0:04 [SPEAKER_03]: I'll never forget the morning in the left room. 0:10 [SPEAKER_03]: I think me is taking home. 0:15 [SPEAKER_03]: If you come back, some shine will fall. 0:23 [SPEAKER_03]: If you stay away, see my soul. 0:25 [SPEAKER_03]: We'd hire a man, can you hand me cold? 0:31 [SPEAKER_03]: Follow me your time. 0:34 [SPEAKER_03]: This treaty you wrote and I'm strong I'm back to me and my people 0:56 [SPEAKER_00]: standing in the center of a music museum in southern Indiana. 1:01 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to start this episode, but they little bit of music trivia. 1:07 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll give you just a moment to think about each of these. 1:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Who wrote the B side for Elvis Presley's first ever single? 1:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Who did willing Nelson refer to as his personal hero? 1:23 [SPEAKER_00]: who did Dolly Parton give one of her dresses too, as a token of her admiration. 1:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Who wrote the first ever, Rockefeller song. 1:35 [SPEAKER_00]: And last, who is the undisputed father and creator of the bluegrass genre of music? 1:43 [SPEAKER_00]: What if I told you the answer to all of these questions was the same? 1:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was someone you probably have never heard of before. 1:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Today I'm at Bilman Rose Bluegrass Hall of Fame Museum, just outside of Nashville and Deanna, and as you probably just guessed, the answer to all of those questions is Bilman Row. 2:06 [SPEAKER_00]: After Bilman Row passed away in 1996, his personal collection of artifacts, along with his personal theater and camping venue, have been preserved by the local community. 2:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, all this priceless history landed in the hands of Rex Voyals, who owns this museum, and with whom I have the pleasure of speaking with today. 2:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me again what your name is and what you would say your title is here. 2:37 [SPEAKER_04]: Rex Voyals, the president of being Blossom Bluegrass and Brown County Jambory, 2:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And the location of this museum is this actually a Nashville or is this a town outside of Nashville. 2:53 [SPEAKER_00]: To be clear, we are talking about Nashville and Dana, not Nashville, Tennessee. 3:00 [SPEAKER_04]: Outside of Nashville, this is being blossomed in Brown County, Indiana. 3:04 [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, when I first walk into this building, it's an impressive building from the road, but when you walk in, you're just amazed. 3:14 [SPEAKER_00]: I was not expecting what you see when you walk in. 3:17 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you see all of these suits hanging up, all of these names of people that you recognize, all of these pictures of people, a lot of signatures. 3:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Can you kind of explain for people who will be listening? 3:30 [SPEAKER_00]: What is it that you have here? 3:32 [SPEAKER_04]: This is really a building row, which is the father of bluegrass. 3:36 [SPEAKER_04]: This is this kind of collection. 3:37 [SPEAKER_04]: You used to have this set up down in Nashville, Tennessee next to Ernest Tubbs, record shop. 3:42 [SPEAKER_04]: You used to have a little museum and he moved everything up here when he built this building in 1990. 3:48 [SPEAKER_04]: But that's why you got Dolly Parton's dress, you got web pierces, Johnny Cash's, just different 4:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you explain to me who Bill is? 4:06 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Monroe was born 1911 and he is considered the father of bluegrass. 4:12 [SPEAKER_04]: He started a new music, a new style of music that wasn't country, that was fit right in and they called it bluegrass. 4:22 [SPEAKER_04]: He called it the bluegrass boys and then they gave it the name of the bluegrass. 4:27 [SPEAKER_00]: At what point in time, could you pinpoint when this music called Bluegrass actually start happening? 4:36 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill started back in 39, 36, 36, 37, 38, 39. 4:40 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he had oral scrubs and lester flats. 4:45 [SPEAKER_04]: They played in his band. 4:46 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill's had over 100 members in his Bluegrass band. 4:49 [SPEAKER_04]: So it started back in the 30s, but it really didn't catch on that name until probably in the 60s. 4:55 [SPEAKER_00]: For years, I didn't know the difference between bluegrass and other country music. 5:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Bluegrass is a sub-genre of country music that does not traditionally include electric instruments or percussion. 5:10 [SPEAKER_00]: You might think of it as a kind of southern porch music where a group of musicians can play whole songs without sitting down or setting up a drum kit. 5:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Because there are no drums, things like guitars, banjos, and mandolin have to drive the tempo of the music. 5:30 [SPEAKER_00]: As you might imagine, improvisation is key, because of this, bluegrass musicians tend to be some of the best and most versatile in the world. 5:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Here's an example of the typical bluegrass sound. 5:48 [SPEAKER_02]: And my daughter did rule her I had to leave my home For mother and dad was called to heaven I'm left in this world all alone I'm on my way back to you home There are my not at the end of you But then the light ended with no That shine on the girl we're all in 6:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Because we have a classically trained composer in house, her audio engineer brand, I thought it might be good to have him quickly explain in simple terms, some of the quirks of this uniquely American musical style. 6:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Bluegrass music is a combination of a few different types of music. 6:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Most people believe that it is a subcategory of the old country music. 6:57 [SPEAKER_01]: When in reality, it goes much deeper than that. 6:59 [SPEAKER_01]: So you have elements of blues, jazz, American Southern Strangband music, sacred Irish, and Scottish traditions, all those make up a big part of what bluegrass actually is. 7:12 [SPEAKER_01]: A bluegrass band is traditionally comprised of four to five instrumentalists. 7:18 [SPEAKER_01]: So you have a five string banjo, a flat top guitar, you have a fiddle or violin and an upright acoustic bass. 7:29 [SPEAKER_01]: And last but not least, Billman rose favorite, the mandolin. 7:35 [SPEAKER_01]: What really separates bluegrass from other music is its fast, syncopated rhythms. 7:44 [SPEAKER_01]: So the drive of the music is actually created by what's called the offbeat. 7:49 [SPEAKER_01]: So an example of this. 7:51 [SPEAKER_01]: So the downbeat is, if you have a typical four-four measure, it'd be one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. 8:05 [SPEAKER_02]: The syncopated or the offbeat is on the end, the in-between of the down beats of the 1, 2, 3, and 4. 8:10 [SPEAKER_01]: So it sounds something like this, 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, and 2, and 2, and 4, and 2, and 4, and 2, and 2, and 3, and 4, and 2, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 3, and 8:36 [SPEAKER_01]: So when you remove the down beats, it would end up being like this. 8:42 [SPEAKER_02]: So you'd have one and two and three and four and and and and and and. 9:01 [SPEAKER_01]: that's what bluegrass is really made up of is all of those syncopated off rhythms. 9:07 [SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that you have is obviously your vocals and what primarily distinguishes the vocals from that of let's say country or other artist is that it is comprised of mainly a lead tenor which has a higher tone of voice. 9:29 [SPEAKER_01]: A additional vocals that would perform really tight harmonies with the lead tinder that has a strong influence in blues and jazz. 10:12 [SPEAKER_00]: What specifically different about bluegrass at that time was different than country music. 10:18 [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we say you have to have a fiddle if you're going to play country meat. 10:21 [SPEAKER_04]: You got to have a manlon if you're going to play bluegrass and Bilmero was the master of the manlon and they have the manlon the base that still get tar the fiddle and it's just all comes together. 10:33 [SPEAKER_04]: It's a different sound than country, the traditional country music and it's must done pretty good. 10:41 [SPEAKER_00]: It's still going today. 10:48 [SPEAKER_04]: He was on the Granow Opera for probably. 10:50 [SPEAKER_04]: I think they said almost 60 years, 59 years. 10:53 [SPEAKER_04]: So he was popular. 10:54 [SPEAKER_04]: He toured with the Patti Klein. 10:56 [SPEAKER_04]: He wrote songs with Hank William's senior. 10:59 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he was popular from day one. 11:01 [SPEAKER_04]: That's how come people like Johnny Cash when the first songs he ever sung was Meal Skinner Blues, which was a song by Bill Monroe. 11:09 [SPEAKER_04]: And he listened to Bill Monroe on the Granow Opera when he was a small child. 11:14 [SPEAKER_04]: And they all looked up to Bill Monroe. 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Before we start a recording, you had mentioned this story about Elvis and Bill. 11:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Can you kind of explain that story to me? 11:25 [SPEAKER_04]: Elvison bill became good friends. 11:27 [SPEAKER_04]: That's how come you said when you drove into the building here, you've seen the Graceland pillars, you've seen the stars out front, Bill Monroe kind of copied Graceland when he designed and built this building. 11:38 [SPEAKER_04]: But in 1953, 54, a young man gave Bill Monroe a call wanting to sing blue moon at Kentucky. 11:45 [SPEAKER_04]: And Bill said, son, I just don't like people singing my songs though, mass them up, and this young man said, but Mr. Monroe, 11:51 [SPEAKER_04]: You're my hero. 11:52 [SPEAKER_04]: I won't be just like you when I was two years old. 11:54 [SPEAKER_04]: I listen to you on the Grando Opera. 11:56 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill was flattered and he's so son. 11:58 [SPEAKER_04]: Go on and sing it and I hope it helps you out. 12:01 [SPEAKER_04]: And he did, nobody knew Elvis in 1954. 12:04 [SPEAKER_04]: So later on, Elvis started getting the checks through the mail, the royalty checks. 12:08 [SPEAKER_04]: And that's when he called up Sam Phillips and wanted know who Elvis Presley was. 12:13 [SPEAKER_04]: But it's just a great situation because 12:16 [SPEAKER_04]: what Elvis played the Granow Opera in 1956. 12:20 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Monroe was at the Granow Opera, well before Elvis and Bill met for the first time. 12:26 [SPEAKER_04]: People came up to Bill Monroe, the old Granow Opera people and said, Bill, don't let this rock ability sing your songs. 12:35 [SPEAKER_04]: He gets up there and twists his and shouts, and that's not country, and Bill sat in back thinking, wait a minute, I'm making about six cents a record, 12:45 [SPEAKER_04]: $3 million copies, but it's $180,000 back in the 50s. 12:50 [SPEAKER_04]: When Bill Madel was, he said Elvis came out and said, Mr. Monroe, I'm sorry. 12:55 [SPEAKER_04]: I sped your song up a little and Bill said, Elvis, Elvis, don't worry about it. 12:59 [SPEAKER_04]: You can sing any song of mine you want to. 13:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you tell me about Jerry Garcia? 13:07 [SPEAKER_00]: For those of you who may not know, Jerry Garcia was the founder and leader of the Rock Band, 13:14 [SPEAKER_04]: Jerry Garcia hitchhiked up here in the 1960s. 13:18 [SPEAKER_04]: Wanted to be a bluegrass boy. 13:21 [SPEAKER_04]: And he, when he got here, here at being blossom, Bill wasn't here, Bill was on tour. 13:26 [SPEAKER_04]: So, Burch, Bill's brother, which took care of this place for him, said, a son, you're gonna have to come back and Jerry said, I got seven, eight bucks in my pocket. 13:35 [SPEAKER_04]: I have nowhere to go. 13:36 [SPEAKER_04]: I wanna be a bluegrass boy. 13:38 [SPEAKER_04]: So, Burch said, go back and pitch you a tent and wait for Bill. 13:42 [SPEAKER_04]: So, Bill came through about 30 days later. 13:45 [SPEAKER_04]: So when Bill came through, the old barn was here, they hollered up on the hill and said, hey, Mr. Monroe's on the property. 13:52 [SPEAKER_04]: It's a jury walks down, comes in this barn, and plays for Bill Monroe. 13:57 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Monroe had him on the back and said, son, said, you need to go home practice. 14:02 [SPEAKER_04]: But Jerry had no way to get home. 14:04 [SPEAKER_04]: So when Bill went back on tour, Jerry jumped in with Bill Monroe on his tour bus and went to Bluegrass festival. 14:12 [SPEAKER_04]: So I think Jerry Garcia was really a deadhead for Bill Monroe at the start. 14:17 [SPEAKER_04]: But you know, if what the funny part is, later on in life, Jerry Garcia's life, he hired Vester Clemens, which was a fiddle player for Bill Monroe, a hired Peter Rowland, which played guitar for Bill Monroe. 14:30 [SPEAKER_04]: And Jerry Garcia put together one of the best bluegrass albums ever released. 14:34 [SPEAKER_04]: It's so more records than anybody. 14:37 [SPEAKER_04]: And Jerry Garcia made the comedy said, well, I couldn't be a bluegrass boy, but I had enough money. 14:42 [SPEAKER_04]: I could hire him. 14:44 [SPEAKER_04]: So good stories, though. 14:46 [SPEAKER_04]: Good history here. 14:47 [SPEAKER_00]: When did you first hear about Bill? 14:49 [SPEAKER_04]: I'm I was born raised here in Brown County so we always we call them the old country singer we would see him walking up the streets we'd see him here on the property and that's how I knew Bill Monroe but we never thought of him as any star and he never acted like a star he would sit down talk to you take his hat off just a real friendly gentleman. 15:10 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that I heard when we came in here about there being bluegrass festivals here. 15:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Is that right? 15:17 [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, we still have Bill Monroe. 15:19 [SPEAKER_04]: It's the oldest bluegrass festival in the country. 15:21 [SPEAKER_04]: It's still here. 15:22 [SPEAKER_04]: We're going on our 59th year. 15:24 [SPEAKER_04]: And Bill Monroe started that. 15:26 [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have the Uncle Penn Bluegrass Festival, which that started about 45 years ago. 15:32 [SPEAKER_04]: And that's a festival of Bill Monroe's. 15:35 [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have the Americana. 15:37 [SPEAKER_04]: Now this year on the Americana, 15:40 [SPEAKER_04]: June 1st through the third, we got Sam Bush coming in, the henhouse prowlers. 15:45 [SPEAKER_04]: We have all the big names that comes into our bluegrass and June. 15:50 [SPEAKER_04]: We'll have Larry Sparks, Ralph Stanley 2. 15:53 [SPEAKER_04]: We'll have over 40 entertainers. 15:56 [SPEAKER_00]: What happens at these festivals? 15:58 [SPEAKER_04]: The people come in, there's about six bands play a day, and they play two shows a day. 16:04 [SPEAKER_04]: We have a stage, Bill Monroe's old stage, it's said here on this 55 acres, and they come in, we have vendors, they come listening to the bands, but we also have 300 campsites. 16:16 [SPEAKER_04]: So most of these people come in here. 16:19 [SPEAKER_04]: Park their camper and they jam. 16:21 [SPEAKER_04]: They set around and play bluegrass. 16:22 [SPEAKER_04]: I love going to the camp sites and listen to the bluegrass music more than I do listen to it on the stage. 16:29 [SPEAKER_00]: That's fun. 16:30 [SPEAKER_00]: I actually think that my uncle and grandpa would come here a lot. 16:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Back when my grandpa was still living, my family, they're all from Southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee. 16:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And they were mine workers and coal mines. 16:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And they moved to Indiana for to work in steel factories in Muncie and play bluegrass for all of my memory. 16:56 [SPEAKER_00]: But I remember that that's why I know Brown County is because of them coming to this festival. 17:01 [SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't click with me about this festival until he mentioned it when we walked in. 17:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, this is the place that my grandpa will come to. 17:10 [SPEAKER_04]: This is the oldest run and fastball go in the United States, and this music park is one of the oldest skill in this. 17:17 [SPEAKER_04]: The Brown County Jambory started 1939. 17:21 [SPEAKER_04]: Now Mr. Morrow bought this place in 1951, so it went before Bill Monroe, all the country singers came there. 17:29 [SPEAKER_04]: A lady came through one day, and she was about 67 years old, and 17:35 [SPEAKER_04]: and I asked her because she told the story that she seemed Jerry Lee here and Jerry Lee tore this piano up and in the old barn and through this bench down and jumped up on it and she said she was a little girl about seven eight years old and it's scared or so bad she started crying. 17:52 [SPEAKER_04]: So that's a kind of entertainer that's been here. 17:55 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean Jerry Lee's been here. 18:03 [SPEAKER_04]: country acts and people would come and travel through here. 18:06 [SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty cool just to think about them coming to a place like this. 18:10 [SPEAKER_04]: Being Blossom Indiana because even before Nash, I mean, Bill Monroe put this place on the map, being Blossom Indiana. 18:17 [SPEAKER_04]: And if you listen to Bill Monroe, his old recordings when he plays on the Granow Opera, the last thing always says, I'll see you at being Blossom. 18:27 [SPEAKER_00]: I might have missed this if you've 18:32 [SPEAKER_04]: The story is that Bill used to come down when he moved up to Hammond, Indiana, he used to come down here and they have square dances and they have round dances and he used to play at the round dances here at the barn and he liked it so well and also Mr. Monroe was a fox hunter and he loved the fox hunts in the hills. 18:52 [SPEAKER_04]: Kentucky. 18:53 [SPEAKER_04]: The Hills of Brown County is like the Hills of Kentucky, so he would bring his dogs up here and come Fox hunting up here in Brown County, and that's why he loved this place so much. 19:04 [SPEAKER_04]: There's record albums in here of him with his Fox horn, and we have those Fox horns in this showcase right now, the ones he used. 19:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I love it. 19:15 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of artifacts here, but I was wondering if you could tell me about some of your favorite ones and why they might be your favorite. 19:21 [SPEAKER_04]: I love the Bill Nudy suits. 19:23 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Nudy made suits. 19:25 [SPEAKER_04]: The rhinestone suits he made them for Elvis, he made them. 19:28 [SPEAKER_04]: And we have seven of those Nudy suits in here. 19:32 [SPEAKER_04]: But probably my favorite thing, there's an old 19:35 [SPEAKER_04]: case back here that Bill Monroe carried his manlon in. 19:39 [SPEAKER_04]: And this case, I mean, if it being your garage you with on it in the trash. 19:44 [SPEAKER_04]: But Bill Monroe, that's the manlon that he kept his case in. 19:47 [SPEAKER_04]: He was behind the barn one evening and he ran over it with his car. 19:53 [SPEAKER_04]: Now, I didn't hurt the manlon, but it hurt the case. 19:56 [SPEAKER_04]: And Bill Monroe took duct tape and duct taped it up. 19:59 [SPEAKER_04]: And 20:00 [SPEAKER_04]: still carried his man limb. 20:01 [SPEAKER_04]: I came to him. 20:02 [SPEAKER_04]: So Mr. Bill, Bill, you can't carry that case. 20:05 [SPEAKER_04]: It's cracked. 20:06 [SPEAKER_04]: It's broke. 20:07 [SPEAKER_04]: The manlins worth a million dollars and you're carrying it in a broken case. 20:11 [SPEAKER_04]: So Bill put it in the museum and we still have that here in that museum. 20:15 [SPEAKER_04]: And that's, that's probably one of my favorite things in here. 20:18 [SPEAKER_04]: And we have the first Grammy that 20:21 [SPEAKER_04]: was ever given out to Bluegrass, that was Gabe to Bill Monroe, and we have it here, and just so much stuff to see the original Heat Hall sign, Archie Campbell made four Heat Hall signs. 20:32 [SPEAKER_04]: We have it on the back wall, and they gave Bill one of those signs, and I think there's only two left that we know about, so just a lot of interesting stuff here. 20:43 [SPEAKER_04]: and you have some of the fence from that to we have some of the fence from the he also show just it's just and people they always ask me when I'm here they'll say how do you get dolly partens dress I didn't get her to ask she love building row so much I've heard interviews with her with billman row 21:00 [SPEAKER_04]: that she gave that dress to Bill Monroe to put in his exhibit. 21:04 [SPEAKER_04]: And Dolly Woods even called asking for that dress back because that you don't see many dresses with Dolly. 21:11 [SPEAKER_04]: Now she wore that dress with a Porter Wagner show. 21:14 [SPEAKER_04]: It's just a lot of interesting stuff in here. 21:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And Dolly and Bill share something in history. 21:20 [SPEAKER_00]: I was wondering if you can explain that. 21:23 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Monroe before Dolly was putting a rock and row hall of fame. 21:26 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Monroe was the only person in the writer's hall of fame. 21:29 [SPEAKER_04]: The Rock and Row Hall of Fame, the Country Hall of Fame, and the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. 21:34 [SPEAKER_04]: And now that Dahle was inducted into the Rock and Row Hall of Fame, they share that honor together. 21:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Are you the person who runs the whole show now? 21:43 [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes. 21:44 [SPEAKER_04]: How long have you been doing this since 2018? 21:45 [SPEAKER_04]: Got it. 21:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And for people who would like to come here is the best way to get here from Nashville, coming North. 21:55 [SPEAKER_04]: It's really in between Columbus, Indiana, inapolis, and Bloomington. 22:00 [SPEAKER_04]: It's right. 22:00 [SPEAKER_04]: We're right in between. 22:01 [SPEAKER_04]: So if you're coming from Bloomington, you can come down 65, even if you're coming from the southern part, you come down 65 and get right off at the Nashville exit, and you can come right into Nashville. 22:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And the festivals that you mentioned earlier are those annually? 22:16 [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, every year. 22:18 [SPEAKER_00]: At what point in the year? 22:19 [SPEAKER_04]: Our first one's June 1st through the third, and that's the Americana, and that is the one more sand bush will be here, and in our second festival is June fast, which that's around June 14th through the 18th this year. 22:36 [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have the blues, our hippy hills on Jerry Garcia's birthday. 22:41 [SPEAKER_04]: So that's at the end of July. 22:43 [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have the blues at the end of September. 22:47 [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have the Uncle Penn in August. 22:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything else about the museum or the artifacts that you feel like people need to know about before they come here? 22:58 [SPEAKER_04]: Not really. 22:59 [SPEAKER_04]: Thing is, we have probably, as you can see, there's probably 23:03 [SPEAKER_04]: 2000 pictures here of anybody that's had anything to do with country. 23:08 [SPEAKER_04]: There's even Buddy Holly was in tech from Texas, the Texas swing one of his biggest person he looked up to was Bill Monroe. 23:16 [SPEAKER_04]: So there's just so much stuff here to see and to look at that it's just it takes you back when you walk in here you feel like you're 23:24 [SPEAKER_04]: back at your grandma and grandpa's house watching he haul on the Saturday night and it's also impressive that there is no dust on any of the suits like that we try to give him clean we have a guy in in Bloomington that is a historian and he comes up can and he'll come up and clean him and number stuff he's just a really good historian that he loves his 23:52 [SPEAKER_00]: How big is this building in your property here? 23:56 [SPEAKER_04]: We're 55 acres and this building here is about the museum alone is about 3,000 square foot and we can row these away. 24:06 [SPEAKER_04]: We have them on the wheel so we roll them away so we can do shows here. 24:11 [SPEAKER_04]: We can set up. 24:12 [SPEAKER_04]: We had a wedding in here so we rent. 24:14 [SPEAKER_04]: We can rent this building out to different for different engagements. 24:21 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked Rex for his all-time favorite bill story. 24:25 [SPEAKER_04]: Now, Bill Monroe, when he signed his name, he signed it with a period. 24:30 [SPEAKER_04]: That was it. 24:31 [SPEAKER_04]: He was. 24:32 [SPEAKER_04]: On the manland, there was nobody that could even come, you see Ricky Scag's play the manland. 24:37 [SPEAKER_04]: And these guys, they could not even come close to what Bill Monroe does. 24:41 [SPEAKER_04]: But there was a young man out here and they called it sundown jam. 24:46 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Monroe would come out to the front gate and everybody there'd be a hundred get tar players, a hundred fiddlers, a hundred manland players to get to play with Bill Monroe. 24:54 [SPEAKER_04]: This young man comes up to Bill Monroe and said, Mr. Monroe, would you listen to me play my manland and Bill said, y'all son, go on and get it. 25:04 [SPEAKER_04]: And so this young man starts playing his man on. 25:07 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he plays it good, you know, Bill looks at him says, let me see that man on son. 25:11 [SPEAKER_04]: So Bill takes his man on the bill, plays it when Bill plays it. 25:14 [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, everybody, you drop. 25:17 [SPEAKER_04]: Both these guys have heard Bill Monroe play the man on. 25:20 [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody and Bill looks at the man on hands back. 25:22 [SPEAKER_04]: He said, well, son, it's not the man on. 25:24 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I just love him. 25:25 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, he was so honest, and it's not the man on it's the guy playing it. 25:29 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, the man on the good shape. 25:31 [SPEAKER_04]: That's a great Bill Monroe's story, or I think it is. 25:36 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's all right. 25:38 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, but Bill Monroe was a gentleman. 25:40 [SPEAKER_04]: And if he was around a lady, take his hat off. 25:43 [SPEAKER_04]: He, when I worked for him here, him and Birch, and we was kids, they would come get us and we'd weed black. 25:49 [SPEAKER_04]: Not with a weed eater, but with a weed blacker. 25:52 [SPEAKER_04]: And Bill never cussed around us, kids. 25:55 [SPEAKER_04]: Never tow nasty stories. 25:56 [SPEAKER_04]: And you hear different things about Mr. Murrow, 26:00 [SPEAKER_04]: respect for me and it he was really a country gentleman I asked how he first became aware of Bill Monroe having grown up in the area we just all I grew up in being blossom and we would come over here and play in the creeks and the ponds and you know we just knew Bill Monroe and when I worked for him when I was young he was just a upright guy but we never knew he was anybody we just called me old country gentleman the old country guy you know it wasn't like he was 26:29 [SPEAKER_00]: I ask Rex how he'd come to own Bill's property in personal collections. 26:34 [SPEAKER_04]: I worked here for Bill Monroe, like I said, when I was 16, 17, we've been here. 26:38 [SPEAKER_04]: I've been in being blossoming. 26:40 [SPEAKER_04]: You've seen being blossoming. 26:41 [SPEAKER_04]: If you look, you know, you're gone. 26:43 [SPEAKER_04]: There's not even, I think, is there a stop, there's not even stop light. 26:46 [SPEAKER_04]: Not even a stop sign in being blossoming. 26:48 [SPEAKER_04]: So it's a small town. 26:50 [SPEAKER_04]: So when I found this place coming up for sale, I love building stuff and re-fixing stuff up. 26:56 [SPEAKER_04]: And we re-guided this museum and re-did it. 26:58 [SPEAKER_04]: And that when I had the opportunity to purchase it, that's how I became involved in. 27:04 [SPEAKER_00]: When you purchased it, was it closed before then? 27:07 [SPEAKER_04]: No, it was open, but Bill Monroe, when he built this 99, it had seven little rooms. 27:13 [SPEAKER_04]: It had Chad Carp and it, you know, it was something you built in the 90s. 27:17 [SPEAKER_04]: And when we got it, the Carp, it was modian stuff. 27:21 [SPEAKER_04]: And they built all these uniforms, all these, 27:25 [SPEAKER_04]: Manicans, all these suits, he had him behind Plexiglass without humidifiers, so some of them was rotting and we talked to a museum curator, how to bloom it to an IU and he said get those suits out and get them aired out, let natural air and keep constant heat and coolness in here. 27:43 [SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we did, we gutted it all, we put everything up on the wall so to preserve it. 27:48 [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I feel like I am. 27:50 [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not a big musician, never played much, but I feel like it's an honor for me to keep up this museum for future and hopefully somebody else will come along and take over because as you see we have everything in here, little Jimmy Dickens belt, we have the highway man stuff and there's just so much stuff in here that needs kept up and taken care of. 28:13 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's unique history for this area too for all these people to have had some connection. 28:19 [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, there's people that will come here from Australia, Japan. 28:23 [SPEAKER_04]: All over the country, you would not believe the people it's been here just to walk on this ground that Bill Monroe walked on and played on. 28:31 [SPEAKER_00]: You want to revisit your events? 28:35 [SPEAKER_04]: Bluegrass June 14th through the 17th Wednesday, Friday, Thursday, and Saturday. 28:40 [SPEAKER_04]: Now, Wednesday will have the being dinner and preaching, which that's what Bill Monroe did every time. 28:44 [SPEAKER_04]: He had his being dinner and had his preaching. 28:47 [SPEAKER_04]: And that's the Bluegrass June 14th through the 17th. 28:50 [SPEAKER_04]: And then Uncle Penn is Friday, September 22nd, and that's a Friday in the Saturday. 28:57 [SPEAKER_04]: So both those are the two bluegrass, then we have the Americana 29:02 [SPEAKER_04]: which is the first through the third. 29:04 [SPEAKER_04]: Now, the Americana is more of a hippie bluegrass. 29:09 [SPEAKER_04]: It's Sam Bush is kind of that type of player. 29:13 [SPEAKER_04]: You know, he's kind of the hippie style. 29:15 [SPEAKER_04]: And we have stickers in here where Bill Monroe said, that ain't no part of nothing. 29:19 [SPEAKER_04]: And he said that about Sam Bush. 29:21 [SPEAKER_04]: They said that. 29:22 [SPEAKER_04]: He ain't no part of nothing. 29:23 [SPEAKER_04]: Well, hasn't bluegrass, the bluegrass, the traditional that Mr. Monroe played. 29:28 [SPEAKER_04]: But Sam Bush is one of the best entertainers 29:33 [SPEAKER_04]: And I just welcome everybody to come down. 29:36 [SPEAKER_04]: We do not charge to go through the museum. 29:39 [SPEAKER_04]: Bill Monroe wanted this stuff that he collected to be seen, and that's what we feel. 29:43 [SPEAKER_04]: If you want to come down, come on down through. 29:46 [SPEAKER_04]: I even get his old Martin Gittar down once in a while, let some of the entertainers play it. 29:51 [SPEAKER_04]: And they love playing a Gittar that was by Bill Monroe's. 29:56 [SPEAKER_00]: You can find Bilman Rose Music Park in Campground at bilmanromusicpark.com. 30:03 [SPEAKER_00]: You can also reach out by email to info at bilmanromusicpark.com. 30:10 [SPEAKER_00]: The website and email will also be in the episode's show notes. 30:15 [SPEAKER_00]: As always, thanks for listening.
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