Can't You Hear Me Calling: The Life of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass

by Richard D. Smith

Book Overview

Considering the range of stars that have claimed Bill Monroe as an influence--Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and Jerry Garcia are just a few--it can be said that no single artist has had as broad an impact on American popular music as he did. For sixty years, Monroe was a star at the Grand Ole Opry, and when he died in 1996, he was universally hailed as "the Father of Bluegrass." But the personal life of this taciturn figure remained largely unknown. Delving...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306810549
• ISBN13: 9780306810541
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Da Capo
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

character study is useful despite the hero worship

Smith's book is conflicted. The distinct contribution of this book is not so much what it says about the music. There isn't much here about the music that is new, sustaining, or distinct. In fact, at times, Smith seem to inflate the importance of Monroe in rather trifling ways that really undercut the significance of Monroe. I am very glad Smith accurately and fairly portrayed the role the late Ralph Rinzler played in really saving Monroe's career and making him more known in the folk revival. What is interesting is what the book shows about Monroe's character. Despite Smith's desire to guild the lily and create a halo around his hero, he unearths a history of great emotional problems that had a heavy impact on Monroe's life. Smith traces them from the difficult, lonely, childhood Monroe had all the way to Monroe's last days very consistently. Monroe was a compulsive womanizer throughout his life, never faithul in any relationship, usually having a semi permanent mistress in addition whatever common law or legal wife he had, and usually having several other women out on the road. Plainly, Monroe was small minded and propriatorial about "owning" Bluegrass. He was especially hateful to others like his former employees starting with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs who dared to play it on their own. Monroe refused to speak to Lester and Earl for decades, threatened to fire his own band members for merely talking to Lester and Earl or members of their band, and refused to appear on the same bill at Bluegrass Festivals with them until he was forced too. This despite the fact both Flat and Scruggs retained a professional respect for Monroe then and now, while Lester Flatt and his wife always had a deep personal admiration and care for Monroe. It's still shocking to me to read about the great fiddle genius Kenny Baker who played with Monroe on and off for 23 years!. Baker simply demanded to know where the band would be touring so his family could send him word of the progress of Baker's dying brother. Monroe refused to tell him because he'd never told band members where the tour was going before. Even though Baker was an acknowledged genius of Bluegrass fiddle whose work suited Monroe's taste more than any of a number of fiddlers who preceded him and followed him, an interview I saw on the web with a long-time band members, explains Monroe always referred to Baker as a "drunk." Monroe tended to treat and pay band members like they were farm hands on a farm in Western Kentucky in the 1920s. If Bill Monroe needed his house painted, fence posts put in on one of his farms, or other work around home or farm, if you were in the band, you were expected to show up on time at 6 am in the morning and do that work as well for nothing extra,. This book seems to accurately root Monroe's character in the difficulty he had with a disability in his eyes as a child and early teen, a disability cured when his older brothers moved to the Midwes

flawed artist, perfect art, worthy biography

This is the first major biography of Bill Monroe, and it won't be the last. Some, no doubt, will be written in more eloquent prose -- Richard D. Smith's is at best pedestrian -- but it's hard to imagine a future biography that could manage to be as balanced and as affectionate without ever sliding into sentimentality, apologetics, or hagiography. Though no sensible observer disputes the greatness of Monroe's music, some writers cannot resist snide treatments of the man's personal foibles and limitations, which were many. Smith does not hide Monroe's unattractive qualities, but he also shows his other side, which came more and more to the fore as Monroe gradually came to understand that, almost in spite of himself, he had become loved and revered. In other words, more than any other writer before him, Smith makes Monroe not just an icon, not just a difficult, imperious, narcissistic man, but a human being who struggled most of his life against the shadows cast by a bitter chldhood. The reader begins to comprehend why so many who knew Monroe cared so much about him, and Smith makes the reader care, too. By the end of the book, as Monroe is buried and mourned by the many whom his life and music touched, I felt emotionally drained and profoundly moved -- and newly grateful for the art that endures even after the artist is gone.

A Welcome Biography

Monroe was a stubborn and proud man whose legendary status seems to have fended off a three-dimensional biography during his lifetime. It is fortunate that while his memory is still fresh, and while many of the people who knew him best are still alive, that he has been captured, humanized and made accessible in this terrific book. Other than the occasional teaser at the end of a section or paragraph, it is well written, exhaustively researched, and clear. For the musicians, it is technical enough without getting purely scholarly, which would put off those who don't play. The book puts a new and intriguing perspective on Monroe's music and on the development of the bluegrass form. Highly recommended not only to bluegrass fans, but to anyone with an interest in the development of American music in the twentieth century.

Once in a Blue Moon

a biography comes along that one reads and comes away feeling like they really know the subject...that is certainly true of CAN'T YOU HEAR ME CALLING by Richard D. Smith. Bill Monroe is portrayed in all his glory but also shown as a real person with all the foibles and flaws but also his genius. Living a few miles from his birthpalce Rosine KY I knew of Bill Monroe but until reading this book I had no idea of his many contributions to the music industry. To find he composed many songs that I love but had never connected to Bluegrass (Georgia Rose, Rawhide etc.) was a surprise and makes me anxious to hear more of his music. The author conveyed so well how Bill Monroe the man was a product of a time, a place and a family that so influenced not only his music but also the person he became...one comes way a little more aware of how that is true of all of us.

A "powerful" biography

This is a powerful book, and Richard Smith has succeeded in presenting an especially well-rounded portrait of an especially complex individual.There's been quite a bit of discussion of the book on several Bluegrass oriented internet lists, most of it positive, although there have been a few carping posts on the decision to expose some of unpublished, but oft-rumored, facts and incidents in Monroe's life.Wisely bypassing the on-going "what is Bluegrass, anyway" debate, the book offers a very common-sensible approach to whether or not Monroe indeed invented the genre -- RDS posits an "auteur" theory of the foundation of Bluegrass, giving WSM the principle credit, but also elevating several others to near-founder status: Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin and, to a lesser, but important extent, Don Reno.Richard talked to many (if not most) of the (surviving) women in WSM's life; they were seemingly very forthcoming about Bill and his good and bad traits, and their stories are integral to the overall picture. The one person who did not talk to him, who's input would have been invaluable, but who come across much better than I (and, I suspect, many others in the BG world) expected, was Bill's son, James. Input from surviving members of the BG Boys is also critical to the overall success and utility of the book.One of the complaints that I have: the book is too short, and neglects to cover many of the stories that circulate in the Bluegrass world, either to confirm or debunk. My other major complaints: the index, which seems rather perfunctory, and the notes -- I would have preferred source notes at the back (as they appear), but with parenthetical remarks in the body of the text, as footnotes, rather than combining the two in one section after the entire text. These notes are integral to the story, and I'm going to have to reread the book just to coordinate these asides with the main text; I was flying through it on my first of, (probably) many readings.But these are nits, and I almost had to search in order to pick 'em. Overall, it's an outstanding job. Also, I feel very proud both for Richard and for Mr. Monroe that the book appears under the imprint of a mainstream trade publisher, rather than being in the relative backwater of an academic press.Thank you, Richard, for spending the time and effort to bring this book to us. It passes my own personal test for great art: It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think. What more can one ask!