Bean Blossom: The Brown County Jamboree and Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Festivals

290 Pages·2011·3.79 MB·English

by  Thomas A. Adler

The Brown County Jamboree and
Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Festivals
THOMAS A. ADLER
Bean Blossom
Music in AMericAn Life
A list of books in the series appears
at the end of this book.
Bean Bl ossom
The Brown County
Jamboree and
Bill Monroe’s
Bluegrass Festivals
Thomas a. adler
UniversiTy of
illinois Press
Urbana, Chicago,
and springfield
© 2011 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Adler, Thomas A.
Bean Blossom : the Brown County Jamboree and
Bill Monroe’s bluegrass festivals / Thomas A. Adler.
p. cm. — (Music in American life)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-252-03615-6 — isbn 978-0-252-07810-1
1. Brown County Jamboree—History.
2. Bill Monroe Memorial Music Park & Campground—History.
3. Bluegrass music—Indiana—Beanblossom—History and criticism.
4. Monroe, Bill, 1911–1996. I. Title.
ml37.b38b74 2010
781.642079'772253—dc22 2010051968
For
Betsy Adler—my darling
Archie Green—my mentor
and
Neil V. Rosenberg—my inspiration

contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Rural Country Music Parks xv
1. Brown County History and Roots 1
2. Origins of the Brown County Jamboree, 1939–41 12
3. The Rund Family’s Brown County Jamboree, 1941–51 21
4. Bill Monroe’s Brown County Jamboree Park, 1952–57 48
5. Survivals, Revivals, and Arrivals, 1958–66 66
6. Building the Festivals, 1967–68 90
7. The Festival Becomes a Landmark, 1969–71 108
8. The Festival’s Golden Age, 1972–82 123
9. Festival People and Lore 145
10. Bill and James Monroe’s Festival Park, 1983–97 159
11. Renaissance, Continuity, and Change, 1998 and After 179
Notes 191
List of Interviews 209
Bibliography 213
Index 221
Illustrations follow page 122
Preface
My first trip to Bean Blossom and the Brown County Jamboree came on
a pleasant Sunday in September 1968, when I rode there with Neil V. Rosenberg
and several others who had been visiting that weekend at Indiana University.
I was twenty-one years old, raised in Chicago’s South Shore, and had been a
bluegrass fan and banjo player for a decade. Yet I was still a relative newcomer
and cultural outsider to bluegrass music, being part of that rising wave of urban
fans captured by the driving, plaintive sounds of recorded bluegrass music in the
late 1950s. As the middle son of two Chicago physicians, both Viennese refugees,
I was completely engrossed by the Brown County Jamboree show, where Bill
Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys were the featured act. That day I paid scant
attention to the town and surrounding region. But my interest in bluegrass music
turned out to be a long-standing one, and a growing awareness of the musical
traditions underlying bluegrass helped put me on a path leading to this history
of a musical place.
Beginning in June 1969, I annually attended Monroe’s Bean Blossom bluegrass
festivals, becoming ever more familiar with the town, as well as the Brown County
Jamboree festival grounds and its main features: the old barn, the outdoor stage,
the parking lots, the campgrounds, the rustic concession stands. Slowly, too, I
met people who regularly returned to take part in the temporary festival, mak-
ing it an annual homecoming to a familiar community of campers, pickers, and
singers. Over time I encountered many new fans there as they made their own
first life-altering trips to one of bluegrass music’s magnetic hubs.