45th
Celebrating Bill Monroe’s 100th Birthday
Bean Blossom BluegrassFestival
June 11–18, 2011
“H
owdy, howdy folks.” That’s the way that Bill Monroe always greeted the audience at Bean Blossom. It has been 15 years now since Bill has left us but the spirit of the Father of Bluegrass and founder of the oldest, continuously running, Bluegrass music festival is still much in evidence at Bean Blossom—in the music, the hospitality, and the neighborly atmosphere of the Bill Monroe Memorial Music Park. Thanks for the wonderful present and Happy 100th Birthday, Bill. The Bill Monroe Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival got off to its start in 1967 in the old barn that used to grace the area directly behind the current Hall of Fame. The next year, with considerable
Jesse McReynolds.
36 Our Brown County • May/June 2011
by Mark Blackwell
J.D. Crowe at last year’s festival. photos by Cindy Steele
effort from the Bluegrass Boys themselves, land was cleared and a stage erected in a natural amphitheater and 1968 saw the first outdoor festival at the park. Today the park is 55 acres of performance space, modern camping facilities, and vendor areas. It is also home to the Bluegrass Hall of Fame where the achievements of many of the musicians who helped shape and advance the music are enshrined. Just outside and to the south of the Hall of fame is the cabin where Bill Monroe, as a youth, “batched” with his Uncle Pen. Uncle Pendleton Vandivier was Bill’s mother’s brother who is memorialized in the classic song “Uncle Pen” and the fall “Uncle Pen Days Festival.” But it is Bluegrass music that draws crowds to Bean Blossom. Bluegrass music is as traditional as Ralph Stanley and as up to the minute as the Grascals, both of whom will be at the festival this year along with over fifty other top Bluegrass bands. The 45th annual festival includes big name acts such as, J.D. Crowe and the New South, David Davis and the Warrior River Boys, Special Consensus, the James King Band, The Wildwood Valley Boys, The Tony Rice Unit, and Jesse McReynolds and the Virginia Boys.