late 1940s bill monroe and delmores

By Robbie on October 15, 2011

I've been listening this week to a ton of that, and it's striking how Monroe's band doesn't follow bluegrass instrumental conventions, as sharply and premeditatedly crystallized on Tony Rice et al's beautiful Bluegrass Album recordings. For starters: where's the mandolin chop? On uptempo records like "I'm Going Back To Old Kentucky," the almighty right-hand snare-drum thwack is not a factor. At least here in the late 1940s, Monroe fills a lot, hits the backbeat gently by comparison to later mandolinists, and often stops playing while he's singing. Nor is much backbeat drive emanating from the guitar, whose role is a little murky to me, since it's somtimes hard to hear what's going on -- lots of deliberate dynamic relaxing, and I guess some moving around on and off mike as well. Without the half-beat emphasis, the instrumental rhythm is defined by sixteenths and eighths on the banjo, long fiddle draws, whatever strikes Monroe's fancy to do from silence to tremolo, and quarter notes on the bass.

That last came as a surprise to me after a long spell of listening to modern-age bluegrass. Howard Watts walks harder than my fierce German grandma. Such energy and flamboyancy is familiar from Tom Gray's playing in the early 1960s but not much after that. (Someone who is more of an authority on bluegrass please correct or amplify any of this.) I confess to having rolled my eyes at occasionally hearing amateur bassists over-walking it in bluegrass bands over the years -- a bit much corniness and clutter -- but because of the mix and movement and playing of the other pieces on the early Monroe band recordings, it works. Without a robust representation of the guitar frequencies, the sound is clustered in a fairly pencil-thin range of fiddle/mandolin/banjo, so it's good to have a pillowy blanket of bass; and the dynamic evenness is also welcome, since presumably he's not moving his instrument around nearly as much as the others. Besides serving as a reminder of Monroe's artistic uniqueness, these observations point to sources other than Monroe as definitive guideposts for the exact ways in which much of the regimentation of roles evolved in instrumental bluegrass. I think these guiders are Flatt and Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, and the Osbornes above all others, though I'm not sure who if not Monroe has influenced the primacy, powerfulness, and omnipresence of the mandolin chop -- Bobby Osborne or John Duffy? Any expertise will be gratefully received.

Oh, speaking of "I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky," how about the fifth in Bill's tenor vocal harmony? Fantastic! -- and another option foreclosed by post-Monroe orthodoxy.

The CD collection of Monroe singles I was listening to in the car included a few false starts. They turned false after as much as a half-minute of playing, and I can't imagine what ordinary listener wants to hear that repeatedly, but I totally enjoyed it, partly because you can hear the admirable efficiency with which the band works while the clock is running. A little clam, a quick vocal or physical gesture from Monroe, an explanatory phrase ("I messed that up"), a moment of silence, and back to the top -- all in the space of five seconds. The other players don't stop the songs and hardly talk when Bill stops them. Clear authority, great results.

And a quick word on the Delmore Brothers -- I love them! Their records have all the ingredients you want in music. Strong compositions, drive and sincerity, clever vocal arrangements, snazzy playing, and a little raunch. And variety, too. Alton and Rabon covered the genres of gospel, cowboy, bluegrass, and early rock-and-roll, all without much changing their basic style and instrumentation. And by the way, if you're a working musician and think you have it rough, read a little about the Delmores' lives.