Monroe Spring Festivals

~by Jeff Tryon

Two festivals are coming up at Bean Blossom’s Bill Monroe Music Park this spring of 2025. The first is the Americana Bean on Memorial Day weekend, followed by the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival, beginning Wednesday, June 11, and continuing through Saturday, June 14.

Bean Blossom music has deep roots in the Brown County soil, reaching back even before Bill Monroe, “the father of Bluegrass music,” purchased the property back in the 1950s.

One day in the early 1940s, a man came to town in a panel truck with horn speakers on the roof that projected sound from a record player and microphone located inside. People gathered at the filling station to listen to the music and some of the locals got the idea to put on a free show.

Musicians congregated on the Bean Blossom property of Francis and Mae Rund and organized performances that became known as the Brown County Jamboree. The show was modest but successful, with a single microphone and amplifier. Performers played popular songs both live and on recordings.

One of the original founders and performers, Guy Smith, had some experience organizing country band performances and dances. Another, Denzel Ragsdale, also known as “Spurts” or the “Silver Spur” was a performer and took on the role of soundman and promoter. Ragsdale created a series of “ballyhoo cars” painted with the words “Brown County Jamboree,” that projected sound from inside the car.

For the first couple of years the regular Sunday shows were held in an enormous circus-style tent. Shows were presented on Sundays from April through October. There were afternoon and evening shows, and in the early years (1941–1957) a one-hour portion of the show was often broadcast over various local radio stations.

The Indianapolis Star described the Jamboree as “a co-operative program providing real, homespun talent, rail-fence variety of music and frivolity, old fiddlers and rural crooners, who would sing and warble Brown County ballads brought over the mountains by their pioneer ancestors.”

The artists appearing at the Brown County Jamboree were local, regional, and national in reputation, including well-known names such as Uncle Dave Macon, Curly Fox and Texas Ruby, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, Pee Wee King, and Little Jimmy Dickens.

In October of 1951, Bill Monroe traveled to Bean Blossom to perform at the Brown County Jamboree. He fell in love with the area immediately, and in December of 1951 decided to purchase the property.

The large crowds coming to the Jamboree caused traffic and parking problems. More seating was needed, so construction began on a building to house the shows.

Built to seat 2,500, the “barn” was low and dark, with rough benches for seats, and included a radio control room near the stage for the radio broadcasts. The barn remained the primary site of weekly shows until the late 1980s.

Weekly attendees from the county sustained the Jamboree through the difficult World War II years and beyond. Beginning in the 1960s, bluegrass festivals began to draw national and international fans.

In June 1967, Bill Monroe held his first twoday bluegrass festival, which he called a Bluegrass Celebration, in the old barn. That first festival was so well attended that Bill decided to build an outdoor stage at the bottom of a wooded amphitheater to accommodate a bigger audience. Attendees gathered in the fields, the woods, and at campsites, to pick and sing the music they loved.

The 1968 festival attracted ten thousand people from all over the country. By 1969 the event was billed as “Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Festival” and the location referred to as the “Brown County Jamboree Park.”

The June event has become the oldest continuous running bluegrass festival in the country.

Despite his death in 1996, the sounds of bluegrass still echo through the hills and trees of Bean Blossom and the spirit of Bill Monroe is all around.

This year’s Americana Bean event includes:Jan Bell with Marina Stant & Devin BrownTom Roznowski & Carolyn DuttonElizabeth Lee • Tim GrimmCPR Revival • and more.

The Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival highlights:Ralph Stanley II & The Clinch Mountain BoysLonsesome River Band • Special ConsensusPo Ramblin Boys • Clay Hess Band and many others.

Lineups are subject to change.

For more details, ticket, and camping reservations contact the Bill Monroe Music Park & Campground at billmonroemusicpark.com or 812-988-6422.