$\"Bill$

Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, 1963, by Peter Feldmann<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\nBy the way, I was listening to the old Bill Monroe & Doc Watson duet CD\r\non Folkways the other day and noticed your name in the photo credits.\r\nSeeing them perform together must have been quite an experience. I was a\r\nlatecomer to bluegrass music myself, never having been exposed to it\r\nuntil about 1984 or 1985 but Monroe and Watson were immediate favorites\r\nof mine. I had taken on a roommate who had a banjo and an enormous\r\nrecord collection. The 2 albums that caught my attention were _The High\r\nLonesome Sound of Bill Monroe_ and a Doc Watson album whose title\r\nescapes me at the moment. I remember that parts of it at least were\r\nrecorded live and included cuts of \"Cypress Grove,\" \"Darlin Cory,\"\r\n\"Where I'm Bound,\" \"Love Please Come Home,\" and an unusual rendering of\r\n\"John Henry \/ Take This Hammer.\"\r\n\r\nAnyway, it was either Rinzler or Rosenberg who wrote the cover notes for\r\nthe Monroe album and whet my appetite for bluegrass lore. I remember\r\nMonroe being described as a \"terse Kentuckian\" with an \"intransigent\r\nspirit.\" I ended up buying my own copy of that album and having Monroe\r\nsign it just a couple of years later. I was taking my first few\r\nfaltering steps as a rhythm guitar player and singer at the time. I'd\r\ntaken the empty album jacket with me in the hopes of getting him to sign\r\nit. I was still not accustomed to the idea that fans could approach\r\nsomeone of Monroe's stature and I was very nervous. Bill was seated on\r\nthe stairs at the side of the stage and when my turn came I wanted to\r\nsay something to him besides just \"please give me your autograph.\" The\r\nonly thing I could think of was to ask him the lyrics to the chorus of\r\n\"On My Back To The Old Home.\" (I knew about 5 songs at the time and that\r\nwas one of them but the guys I was playing with couldn't agree on the\r\nlyrics in the chorus.) Bill asked me my name, signed the record cover\r\nand extended his arm as if to shake my hand. I'll never forget what he\r\ndid next. He grabbed my hand and then my arm, pulled me toward him and\r\nsang the chorus into my ear from a distance of about 6 inches. I've\r\nheard all kinds of stories about Bill's physical strength and it's true,\r\nhe had a grip like a vise on my hand and arm.It was a weird, riveting\r\nmoment for me. When he released me, he made some kind of remark about\r\nmaking sure I played plenty of bluegrass on the radio. I was so startled\r\nby the greeting that I didn't really pay any attention to the radio\r\nremark until several minutes later. It was only then that I realized\r\nthat he had seen an envelope sticking out of my shirt pocket with the\r\nlogo and call letters of the local radio station that had comped me the\r\ntickets to the show. Even at that late stage of his career and in\r\ndeclining health, he was still remarkably strong and mentally sharp. It\r\nmust have been something to see him in 1963!\r\n\r\nDan<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the way, I was listening to the old Bill Monroe & Doc Watson duet CD
\non Folkways the other day and noticed your name in the photo credits.
\nSeeing them perform together must have been quite an experience. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/poY5E-1T","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}