll be a caretaker of this old music?” And he said, “Why, yes, I will.” He bowed his head and said these words I'll never forget: “Lord, would you just give Ricky the love for the old music, like you've given me through the years, and help him carry it on? Bless him and his family.” With hands laid on me, he gave me his blessing.

I needed it, too, 'cause those were some real trying times for me. All I could do was focus on my music, but it was hard. I felt like the times had passed me by. There was a real change on country radio, and my records weren't going to the top anymore. I was waiting for what would come next. I toured, I played my songs, and I dabbled with the old bluegrass music, but I was far from certain about what lay ahead.

With Mr. Monroe ailing, I'd talk about him from the stage and give the audience an update on his health condition. Once he was supposed to headline a show with me at Wolf Trap in northern Virginia, but he got sick and had to cancel. We had him call in from the hospital, and we plugged him into the sound system so he could say hi to everyone. The crowd started singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” and he could hardly believe it.

My band started going out and doing bluegrass shows. We'd go without a drummer or a piano player. The steel player would take over on Dobro. But we were still doing quite a few country shows as well. I was happy getting to switch it up. The promoters didn't really care what configuration we showed up with. The fans loved getting to hear the old bluegrass songs and seeing me have such a good time.

Doc Watson invited me to MerleFest and asked if I'd bring a bluegrass band. So I did, and the crowd response gave our confidence a big boost. Then we did a tour in New Zealand, where we sort of opened the shows for ourselves as a bluegrass band. After that, we'd do some shows where we'd open as a country band, talk about the music's roots, and then finish the night with a good dose of bluegrass. We were having a blast as a band, mixing it up. Whenever I played bluegrass, folks in the audience started telling me there was a look of joy on my face they hadn't seen for a long time.

In the spring of '96, Bill suffered a stroke. He was losing his strength and his will to go on, that much was clear. I'd go visit with him at the nursing home outside Nashville where he resided then. He'd fret about his horses back at the farm, but after a while I came to see it was the future of bluegrass that had him worried. He'd given his whole life to this music, and now he was worried it was going to die along with him.

I told him that all of us in the bluegrass community, myself included, would work hard to keep his music alive. There were times he seemed so depressed, and I would reassure him that the music was bigger than any one person, even him, and it would never die as long as people kept it going. I told him he just needed to rest and not worry, to trust the one who entrusted the music to him, and that was the Lord.

Before he lost his ability to talk, I wanted to know if Mr. Monroe had really given his heart to Jesus. I was really concerned about him and where he was going to spend eternity. At first, he said he was looking forward to seeing his father and his mother and his brothers and sisters in heaven. Then I asked him if he was looking forward to seeing Jesus, too, and he said, “Oh, yes! He's the one I sung so many gospel songs about!”

And we talked about the little community church in Rosine, Kentucky, he visited as a boy the night he got saved, and I asked him if he remembered the sermon the preacher preached. He said, “No, but I remember the song they sung.” He was out in the churchyard, as youngsters often were during service, and he heard the hymn “What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul” coming from inside the building. The power of those words drove him into the church house to commit himself to Christ. That was the first record that he and Charlie cut back in the '30s, the bestselling gospel song that launched the Monroe Brothers' career and set Bill on his path. It was through music that Mr. Monroe found the Lord and his calling.

Many of the old-time preachers in Kentucky would frame their sermon with a hymn that echoed the verses from Scripture they were preaching on. I'd heard them do it that-a-way many times as a child. It's very possible that the preacher Bill heard that night was preaching out of Matthew 16:26: “What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

After he told me about that precious moment so long ago but still so fresh in his mind, I knew in my heart that Mr. Monroe was all right. He'd made Jesus his Lord, and I knew I'd see him in heaven. Even with all his health problems, he stayed creative right till the end. At the nursing home, he had scraps of paper all over the room with ideas and song titles jotted down. His body was failing him, but his mind was still creating.

It wasn't too long before he couldn't talk much anymore, so whenever I visited I'd play music to pass the time and get him to join me. Sometimes he'd want to get up and walk around, but he really wasn't able to. Then the caretakers would have to restrain him, and it'd break my heart. He'd look at me so sad, and then he'd look at those leather straps on his arms. I'd say, “I'll take 'em off if you'll stay in your bed and not try to get up.” He just wanted to stretch his arms and legs.