Mandolin in Old-Time
Nelson
I am new to this group.
I have been looking around for early mandolin players in old-time
music, specifically looking for influences of Bill Monroe. Mac and
Bob has been suggested as an early influence. Who else would you guys
cite? I am looking for acts which specifically had a strong mandolin
presence.
Thanks,
Nelson
munichbanjoreinhard
Hi Nelson,
Rounder has a CD Early Mandolin Classics
http://www.rounder.com/index.php?id=album.php&musicalGroupId=3085&catalog_id=5639
and Document Records
Vintage Manolin Music 1927-1946
"Rags, Breakdowns, Stomps and Blues"
Both are very good if you are interested to the "Before Bill Monroe"
Mandolin History.
Best regards,
Reinhard from Munich, Germany
Lyle Lofgren
It's been a long time since I read Bill Monroe biographies, and I
don't remember if any of them said much about where he got his
techniques -- I mainly remember non-musical stories, such as the time
he threw a bible at one of his wives. Generally, old-time country
mandolin before Monroe was fairly rudimentary, with not much in the
way of tremolo. Classic old-time mandolin would be something like what
Ted Hawkins played on Skillet Licker recordings such as "Tanner's
Rag," "Hawkins Rag," or "Back Up and Push". Monroe not only pioneered
playing the mandolin faster than his predecessors, he also gave
priority to pitching the song just right for the voices, so he played
in more different keys than the old-time musicians used.
Surely someone who has studied Monroe a lot more than I have will
weigh in on this.
Lyle
j_ns...@msn.com
Hi Nelson,
Imo Monroe was basically an original, because he combined blue notes
with quick virtuosity, which, on mandolin, was very rare in "white"
music before him, and rare in "black" music before him. An example in
"black" music before him would be Charlie McCoy of the Mississippi Mud
Steppers, who was born in 1909.
Monroe claimed he wasn't very influenced by Ted Hawkins. It's believed
that his sound, including his mandolin, was influenced by the Prairie
Ramblers, who were very popular on the radio. For people who are
interested in old-time music, it's important to realize that the sound
Monroe's most famous for was jazz influenced (large jazz influence on
"hillbilly" was normal in the '30s, and he was normal in that
respect), which basically amounts to saying it wasn't particularly old-
time music.
Here are some mandolinists you might enjoy who were born before 1890
(and thus didn't grow up hearing any jazz) and recorded:
Audley Dudley of Maryland (Ossman-Dudley Trio)
Louis Ford of Mississippi (Son Simms Four)
Ancil McVay of Kentucky (Ernest Phipps And His Holiness Singers)
Clarence Penney of New York
Samuel Siegel of Iowa
Robert Steele of Kentucky (Booker Orchestra)
Paul Warmack of Tennessee
Joseph Scott
tonythomas
I just returned from the banjo collectors conference. There Bob
Carlin presented his work which will come out n several different
articles about the banjo roots of Earl Scruggs. Carlin stressed that
when Monroe's Bluegrass band crystalized in 1945, they sought to cut
and hide their roots to previous old time music and to accentuate the
degree to which they "invented" bluegrass. In this regard, Earl has
never been very forthcoming about his roots.
This might be part of the story with Monroe. Certainly, very much
about the original Bluegrass Band and Bluegrass as a whole mirrors
Jazz, particularly the centring of the music on improvising solos by
master musicians and the fairly high level of musicianship set for
Bluegrass by its founders.
This contrasts with the air of antiquity that Monroe and others sought
to give the new music, especially since Monroe reoriented his
marketing and image creation to address new audiences developed by the
folk revival. Unlike Scruggs. Monroe was always willing to talk
about the influence on his music of Pen Vandever and Arnold Schlutz,
but was less likely to speal of more moder influences like the great
Prairie Rambles.
Many OTM folk and Bluegrassers are deficient in understandign the
develops in Southeastern country music as well as external influences
like Western Swing that were the road from OTM music to Bluegrass.
Interesting music on banjo, fiddle, mandolin and other instruments was
recorded in the mid and late 1930s and the early 1940s.
Tony
j_ns...@msn.com
influence of jazz on Monroe's band by then was not even notable by
"hillbilly" standards of the era. (But the jazz influence does need
pointing out to the many people who have bought the mythology that
bluegrass was more connected to old-time music than other c. 1945
"hillbilly" was.)
Best,
Joseph Scott
j_ns...@msn.com
So thoroughly, that is.
Nelson
Thanks for all the replies. Having been a jazz listener for a while,
the similarities to it were pretty clear. I have recently purchases
some CDs by The Prairie Ramblers, The Skillet Lickers, Mac and Bob,
The Georgia Yellowhammers, Riley Puckett, and others that I cannot
remember right now.
I am on a personal journey to trace and better understand two things
about Bill's playing: (1) The precise sources of influence on his
addition of blue notes, etc. I have read that Mississippi John Hunt
and Leadbelly were particularly known to Monroe. (2) Any pre-Monroe
Brothers mandolinists whose style he might have taken from. I posted
the text Joseph's original reply in Mike Compton's group, and he
comfirmed it. Tom Ewing, Bill's last guitarist, told him that Bill
particularly loved the Prairie Ramblers.
Lyle Lofgren
I probably yakked about this before, but I was surprised at how
familiar Monroe was with the blues genre. In 1966, at a party after
one of the Walker American Music series concerts, Bill and Mance
Lipscomb began playing blues together, trading off verses. They kept
it up for about 10-15 minutes, with neither one repeating a figure. I
would have loved to have it on tape, but Bill was very strict about
not having his music taped by anybody. So all I have is a lousy
photograph, which is one of the items you can view at
http://www.lizlyle.lofgrens.org/BrnSnift/PhotoAlbum.html.
Lyle
j_ns...@msn.com
with mandolinists) on the radio and he'd be a good person to listen to
for stylistic links.
Joseph Scott
Seven Inch Dilly
>
> Thanks for all the replies. Having been a jazz listener for a while,
> the similarities to it were pretty clear. I have recently purchases
> some CDs by The Prairie Ramblers, The Skillet Lickers, Mac and Bob,
> The Georgia Yellowhammers, Riley Puckett, and others that I cannot
> remember right now.
>
> I am on a personal journey to trace and better understand two things
> about Bill's playing: (1) The precise sources of influence on his
> addition of blue notes, etc. I have read that Mississippi John Hunt
> and Leadbelly were particularly known to Monroe. (2) Any pre-Monroe
> Brothers mandolinists whose style he might have taken from. I posted
> the text Joseph's original reply in Mike Compton's group, and he
> comfirmed it. Tom Ewing, Bill's last guitarist, told him that Bill
> particularly loved the Prairie Ramblers.
An interesting thread, which (so far) has focused mainly on broader
musical influences (blues, jazz, whatever). Monroe's mandolin style itself
seems to me to be a radical departure from his predecessors, earlier
"brother groups", entertainers like Jethro Burns, near contemporaries like
Jesse McReynolds, etc.
Monroe's technique is (IMHO) characterized by a very "loose" tremolo, a
minimalist deconstruction of melody that retains "important" notes, and an
emphasis on rhythm to control tempo and drive the band. Evolutionary links
from earlier players or styles seem tenuous. I think Monroe viewed it
primarily as a tool to implement his musical vision.
~dilly
"When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"
-Abraham Maslow
Nelson
Thank you, Joseph, you have been quite helpful.
Nelson
I'd have to disagree with "I think Monroe viewed it primarily as a
tool to implement his musical vision." I think there is too much
innovatiion shining through his work across the years to buy into
that.
Peter Feldmann
Just when I haven't time to read this group, you get some wonderful
threads going!
Back in the early 60s, on one of the times I first met Bill Monroe, he
insisted I sit myself down on the dressing room couch at the Ash Grove,
and shoved his mandolin into my arms, insisting I play him a tune. You
could have put 4 quarters between the strings and the fretboard at the
octave fret. He didn't let me out of there until he felt I had a basic
grasp of his approach to his tremolo style.
In my mind, I hear three styles in Bill's playing:
1) The running tremolo style he used with Charlie and early BG Boys
recordings. Fantastic speed, flowing lines, driving rhythm.
2) The jump-style picking, with intense single notes, he used in the
50s-60s. This is what I heard when I first saw him live, striking
sparks off the instrument and keeping the tempo in line.
3) The chord-tremolo style he developed in his later years, perhaps the
deepest of all playing styles, full of dark colors, emotion, and what
he called "ancient tones".
As Bill himself suggested, he set his style to best feature the total
sound of whomever he worked with. With Bill, the fiddle was always "the
king of the instruments".
As to influences, think about Monroe's childhood, adolescence, and early
days away from home -- these are the periods when a person is most
sensitive to external influences. The fluid tremolo works well in
playing fiddle tunes -- those of his Uncle Pen Vandiver, and of Arnold
Schultz, from whom he first heard those magnificent blues notes he later
incorporated into his own music. Bill left his home country and moved
to northern Indiana, well in radio range of Chicago's WLS radio, which
was broadcasting jazz groups as well as the Prairie Ramblers, among
others. Bill himself mentioned their mandola player as being
influential to me. Several of the Monroe Brothers' earliest Victor 78s
were covers of Prairie Ramblers recordings, but boy, what a difference!
As his band developed and personnel changed more frequently, that jump
style mando sound helped keep everyone in tempo.
I believe it is inarguable by this time that Monroe single-handedly
founded a new musical style. As he remarked to me in 1963, "I felt like
I wanted to have a style of my own, an inventor -- sort of like Henry
Ford, . . . and it turned out to be bluegrass music."
The question as to whether bluegrass will survive its recently-found
popularity and "prettying-up" is a topic for another discussion.
--
Peter Feldmann
BlueGrass West
PO Box 614
Los Olivos, CA 93441 USA
+1 805 688 9894 // 805 350 3918 (cell)
www.BlueGrassWest.com