Bill Monroe is not singing about life in America. He's singing about life in Kentucky and Tennessee. And yet it's had this tremendous impact, not just in America but in the world. Why is Bill Monroe's hyper-regional music so universal? We can be so different and yet still share a tremendous amount.
Well, Peter Rowan and I had plans to form a band when he left Bill Monroe. I always thought it was going to be a bluegrass band, but I guess when Peter left Bill Monroe he had had enough of bluegrass. He had written some songs and of course the Beatles were a big influence back then. So, we decided to something different and it ended up being that.
I think Earl Scruggs playing propelled bluegrass and Bill Monroe's music to the level that - where we're all still talking about it.
There's only one Hank Williams, man. Singing that high-voiced style, them bluegrassers, I don't see how they do it - Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe - it's just a natural thing, man.
If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something. Or, you have to be singing in a vocabulary that has tremendous appeal or else people are not going to want to sit there for eighty or ninety minutes hearing this stuff.
President Trump has done a tremendous job of bringing jobs back to our country, and my Buy America provision for the National Highway bill reinforces his America First priorities.
However, it [singing] wasn't until halfway through high school that it dawned on me that singing wasn't just a hobby, it was something I had a growing need for in my life, and that was about when I adopted the neglected guitar I found under our piano and started singing about all the things I could never say.
Mike Compton knows more about Bill Monroe style mandolin than the Father of Bluegrass himself.
I had some good teachers. One of the greatest teachers I've had is bluegrass music: going back and listening to Bill Monroe's music, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs. When I was with Ralph Stanley I learned a lot from him.
Singing still brings me tremendous joy, the reception you get and you never know what people are going to share with you after the event.
I'm just singing about my own life. Singing about all the little stories in my life and the things I've been through.
I was never into the Bluegrass, Bill Monroe and stuff like that.
I never really thought about pursuing singing because my whole life was about dance and singing just kind of came with it.
My parents discussed singing every night over the dinner table; I had a tremendous music education.
I love Don Williams records. And old Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for military families. To have to worry about your loved ones and still try and live a normal life is extremely hard.
If there were only one cherry pie in the world, and Bill Clinton owned it, I might get a piece of it. If Bush or Reagan owned it, you'd have to kill them to get a piece of pie. That's my feeling about Bill. And Bill's a good bullshitter. America likes a good bullshitter. That's one of the reasons he was re-elected. Honesty has no place in politics. It would throw everything off.