Chapter 19. Bluegrass

Audio Examples

Poor Ellen Smith
Alternately known as "Ellen Smith" or "Poor Ellen Smith" this mountain ballad is about the murder of Elen Smith that occurred on July 20, 1892, in Forsyth County, North Carolina, near Winston-Salem. Suspicion immediately fell on Ellen's boyfriend Peter DeGraffe, who fled to Roanoke, Virginia, and eventually New Mexico. Upon his return to North Carolina he was arrested in Mount Airy and returned to Winston-Salem, where he was tried and convicted of murder. Legend has it that DeGraffe composed the song while sitting on his coffin awaiting execution. Feelings about the murder ran so high that for years it was illegal to sing the song in public because it always resulted in a riot. The song was originally recorded by Henry Whitter sometime around 1928. However, it was Molly O'Day's 1949 recording that was the source of The Country Gentlemen's version, which John Duffey performs as a vocal solo. Performed by The Country Gentlemen: Charlie Waller, John Duffey, Eddie Adcock, and Tom Gray and recorded on April 13, 1962 at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album #40133 2001)

Close By
This is one of Bill's most profound vocal and instrumental performances. It ranks with the finest of the cuts on his first LP, "Knee Deep in Bluegrass". While the recording quality of this live performance cannot approach the brilliant instrumental definition achieved in the studio, the extraordinary quality of the fiddling supplemented by the other instruments in the group provides a rich, textured sound characteristic of Monroe's ensemble style.
On this inspired performance, we have an opportunity to observe many of the characteristics which account for Bill's unique domination as creator and master his genre. His singing exhibits a masterful control of the dynamic range of his vocal potential. Bill starts at an almost conversational volume in the first verse. He sharply increases the volume as he hits the high notes mid-verse, with an extraordinary power and trueness of pitch. Then he punctuates the last line of the first verse, by providing us with an extremely spare closing mandolin tag. At the semi-cadence of the ensuing double-fiddle break, he strikingly increases the intensity of ensemble sound by changing his rhythmic mandolin chop to a syncopated rhythmic breakup. One factor identified in interviews with Monroe in the sixties might explain the intensity of Monroe's vocal and instrumental performance here. He states "Sometimes, when you really want to pull all your feeling in a song, you can pick out some girl that you think mistrated you throughout life and have her in mind while you're singing the song. You'll really get the blues if you think she's fell for something and it wasn't much." Since the song deals with the loss of a loved one from her having "gone so far away," never returned, and died, it leads one to believe that Monroe used an equivalent of "method acting" to achieve the emotional intensity of the performance.
Performed by Bill Monroe (mandolin and vocals), Yates Green (guitar and lead vocals), Bobby Hicks (fiddle), Joe Stuart (fiddle), Rudy Lyle (banjo) Chick Stripling or Bessie Lee Mauldin (bass). Recorded on May 13, 1956 at New River Ranch in Rising Sun, Maryland. (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album #40063 2093)

Blue Grass Breakdown
During the period in 1963 when Bill Keith worked the Blue Grass Boys, a number of extraordinary studio recordings were made, but the most striking examples of Keith's innovative chromatic banjo style to have emerged from live performance experiences were never commercially recorded. Performed by Bill Monroe (mandolin and vocals), Peter Rowan (guitar and vocal), Bill Keith (banjo), Tex Logan (fiddle) and Everett Allen Lilly (bass). Recorded on October 31, 1964 in Jordan Hall, Boston. (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album #40063 2093)

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