Recently, Katy Daley emceed the International Bluegrass Music Museum’s ROMP 2009 music festival in Owensboro, KY. While in Kentucky, Katy provided BluegrassCountry.org and our sister website at MySpace with a daily blog detailing her travels through the heart of the Ohio River Valley. During that period, Katy also made a pilgrimage to Rosine, KY, the birthplace and grave site of bluegrass music’s founding father Bill Monroe. This is her story.
I emceed a few shows when Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys performed. He had always appeared stern and unapproachable so I had never been brave enough to do much more than nod at him and exchange a few mumbled words. He was 70 years old in 1981 when I introduced him onstage at Wolf Trap Park Farm in Vienna, Virginia. Halfway through his set, he stopped playing and looked over at me standing in the wings. He threw his mandolin behind his back and strode directly towards me. “Ohmygawd, I thought. What’s wrong?” He grabbed my wrist, pulling me from behind the curtain and quickly danced me all around that huge stage. I’ve never been a dancer so he must have thought he was back in Chicago hauling Sinclair Oil barrels around. He returned me to the wings and got back to the mic in time to take his break. In those days some of the young musicians were calling him “the old man” behind his back. They would have knocked that off if they knew how strong he was.
The Road to Rosine
This is an adventure that any bluegrass fan like me would jump at a chance to take: a road trip to Rosine, Kentucky, the birthplace and burial site of Bill Monroe. My driver and guide was Pete Kuykendall, publisher of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine, who filled the miles with story after story about Bill Monroe. Miles of cornfields, hay bales and small farms flew by as I listened to him talk about the man and his music. We resisted stopping to photograph a rusty old flexible bus or checking out Classic Car City. We were on a mission to pay homage to the Father of Bluegrass.
Before we even left Owensboro it was decided there wasn’t going to be any interstate highway driving on this road trip. We were going to travel to Ohio County, Kentucky on some of its less travelled backroads. Some of those roads had musical names such as Blue Moon of Kentucky Highway.
Bill Monroe is not the only musical native son of Kentucky. There’s J.D. Crowe from Lexington, Sam Bush from Bowling Green, and Josh Williams who grew up in Benton. Ike and Margaret Everly were living in Muhlenberg County when their first son, Don, was born. Of course, Don and his brother, Phil, went on to become the famous Everly Brothers. Check out the street address painted above the convenience store door in Central City, Kentucky.
The way’s well-marked; you can’t miss it.
And when you get there, there’s no doubt what their claim to fame is.
Not too far up the road from the welcome sign is the Rosine Barn, where every Friday night there’s a jam session in the parking lot and the general store next to the barn.
Turn at the barn to reach the Rosine Cemetery, the final resting place of Bill Monroe. The first thing I noticed is that flowers are draped over the top of tombstones. Must be a Kentucky practice, as in cemeteries around the Washington area I usually see flowers arranged in front of the stone. There are a lot of inscriptions that sound like phrases from old gospel songs, “We’ll Meet Again Someday,” and “Gone but Not Forgotten.”
Bill Monroe’s stone might be the tallest one in the cemetery. It’s an obelisk, like a tiny Washington monument just behind an inscribed ground stone.
There’s a small stone bench in front of his grave which invites you to sit and reflect on all his accomplishments. We do just that and notice that his parents and brothers are buried nearby. Pendelton Vandiver, immortalized in the song Uncle Pen, is buried several rows away.
Now that we’ve paid our respects, it’s time to visit the homeplace. Here’s what the Ohio County, Kentucky Tourism Commission website says about it: “It is believed that this is the original home site of the first Monroes who arrived here from Virginia in 1832. Bill was born in a log cabin on this site in 1911. The log cabin was destroyed by fire when he was five years old. This framed house was built on the same spot around the original sandstone chimney. The Monroe homeplace was restored by the Bill Monroe Foundation in 2001.” The house is about a mile down the road from the cemetery. Drive across the railroad tracks at the Jerusalem Ridge sign.
The next sign is no joke. The song “Rocky Road Blues” comes to mind as you wind through the woods.
The homeplace has been lovingly restored. Here’s what it looked like before restoration. And here’s how it looks now.
There’s no one around and I’m struck by how quiet it is. I peeked through the windows and saw that the furniture in each room is neatly arranged and there’s plenty of Monroe memorabilia displayed. It was a beautiful summer day– warm with no humidity and just a hint of a breeze. I sat in the swing on the front porch and was surprised at how awed I felt sitting on his front porch. Before long a black and white border collie ambled up the road followed by a lady who offered to show us through the house, which she did.
I returned to that front-porch swing and spent a few minutes thinking about what country life must have been like for the Monroes. I’m grateful to whatever it was in nature or family that inspired them to make their special brand of music. Before I left the porch I whispered, “Thanks, Bill.” I wish I had been brave enough to tell him that in person.
- Katy
For more information on Rosine, Kentucky and the Bill Monroe Homeplace, visit www.visitohiocountyky.org/billmonroe.html
*Pre-restoration Monroe home photo courtesy of Southern Missouri Bluegrass
