High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Transcript

- [] Back in the days of my childhood, in the evening when everything was still, I used to sit and listen to the fox hounds with my dad in the old Kentucky Hills. I'm on my way back to the old home. The road winds on up the hill, but there's no light in the window that shined long ago where I lived.

♪ I hear your voice callin' ♪

♪ It must be our; Lord ♪

♪ It must be, it must be our Lord ♪

♪ It is coming from heaven on high ♪

♪ I hear a voice callin' ♪

♪ I've gained a reward ♪

♪ I've gained, I've gained a reward ♪

♪ For the land where we never shall die ♪

♪ I hear a voice calling ♪

♪ I've gained a reward ♪

♪ I've gained, I've gained a reward ♪

♪ For the land where we never shall die ♪

- [Bill] Things have really changed. They're not like they were back when I was real young. I'll never forget the old days years and years ago when I was a little boy. I'd like to get out, you know, and travel around over the hills and sang to myself, you know, and see how it would sound, you know, singing the blues or some good gospel song.

♪ I long for you each night and day ♪

♪ When the roses bloom in old Kentucky ♪

♪ I'll be coming back to stay ♪

♪ I'm going back to old Kentucky ♪

♪ There to see my Linda Lou ♪

♪ I'm going back to old Kentucky ♪

♪ Where the skies are always blue ♪

- [] In 1911, Bill Monroe was born in Western Kentucky. The story of bluegrass is the story of his musical legacy.

♪ Linda Lou she is a beauty ♪

♪ Those pretty brown eyes I loved so well ♪

♪ I'm going back to old Kentucky ♪

♪ Never more to say farewell ♪

♪ I'm going back to old Kentucky ♪

♪ There to see my Linda Lou ♪

♪ I'm going back to old Kentucky ♪

♪ Where the skies are always blue ♪

♪ Ah, gee golly oh ♪

♪ I'm gonna marry you I please ♪

♪ Ah, gee golly oh ♪

- [Bill] My mother, she used to walk through the house singing, you know.

♪ Marry me ♪

♪ I'll bet you I will if you marry me ♪

♪ I bet you I will if you marry me ♪

- [Bill] And she could play the fiddle.

♪ La, la, la, chika, lolly oh ♪

- [Bill] But she had to cook for, you know, eight children and her husband, my father. And so that'd taken a lot of her time. She'd go by the bed where she left her fiddle and pick it up and play a number, you know, an old time fiddle number, and it was just wonderful.

- Across the South and Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, descendants of Scotch Irish settlers played songs brought from across the sea. Old tunes like Soldiers Joy, Fair and Tender Ladies, and Building the Low Ground rang through Appalachia as they had for centuries in the British Isles. For families that toiled in cotton fields and cold mines, music was one of life's few enjoyments. I remember folks gather up in the evenings after they had supper, and a little radio that you'd listen to on weekends, but no TV of course. And so we'd gather up and sing the old songs and exchange ideas and such as that. Just a way of life really.

♪ Just a village and a homestead on the farm ♪

♪ And a mother's love to shield you from all harm ♪

♪ A mother's love so true ♪

♪ A sweetheart back loves you ♪

♪ A village and a homestead on the farm ♪

♪ You can hear the cattle lowing in the lane ♪

♪ You can see the fields of bluegrass where I'd roam ♪

♪ You can almost hear them cry ♪

♪ As they kiss their boy goodbye ♪

♪ Well, I wonder how the old folks are at home ♪

- Late in the evenin' about sundown high on the hill above the town, Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lord, how it would ring. You could hear it talk; you could hear it sing. Uncle Pen Vandiver was the first man that I ever heard play a fiddle, and I believe I was about six years old the first time I ever heard him play. He got the wonderful Scotch Irish sound out of it. He was a wonderful uncle, and he'd always bring the fiddle, and we'd get to hear the fiddle. After we'd have supper at night, we'd sit around the fireplace, and he'd play the fiddle. And he played numbers like Jenny Lynn, Sally Gooden, Going Across The Sea. Would you let me play one? Going Across the Sea. We was always glad to have Uncle Pen. He'd always come in on his horse, you know? Put the horse up there and feed him. But I could hear him sit out on the back porch and play that fiddle. Oh, the people would come from far away. They danced all night till the break of day. When the caller hollered "do-se-do," boy, you knew Uncle Pen was ready to go.

♪ Oh the people would come from far away ♪

♪ They'd dance all night till the break of day ♪

♪ When the caller hollered "do-se-do" ♪

♪ You knew Uncle Pen was ready to go ♪

♪ Late in the evening about sundown ♪

♪ High on the hill and above the town ♪ ♪ Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lord, how it would ring ♪ ♪ You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing ♪

- [] Monroe combined the old time folk music of his childhood with the fast paced rhythms of the world beyond his Kentucky home. In the late 1940s, Monroe's sound came to be called bluegrass. It embodied hillbilly styles but with a high pitch and fast tempo. Some called it folk music with overdrive.

♪ Late in the evening about sundown ♪

♪ High on the hill and above the town ♪

♪ Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lord, how it would ring ♪

♪ You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing ♪

♪ Oh, I'll never forget that mournful day ♪

♪ When Uncle Pen was called away ♪

♪ They hung up his fiddle, they hung up his bow ♪

♪ They knew it was time for him to go ♪

♪ Late in the evening about sundown ♪

♪ High on the hill and above the town ♪

♪ Uncle Pen played the fiddle, Lord, how it would ring ♪

♪ You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing ♪

♪ No, I may not be able to walk like him ♪

♪ I may not be able to talk like him ♪

♪ But I willing to try ♪

♪ I may not be able to stand so tall ♪

♪ I may not have the endurance of Moses in the wilderness ♪

♪ But I'm willing to try ♪

- [Bill] Religion played a big role in our lives growing up. We went to the old Primitive Baptist Church, and they didn't have any instruments or anything. So they done the singing without any music. And I would just sit back and listen

♪ To try ♪

♪ In that dear old village churchyard ♪

♪ I can see a mossy mound ♪

♪ That's where my poor mother's sleeping ♪

♪ In a cold and silent ground ♪

♪ If you have friends in glory land ♪

♪ Who left because of pain ♪

♪ Thank God up there ♪

♪ They'll die no more ♪

♪ They'll suffer not again ♪

♪ Then weep not, friends, I'm going home ♪

♪ Up there we'll die no more ♪

♪ No coffins will be made up there ♪

♪ No graves on that bright shore ♪

- Well I used to hear 'em sing in churches, you know, and they'd have tenor singers, you know, and ladies, they'd be singing the alto. My brothers, they all went to the singing school in the church. But there was no use of me going 'cause I couldn't see the notes or anything, you see, and they couldn't learn me anything. So I just decided that I would learn my music by ear and always do it that way. Well, I was awful bashful when I was a kid growing up. I just wanted to sing for myself and let me hear it. A lot of times out by myself, you know, just walking around through the field, you know, doing work, working with horses and cattle, and I'd be singing to myself, and I didn't want nobody else to hear me because I didn't know whether they'd like me or not, you see.

♪ Oh Danny boy ♪

♪ The pipes, the pipes are calling ♪

♪ From glen to glen, and down the mountain side ♪

♪ The summer's gone, and all the roses falling ♪

♪ It's you, it's you, must go and I must bide ♪

♪ But come ye back when summer's in the meadow ♪

♪ Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow ♪

♪ For you will bend and tell me that you love me ♪

♪ And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me ♪

- Aw, mercy. They cut all the timber off of this side of that mountain. Back then, it's just more or less a wilderness. There hadn't been any timber cut in this country anywhere when this house was built. They built a railroad, and they cut timber all over this country, hauled from down in here up to there on the train.

- [] Southern industry changed more than just the land. It brought rural whites into contact with a new culture and a new kind of music.

♪ The Rock Island Line ♪

♪ Is a mighty good road ♪

♪ If you want to ride you got to ride like it like you find ♪

♪ Buy your ticket at the station on the Rock Island Line ♪

♪ Woo ♪

♪ Won't you ring, old hammer ♪

♪ Hammer Ring ♪

♪ Won't you ring, old hammer ♪

- [] As the railroad cut into remote mountain hollers, the hills echoed with the shouts of black laborers.

♪ Broke the hammer on my hammer ♪

♪ Hammer ring ♪

♪ Got to hammerin' in the Bible ♪

♪ Hammer ring ♪

- [] The banjo had been played on plantations since the 18th century. It was brought to America by African slaves. Traveling minstrels played African rhythms with accents shifting to the offbeat. These syncopated rhythms opened a new world of musical possibilities. Camp meetings rang with gospel spirituals, hoedowns reeled with bluesy fiddles. Throughout the South, African frailing styles mixed with Gaelic modern melodies.

- One time a good gentleman, the name of Arnold Shultz, a black man, come up here and visit us. He was the most wonderful guitar man that could play the blues that you ever listened to. Called Arnold Shultz. And so, and he could also play the fiddle. And one time he was up around Rosine, and they wanted us to play for a square dance there. So Arnold played the fiddle, and I played the guitar. Now you might not believe this, but this is right. We started around sunset in the evening, and we was playing the next morning. And later on when I was putting my music together, I remember how he'd played the blues and everything, you know, so I was going to add some blues to my music.

♪ Good morning captain ♪

♪ Good morning son ♪

♪ Do you need another mule skinner ♪

♪ Out on your new road lines ♪

♪ Yodel-Ay-Hee-Hee ♪

♪ Hee-Hee-Hee-Hee ♪

♪ Workin' on the railroad ♪

♪ A dollar and a half a day, high, high ♪

♪ My little woman in town every Saturday night ♪

♪ To come and undo the pay ♪ ♪ Yodel-Ay-Hee-Hee ♪

♪ Yodel-Ay-Hee-Hee ♪

♪ Ah-Yee! ♪

♪ Little ol' water boy ♪

♪ Won't you bring me that water 'round ♪

♪ If you don't like your job ♪

♪ Set that water bucket down ♪

♪ Yodel-Ay-Hee-Hee ♪

♪ Hee-Hee-Hee-Hee ♪

- These old corn shucking days, they would have bean stringings, and log rollings, and apple peelings. Gas was about 15 cents a gallon then. Hot dogs was about 10 cents. Pop was a nickel. And we played in stores or just anywhere we could play for whatever we could get. They didn't hardly have a guitar then. We played about anything we picked up. We'd just play old tunes like Cripple Creek and Mississippi Sawyer. So I'm gonna play one, one of the tunes right now called Sourwood Mountain. Y'all ready?

- Old time folk music was transformed by outside influences. New instruments were mass produced and available from mail order catalogs. Their exotic sounds offered new musical combinations. Tunes once played by a solo fiddler were now accompanied by the western cowboy rhythm of the guitar, the romantic plucking of the mandolin, or the sweet sounding slide of the Hawaiian steel guitar. At community gatherings musicians began to play in organized groups. These were the first professional string bands. I got my first guitar when I was about 12 years old. It was quite an expensive model, the best that Sears had at that time. 3.95, I think. It came in a cardboard box. And it took me a year to get it in tune because nobody was around that knew how to tune it. And finally a traveling minister came through holding a revival, and he could play the guitar little. So he tuned it for me. They'd have lawn parties, fundraisers, you know, for the schools and churches and things like that. And three or four of us guys in the community, our total pay was a free dinner if we could pick a little bit, you know.

♪ Nobody's love is like mine ♪

♪ No one's so faithful and kind ♪

- We used to have a talent contest once a year. They had the prizes for best fiddle player, singers, and so forth. But we entered it as a duet. We won the first prize. I guess that was a big encouragement for us. Although we won a bag of flour or something like that. You know, it wasn't no big prize, but back then it was.

♪ I wanna be kissed but only by your lips dear ♪

♪ For you're the only one who'll ever do ♪

♪ I want someone to hug and call me honey ♪

♪ I wanna be loved but only by you ♪

- On Sundays while we'd gather around under a apple tree, on side of a dirt road with finding some boy with a mandolin, some with a banjo. And we'd just sang there for two or three hours, and people would stop by, and cars, and walk, and we'd sang two or three hours to 'em. And I remember many times before they'd leave, he'd look at me and say, "Well Jimmy, you boys sang us one good un before we leave."

♪ Now don't forget me little darling ♪

♪ While I'm growing old and gray ♪

♪ Just a little thought before I'm going far away ♪

♪ I'll be waiting on the hillside ♪

♪ When the day you will call ♪

♪ On the sunny side of the mountain ♪

♪ Where the rippling waters fall ♪

♪ My, my, Lord, Lord ♪

- Way back there when I was a boy, music was what I wanted to hear, you know, and play it. My brothers, they wanted to play the fiddle and the guitar. All that was left was a mandolin, so I started trying to learn it. I practiced a lot and learned more about it, you see. Heard other people play. As I got older, why, I got to where I wasn't so bashful, I could play in front of anybody. All right. Back in them days there wasn't very much to do. About all the entertainment that we had then was to maybe hunt, fish, or go swimming. They had a county fair once a year. When the fair came, the whole county turned out, and it was something.

♪ My gal been traveling around just about week, I know ♪

♪ Several of my friends done told me so and so ♪

♪ She's found a new man ♪

- [] Traveling shows brought a whole new world of sights and sounds to rural southerners. Vaudeville singers crooned sentimental tunes from Tin Pan Alley. Musicians brought early sounds of jazz and ragtime from the city. Itinerant preachers offered eternal salvation through revival spirituals. Snake oil salesman lured crowds with musical performers, giving country musicians their first professional jobs. These amusements brought glimpses of the outside world, and some had the magic to take you there. Talking pictures were larger than life. They flickered with images of the Wild West and the lonesome singing cowboy.

- It's the first guitar I ever had. It had Gene Autry on it. He was riding some big horses, and they was rearing up with him. And I'd look at it many times. But I always liked his singing in movies. Gene Autry would start it out saying,

♪ Been to the doctor, says I'm all right ♪

♪ Know that he's lying, losing my sight ♪

♪ Should have examined the eyes of my mind ♪

♪ 20/20 vision, walking round blind ♪

- How'd we do it?

♪ I've been to the doctor, he says I'm all right ♪

♪ I know that he's lying, I'm losing my sight ♪

♪ He should have examined the eyes of my mind ♪

♪ I've got 20/20 vision and walking round blind ♪

- Lot difference in us than Gene Autry, wasn't it?

- [] Through the magic of new technology, all kinds of music could be listened to at home. It was possible to hear operatic arias, western swing bands, even Hawaiian songs.

♪ Oh baby ♪

♪ Dream a while, scheme a while ♪

- [] My dad had one of the first phonographs in that part of the country for the collection of records, and where he let me sit down in the corner next to the old wood stove and play those scratchy records, you know. ♪ Diamond bracelets Woolworths doesn't sell, baby ♪

- One I remember clearly, all I could hear, I don't think he knew more than a few lines of it. And my mother didn't particularly like the song for some reason, but it was the old Vernon Dalhart.

♪ Oh, I wish I had someone to love me ♪

♪ Someone to call me their own ♪

- [Announcer] Good morning friends and howdy neighbors. Starting the program off with a little Ted Daffan Diddy here this morning, called Over the Hill.

- [] The radio filled the airways with music from far and wide, flowing into the most remote mountain communities.

♪ If I call three times a day, baby ♪

♪ Come and drive my blues away ♪

♪ My kind of love ♪

♪ Your kind of love keeps me believing ♪

♪ Although you're deceiving ♪

- [] The distant voices and far away sounds of the radio broke the boundaries of isolation, but more than music was transmitted.

- [Roosevelt] This great nation will endure, will revive, and will prosper. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

- By the late 1920s, depressed conditions forced thousands to leave the family farm. Those that remain faced the hardship of sharecropping on over cultivated land. My dad was a tenant farmer so to speak. About 1929, he was doing quite well, had a quite new Model T truck hauling on the highway. He was doing very well. And I also remember just as vividly the following year, he couldn't afford to buy tags for it. And we had to move back to my mother's old home place, which was quite an old house, possibly 100 years old. But it was home and we loved it. And that old truck sat behind the barn and rusted down. I drove a million miles in it sitting behind that barn, you know.

- 1929 when you couldn't get a job, and if you got a job, five or $6 a week. When I was a boy growing up, you'd get a farmer for 50 cents a day. And now in '89 the best you can do is about $5 a hour. That's right, you've heard your mother and daddy talk about them days, I know, in '29 and '30. I'd say plenty of people in town starved to death.

- [Man In Red] They was.

- Now, that's right.

- We had to have our own cows and-

- [Man In Blue] Had to have our own wood.

- Milk and butter, chicken and egg, and honey, bees.

- [Man In Blue] My daddy's a mechanic at a Ford dealership.

- My daddy had a big , do anything with bees.

- [Man In Blue] And they cut the mechanics down to $9 a week, six days a week, a dollar and a half, $2.

- We had plenty of food on the table.

- You could hire a man out and farm like this for 50 cents if you had the money to pay 'em. If you didn't have money to pay 'em, he'd take your corn, meat, or potatoes, or anything. If you didn't work back then, you didn't eat. And us people in the country just did survive, and that's all.

♪ Road is gone, there's just one way to leave here ♪

♪ Turn my back on what I've left below ♪

♪ Shifting lands and broken farms around me ♪

♪ Muddy water's changing all I know. ♪

♪ Hard to say just what I'm losing ♪

♪ Ain't never felt so all alone ♪

♪ Mary take the baby, river's rising ♪

♪ Muddy water's taking back my home ♪

♪ Well muddy water's taking back my home ♪

- [Bill] Well a sad lonesome feeling are the blues when you're living out in the country like this old home place right here. If you're around by yourself, that feeling can come right in there and stay right there with you. It'll make you sad, the blues will.

♪ When I hear the whistle blowing ♪

♪ I wanna pack my clothes and go ♪

♪ The lonesome sound of a train going by ♪

♪ Makes me want to stop and cry ♪

♪ I recall the day it took you away ♪

♪ I'm blue, I'm lonesome too ♪

- [] There was an old saying in Kentucky, the three Rs. Reading, writing, and Route 25 North. Young men headed North looking for work in the factories of Detroit, Chicago, and Cincinnati.

♪ I left my old home ♪

♪ To ramble this country ♪

♪ My mother and dad said son don't go wrong ♪

♪ Remember that God will always watch o'er you ♪

♪ And we will be waiting for you here at home ♪

♪ Son don't go astray ♪

♪ Was what they both told me ♪

♪ Remember that love ♪

♪ For God can be found ♪

♪ But now they're both gone ♪

♪ This letter just told me ♪

♪ For years they've been dead ♪

♪ The fields have turned brown ♪

- Well when I left Kentucky, you know, it was kind of sad there, you know, after my folks had passed away, my father and mother, but I was raised on the farm, and I liked that kinda work, and I like to live there. So I'd never been in the cities, you see. And I didn't know what it would be like. I was really scared of it. A lot of country people there of course, but a lot of 'em wanted to get off the farm, you know, 'cause that was hard work, and they wanted to come into the city where they'd make so much each week. My brothers, they was already up north, and they was moving down from Detroit down to Indiana, and they all wanted me to come up there. So I decided to go. Soon my childhood days were over. I had to leave my old home, for dad and mother had gone to heaven. I was left in this world all alone.

♪ I am a poor wayfaring stranger ♪

♪ While traveling through this world below ♪

♪ There is no sickness, toil, no danger ♪

♪ In that bright world to which I go ♪

♪ I'm going there to meet my father ♪

♪ I'm going there no more to roam ♪

♪ I'm just going over Jordan ♪ ♪ I am just going over home ♪

- [] There were new opportunities in the city for uprooted country musicians. Product manufacturers sponsored live radio programs directed at rural markets where pitchmen delivered commercials between live musical acts.

♪ How many biscuits did you eat this morning ♪

♪ How many biscuits can you eat this evening ♪

- [Announcer] Brought to you by PETs Evaporated Milk, new Pet instant non-fat, dry milk, and Pet Ritz frozen pies.

- [] Radio barn dances gave paying jobs to young musicians who worked in factories and played part-time in string bands.

- [Announcer] Yes siree, friends, we're going to have to get some couples on the floor now, and it's time for everybody to have a lot of fun. So get your partner and let's go to town.

♪ Everybody on the floor, swing her around and couple soar ♪

♪ Take your corner lady's hand, ♪

♪ Swing around, she's looking grand ♪

♪ Turn her loose and swing your own ♪

♪ Round and round and stay at home ♪

♪ First couple off and pick up Sue ♪

♪ And learn to do that shoo-fly-shoo ♪

- It was beyond my wildest dream to be in this business professionally. I thought I owed my folks more to try to do something businesslike than to mess around the music business, which really wasn't the most reputable thing to do at that time. Most musicians were regarded as fellows trying to get outta work, you know. When you're gonna get you a job, boy?

♪ Fiddle's playing, so keep in time ♪

- We got on some stations up there in the northern part of Indiana, the Monroe Brothers, you know, Charlie and me, and worked hard at it as a duet as, you see. Our first station we went on was WWAE in Hammond, Indiana in 1930. I was the first Monroe that went on a radio station. And then we went to Gary, Indiana on WJKS. And that stands for Where Joy Kills Sorrow, WJKS.

♪ Whoa, Lord, you know ♪

- [Bill] We went from there on to Omaha, Nebraska, from there to Columbia, South Carolina, from there to Charlotte, North Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina. So we've done all right.

- [Announcer] How do you do everybody? From Nashville, Tennessee, the heart of the south land, your Grand Ole Opry!

- [] In 1925, WSM in Nashville began to broadcast a Saturday night barn dance. The program featured a live stage show with burlesque comedy, flamboyant costume, and hillbilly string bands like The Possum Hunters, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, and Uncle Dave Macon, The Dixie Dewdrop

♪ Well the train pulled on to the very next stop ♪

♪ I looked around, about 17 cops ♪

♪ Across the hill, you oughta seen me run ♪

♪ Banga banga banga with my Gatling gun ♪

- [] Because of its down home atmosphere and satire of formal music, the program took on the name Grand Old Opry and became the most popular barn dance in the nation. A chance to play on the Opry was the dream of every aspiring country musician.

- [Announcer] It's time to bank the fire and blow out the light. But we'll be back next Saturday at the same time with more of your favorite home-spun fun and music. Thanks so much for listening and be good everybody.

- I'd heard about the Grand Ole Opry all my life, you know, and I wanted to give it a try, see if I could get on there. So I went in there one Monday, you know, Harry Stone, David Stone, and The Solemn Old Judge said they would listen to me. So I've done about a couple of three songs, and they said, "You start this coming Saturday night, and if you ever leave here, you'll have to fire yourself." So I've been there, it'll be 50 years the last Saturday in October

- [Announcer] For this evening on the Grand Ole Opry, Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. Let 'er go boys!

♪ Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining ♪

♪ Shine on the one that's gone and proved untrue ♪

♪ Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining ♪

♪ Shine on the one that's gone and left me blue ♪

- I always liked Blue Moon of Kentucky about the best. He had it on awful good, Bill Monroe has. He's always been my favorite. We used to set up to the radio with , Saturday night listening, and Saturday night after Saturday night. He was a good entertainer, and everybody all around the neighborhood, they just few old battery radios, and we'd gang up the room for, you know, time while we'd make candy, and we'd have a little party, you know, little supper stuff like that. Entertainment.

♪ From on high ♪

- [] Monroe called his band The Bluegrass Boys in honor of his native state of Kentucky. They were just a string band playing traditional instruments, but their high lonesome sound was unlike anything heard before.

♪ Shine on the one that's gone and said good-bye ♪

- [] Monroe insisted that his boys wear suits and ties and adopt a solemn performance style that defied the hayseed stereotype type.

- [Bill] I was proud of 'em the way that they was playing and singing, these all fine fellows. And they were young when they started with me, and they had a lot to learn, you see. And being with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys give 'em a chance to get in there and play.

- When Bill Monroe hired me, that was a big deal then. That was what I'd been waiting to hear all these years. So I was on the fiddle, and I usually played all of my stuff with easy chords, but he'd throw me in to be natural and be flat. And he figured I was a little rookie country boy, scared to death, so he really stayed by me. And we had Lester Flatt on guitar, the late Lester Flatt. And Lester was a good singer. He and Bill together made one of the finest duets that ever was.

♪ It's mighty dark for me to travel ♪

♪ For my sweetheart, she is gone ♪

♪ The road is rough ♪

- [Jim] This particular year that I was with him, the late Stringbeans was picking banjo for us.

- Hang on, children!

♪ Well rabbit jumped up, he looked mighty wild ♪

♪ Dog took after him running for a mile ♪

♪ Run, little rabbit ♪

♪ Run, run, run, little rabbit, run ♪

♪ Run, little rabbit, run ♪

- [] Stringbean played the old time banjo styles known as two finger or claw hammer where the finger strummed down on the strings.

♪ Rabbit looked up, she looked mighty brown ♪

♪ Said yes by Ned I can out run a hound ♪

- Bill come to me one night and he said, "Stringbean has turned his notice in. We are going to have to find us a banjo picker." I said, "I know where one of the best in the country is, but he don't pick anything like string." He said, "Who is he?" I said, "Earl Scruggs." So we auditioned Earl in my room, just a mandolin, and banjo, and fiddling. Boy did he ever pick that thing. Goodness gracious.

- [] Earl Scruggs grew up in North Carolina where a different style of picking was made popular by minstrel performers. Scruggs added finger picks and plucked with a three finger roll. He showered the music with syncopated notes, pioneering a sound that became the hallmark of bluegrass.

- Listening to Earl Scruggs, and Lester Flatt, and Bill Monroe. I didn't even have a car. I went to go downtown on Saturday night, and guy'd have his car sitting there. I said, "In about five minutes, Bill Monroe, and Lester Flatt, and Earl Scruggs and all them is going to be on." And I said, "You care if I stand here, would you turn it on for me?" And they said, "Yeah. Well what's real special about it?" It was perfect.

- I wanted to pitch the music high, pitch it higher than anybody in the United States ever did. I put the drive in the music with my mandolin? That's where that drive comes from. That would give the fiddle some work to do, and that would be the most wonderful timing for the banjo in the world is the timing I set bluegrass music to.

- [] Monroe combined musical sounds that were sacred and secular, urban and rural, hillbilly, ragtime, sentimental and blues. His music had a driving rhythm that was modernized and streamlined.

- [Jim] We traveled with the tent show out of the Opry during the summer months, and it was just like an auditorium. I believe it had 4,500 people. We had a ball team, uniforms and the works. It was good. We had a good team. We had some pretty good hitters. Bill was a good hitter. We'd get into town in the afternoon, and I'd go find a young man. He'd say, "You got a ball team? Well we wanted to trash you real good." Within a few minutes he would have a gang together, and we would go at it.

- We played a lot of good teams in Texas and Louisiana, and won a lot of games. And each week we'd come in and announce who won, and a little synopsis of what had been going on, and announce where we was gonna be the next week. We'd do a little show at the home plate, maybe an hour or something like that. And then kind of a twilight deal, you know, and then going to the ball game. Drew a lot of good crowds.

♪ I'm traveling down this lonesome road ♪

♪ How I hate to go ♪

♪ The wind and storms are raging high and it's awful cold ♪

♪ My mind drifts back to you sweetheart and I love you so ♪

♪ But now you've gone and left me here ♪

♪ To travel this lonesome road ♪

- I told my mother, one of these days, I was going to see the Grand Ole Opry, and I was going to be working with Bill Monroe and and singing in his quartet.

♪ And that I love- ♪

- [Jimmy] And so I decided I'd come down and see the Grand Ole Opry. I met Bill Monroe, and when he come out, told him I'd listened to him all my life. So he asked me if I'd sing one with him. We sung, and Bill said, "Well if you'll go home and get your clothes, you can just go to work with me." So that's the way I got hired by Bill Monroe.

♪ When the moon shines on the Blue Ridge mountains ♪

♪ And it seems I can hear my sweetheart call ♪

- Hard work, travel many a night through the sleet and snow with a base tied on top. I remember one week we was on the road a little over a week. I think the time I got home on three days vacation. It was 11 days and nights, and I never seen a bed, just the car, and traveling, and singing bluegrass music.

♪ We traveled around from state to state ♪

♪ The Bluegrass boys are never late ♪

♪ Heavy traffic ahead ♪

♪ We got to ramble ramble, there's heavy traffic ahead ♪

- [] The late 1940s were the heyday for the Bluegrass Boys. During these years, Monroe shaped the talents of his musicians into a distinctive bluegrass sound.

- There's been some many bluegrass boys, you know. I think around 65 or 75 fiddle players. And the same thing in the banjos, and the guitar, and the bass. Of course the same mandolin player still with 'em today.

- [] Monroe was the leader but not the star. He called upon The Bluegrass Boys to step up and take solo breaks like a jazz combo. Monroe encouraged each band member to develop their own style within his tight structure.

- [Bill] Bluegrass is like a school of music. Learn it right, learn the timing of it. Don't get it so fast that there's nothing there but just the speeding of the music. Keep your timing right, the rhythm, the feeling of the music, it's got to be there.

- [] Following World War II, the impact of Monroe's music was felt across the South as string bands began to emulate his striking new sound. In 1948, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Monroe to form their own band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. After Flat and Scruggs' departure, the wave of country musicians, including former Bluegrass Boys, formed bands and carried on Monroe's sound.

♪ Since you behold this day ♪

- If I'm leading a sad song like a, something about some woman has left a poor, old, broken-hearted man. He's out some place drinking him a beer and crying about it. But when I sang that song to 'em, I sang it lonesome, and I'm kind of crying with him as far as my heart spark's concerned 'cause I feel for him, you see, and I've been down that road, I've been down that sad road before myself.

♪ In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia ♪

♪ Lived a girl who is waiting just for me ♪

- [Jimmy] Bluegrass tells a sad, sad story, I'll tell you that. If you don't have no feeling, there's no use of singing it 'cause it's kindly a spirit that you have in your heart, and I will say in your soul.

♪ I miss her sweet smile in the moonlight ♪

♪ And I know she misses me too ♪

♪ In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia ♪

♪ Lives a girl, and I know her love is true. ♪

♪ Meet me by the moonlight- ♪

- [] The Stanley Brothers broadcasting from Bristol, Virginia were inspired by the bluegrass sound and combined it with their mountain style.

- Bill Monroe, he's always been my favorite, and he was Brother Carter's favorite. When we first left home to start playing music professionally, we used to do a lot of his songs until we began to write. And we just mixed it I guess. And of course our sound is all together different from Bill.

♪ Meet me by the moonlight, love, meet me ♪

♪ Meet me by the moonlight alone, alone ♪

- Well the Stanley Brothers was kindly one of my first loves in bluegrass. Back home on the farm about 11 or 11:30 every day, the Stanley brothers would come on Farming Fun Time, WCYB in Bristol, and I'd listen to him as a little boy.

♪ To sing a worried song ♪

- [Jimmy] And the songs that Carter Stanley wrote is just so good that he bound to have lived a real country, hillbilly life, loved his folks from the songs he wrote.

♪ I went down the river and I laid down to sleep ♪

♪ I went down the river, laid me down to sleep ♪

♪ I went down the river, I laid down to sleep ♪

♪ I woke up, had shackles on my feet ♪

♪ It takes a worried man to sing a worried song ♪

♪ I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long ♪

♪ They're not making the skies as blue this year ♪

♪ Wish you were here ♪

♪ As blue as they used to when you were near ♪

♪ Wish you were here ♪ ♪ And the mornings don't- ♪

- [] In the post-war era, Americans moved to suburbia and had the means to indulge in a blossoming consumerism.

♪ Wish you were here. ♪

- [] The record industry became big business as radio stations replaced live broadcast with disc jockeys who promoted hit records. As bluegrass hit the best seller charts, Nashville began to promote the music.

♪ Roll muddy river, roll on, muddy river, roll on ♪

♪ Muddy river, roll on, muddy river ♪

♪ I've got a notion you'll go to the ocean alone ♪

♪ I've got a baby in Tennessee ♪

♪ Who's long been awaitin' for little ole me ♪

- [] Bluegrass records were a hot commodity until a new musical phenomenon came out of Memphis.

♪ Well, since my baby left me ♪

♪ I found a new place to dwell ♪

♪ Well, it's down at the end- ♪

- Well one day you had everything going pretty good, and almost like overnight, as soon as Elvis really got on his feet and got going, well, everybody in the world was Elvis Presley and rock and roll crazy. Elvis Presley took every fan from every kind of music. He took the fans away.

- I mean, I'm sorry he passed away, but I think his doings is foolish to me. That old foolish shaking and rolling, and people are going to him and throwing their babies in the air, and turning cars over, and pulling their clothes off and throwing 'em in his face. That that was foolish to me.

- [] The electrifying sound of rock and roll turned Nashville upside down. The record industry scrambled to keep pace with the craze

- That rock and roll boom had come, and a lot of the old time music people, they had to quit. I guess, you might say they starved out.

- Elvis Presley, well, it was the big thing in the recording industry at that time. His type of music, everybody was so jumping on the bandwagon. We had to keep up with the current hit songs.

♪ He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack ♪

♪ Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track ♪

♪ Oh, the engineers would see him sitting in the shade ♪

♪ Strummin' with the rhythm that the drivers made ♪

♪ People passing by, they would stop and say ♪

♪ "Oh my what that little country boy could play" ♪

♪ Go, go ♪

♪ Go Johnny, go, go ♪

- [] To compete with the blaring sounds of rock and roll, country musicians electrified their instruments. Acoustic instruments were outmoded, and regional styles were unified into a smooth homogenized sound that appealed to a wider audience.

- I don't know who you're with. I don't even know where you've gone, My only hope is that someday you might hear this song,

♪ I ♪

- And you'll know that I wrote it especially for you

♪ Love you still ♪

- And ever, wherever you are.

♪ Still ♪

- [] In recording studios vocals were emphasized. The star performers sang hit songs backed by studio musicians.

♪ I tried to find somebody new ♪

♪ But in my heart, there's only room for you ♪

- [] Before amplification, Western swing, Cajun, honky tonk, and bluegrass were all thriving styles of country music. As musicians plugged into pop music trends, the acoustic sound of bluegrass became obsolete.

♪ Mighty, mighty pleasin' ♪

♪ Pappy's corn squeezin' ♪

♪ Shh, white lightning ♪

- In Nashville, they had the package country shows, all country, and they were electric and loud. That's where the money was. And so we decided that if probably, we would go to these shows, and couldn't be heard. By the time a person's hearing got back to normal, we were off. We got to thinking that we could add amps to these instruments, and we could blow 'em away just like everybody else is doing. Bobby even got to one point to where he was plugging his mandolin into the sound system itself. They hadn't heard this before.

♪ The last thing I hear every night ♪

- [Sonny] About 1967, we started using drums, but the bluegrass people at that particular time, they didn't want drums. They didn't want any part of drums, much less electricity.

♪ You ain't the kind of a woman I wanted ♪

♪ But you're the kind of woman I got ♪

- You see, if I'd have changed, the people wouldn't have liked that at all then. And so I was gonna stay with the kind of music that I wanted and loved to start with, what I wanted to put together. And to keep the Bluegrass pure , that's the way it's got to be. And it will really touch your heart.

♪ See the train coming around the bend ♪

♪ Carrying the one that I love ♪

♪ Her beautiful body is still here on Earth ♪

♪ But her soul has been called above ♪

♪ Body and soul, body and soul ♪

♪ That's how she loved me, with body and soul ♪

- [Bill] I wanted my music to touch other people that was raised up like I was raised up. You wanted to go from my heart over your heart and let both of us hear it.

♪ Tomorrow as the sun sinks low ♪

♪ The shadows will cover her face ♪

♪ Her last sun goes down as she's laid beneath the ground ♪

♪ And my teardrops are falling like rain ♪

♪ Body and soul, body and soul ♪

♪ That's how she loved me, with body and soul ♪

- [] Monroe's resistance to commercializing trends left him outside the mainstream of country music until a new group of young musicians and listeners began to seek out the sound of acoustic music.

♪ Got up this morning ♪

♪ You were on my mind ♪

- [] They gathered on Cambridge Street corners, sang at the Newport Folk Festival, played at Coffee House hootenannies. And by the 1960s bluegrass was swept up in a folk music revival.

- Flipping the dial on the radio one day, I heard this sound. And I said, whatever this is, I like this. And so I started to search, you know, your radio dial to find more of this banjo, mandolin, this harmony singing. And I said, that makes my adrenaline move.

♪ Way down in the blue ridge mountains ♪

♪ Way down where the tall pines grow ♪

♪ Lives my sweetheart of the mountains ♪

♪ She's my little Georgia rose ♪

- The original bluegrass sound was a combination of certain and acoustic instruments, but it's not just the instruments. You can teach someone to be a tremendous musician, but you can't teach 'em soul. They have to have that.

♪ Come and listen to my story ♪

♪ The story that I know is true ♪

♪ A little rose that bloomed in Georgia ♪

♪ With hair of gold and a heart so true ♪

♪ Way down in the blue ridge mountains ♪

♪ Way down where the tall pines grow ♪

♪ Lives my sweetheart of the mountains ♪

♪ She's my little Georgia rose ♪

♪ We often sing those songs together ♪

♪ I watched her do her little part ♪

♪ She smiled at me when I would tell her ♪

♪ That she was my sweetheart ♪

♪ Way down in the blue ridge mountains ♪

♪ Way down where the tall pines grow ♪

♪ Lives my sweetheart of the mountains ♪

♪ She's my little Georgia rose ♪

- In the late 60s, early 70s, I played an awful lot of the colleges, which got us into a entirely different age group. And I was very, very surprised, and pleasantly so, that these people did their homework. They were interested in ground roots, grassroots things, where it came from. That was the most prevalent question is not only what is it, but where did it come from? What's it all about?

- [Announcer] The influence of country music on the West Coast is felt even in the hippie community of San Francisco. The flower children are drawn by the traditional bluegrass music of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. The purity of their non-amplified string music is not diluted by any circumstance, not even by a psychedelic light show at the Avalon Ballroom. Several years back, Earl Scruggs told a writer, "We're not about to forget that the core of our fans are people who get up in the morning and bake a lot of biscuits." And that holds today, although maybe not in San Francisco.

- [] The folk revival created a wider commercial market for bluegrass. The music became part of popular culture through hit movies like Deliverance, Bonnie and Clyde, and on television shows where the hayseed image was exploited.

♪ Listen to my story about a man named Jed ♪

♪ Poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed ♪

- [] Flatt and Scruggs' career skyrocketed when the theme for the Beverly Hillbillies hit number one on the country charts.

♪ Bubblin' crude ♪

♪ Oil that is ♪

- Texas tea.

- [] While they sang of hillbillies hitting it rich, other musicians sang about more serious concerns.

♪ While over there in Vietnam, we fought another war ♪

♪ Well I know and they know just what they're fighting for ♪

♪ In that war ♪

♪ That crazy Vietnam war ♪

♪ Well, I was a country boy, I lived down on the farm ♪

♪ I'd never even killed a gnat nor done a body harm ♪

♪ Til that war, that crazy war ♪

♪ When the sheriff caught me one day ♪

- [] At a time when many Americans were concerned with the nation's political and moral direction, the counterculture sought music closer to the country's folk groups.

- [John] In the 60s, everybody in the world was tired of all the synthetic ridiculous things that was being forced onto 'em, and they all wanted to get back to the earth, back to the basics. And bluegrass music really helped take 'em there.

♪ Wish that I was on old Rocky Top ♪

♪ Down in the Tennessee hills ♪

♪ Ain't no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top ♪

♪ Ain't no telephone bills ♪

♪ Once I had a girl on Rocky Top ♪

♪ Half bear the other half cat ♪

♪ Wild as a mink but sweet as soda pop ♪

♪ I still dream about that ♪

♪ I've had years of cramped up city life ♪

♪ Trapped like a duck in a pen ♪

♪ All I know is it's a pity life ♪

♪ Can't be simple one again ♪

♪ Rocky Top you'll always be ♪

♪ Home sweet home to me ♪

♪ Good old Rocky Top ♪

♪ Rocky Top Tennessee ♪

♪ Hey, going to Penny ♪

♪ Hey-Oh, going to penny ♪

♪ Hey, going to Penny ♪

♪ Hey-Oh going to penny ♪

- [] Bluegrass festivals began in the 1960s, bringing together for the first time large groups of performers and audiences. Festivals became a setting for the masters of the music to teach young musicians who were experimenting with new material and new styles.

- We liked folk music. We just liked every kind of acoustic music we'd find. And so through reading about Sing Out! magazine, we discovered they were gonna have this bluegrass festival in Roanoke, Virginia.

♪ Hey, going to Penny ♪ ♪ Hey-Oh, goin- ♪

- [Sam] When we pulled up at the festival, we realized that it's nine a.m., and there's tons of jamming going on. Boy, that's all we could do is just to get the car parked, and get 'em out, and find somebody to pick with. What I love the most about those festivals, I met a whole bunch of people that were like me.

♪ I took my troubles down to Madame Ruth ♪

♪ You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth ♪

♪ Oh, she's got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine ♪

♪ Selling little bottles of love potion number nine ♪

♪ Well, she bent down, and turned around, and gave me a wink ♪

♪ She said, "I'm gonna mix it up right here in the sink" ♪

♪ It smelled like turpentine and looked like Indian ink ♪

♪ I held my nose ♪

♪ I closed my eyes ♪

♪ I took a drink ♪

- [] Early festivals drew diverse fans from across the country and musicians from around the world.

- [Announcer] The Bluegrass 45 from Kobe, Japan.

- Thank you very much. We really enjoyed playing here at Camp Spring. Now we'd like to do a song that was done by someone. You know, they called it Marking Banjo or some other one called it Marking Mandolin.

- [Sam] At that time, the bluegrass musicians had to search each other out. So getting to see all these professional acts on one show was just overwhelming.

♪ You may not like my appearance ♪

♪ And you may not like my song ♪

♪ Said you may not like the way I talk ♪

♪ But you like the way I'm gone ♪

♪ I'm a free born man ♪

- [Sam] When Ralph Stanley sang Man Of Constant Sorrow, the whole place fell apart.

♪ Man of constant sorrow ♪

♪ I've seen trouble all my day ♪

♪ I bid farewell to old Kentucky ♪

♪ The state where I was born and raised ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

- [Sam] The Osborn Brothers were the rage of the festival.

♪ Ruby ♪

♪ Honey, are you mad at your man ♪

♪ If you don't believe I'm wrong ♪

♪ Just follow me tonight ♪

♪ I'll take you to your shady so cold ♪

♪ Oh Ruby ♪

♪ Ruby ♪

♪ Honey, are you mad ♪

♪ at ♪

♪ Your ♪

♪ Man ♪

- When the Bluegrass Festival started, I just wanted to learn everybody's style. I'm just a second generation guy that had the good fortune to be influenced by all these people. But Bill Monroe was the one that turned me on the most because he was the king of the bluegrass mandolin, the guy that started the whole style.

- It speaks to a lot of people, the bluegrass music does. They can hear in the music, the feeling and everything. They can, it's right there. And so that means a lot to the people all over the world, and I'm proud of it.

- [] The musical tradition that began by the Hearth of the Mills childhood home is passed on today at Bluegrass Festivals around the world. There are festivals in Australia, Czechoslovakia, Holland, England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, and many more. As Monroe learned from his Uncle Pen, new generations learned from the creators of the music and carry on the legacy of bluegrass.

- It is wonderful to be at the same festival as Bill Monroe, just to see the man who created this music that we're all enjoying so much. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be playing this music. Bluegrass for me is such a natural type of music. No faders or any kind of effects pedals on anything. It's acoustic and that's what really gets me into it.

♪ There's a wind outside blowing loud and strong ♪

♪ Hear the mighty engines moan ♪

♪ I'll be far from here when the sun comes up ♪

♪ And a love that's grown so cold ♪

♪ So don't follow me, don't follow me ♪

♪ I'm bound to a place I can't recall ♪

♪ I feel the big jet rise through midnight skies ♪

♪ I'll search for the answers alone ♪

♪ And wait for the time to go home ♪

- [Alison] It can be difficult to be a woman playing. A lot of people, that's not bluegrass, girl. Women can't play bluegrass. Hey girl, you play like a man. And then you've got people who think, oh, that's great that you're expanding on it.

♪ Well the wheels touch down as I awake ♪

♪ From a dream I left with you ♪

♪ I hope a better day will find us soon ♪

♪ The love we thought to be true ♪

♪ So don't follow me, don't follow me ♪

♪ I'm bound to a place I can't recall ♪

♪ I feel the big jets rise- ♪

- When I started singing, I was a big fan of a lot of male singers. Bill Monroe for one. Ralph Stanley I'm a big fan of. I listened to them sing, and that's the only way that they could sing. They don't put anything slick in there. All you're hearing is the sound of their voice. When you hear them sing, it's like they talk, and they have great words and great melodies.

♪ She lives all alone on a dark windy street ♪

♪ In a room at the top of the stairs ♪

- [Bill] Room at the Top of the Stairs, it's about this girl. She's done some things wrong in life. She thinks maybe her boyfriend shouldn't take it too well. But he tries to let her know that he wishes he'd have been there when she was a girl, and he's sure that things would've went different.

♪ She talks about the past the sorrow and regret ♪

♪ She cries about the gray in her hair ♪

♪ I love her so much but she just won't believe ♪

♪ That any man alive could ever care ♪

- What makes a difference between a great singer and one that's just kind of singing is that you can feel the song they're singing, and it's just so soulful.

- Here he is the Voice with the heart. Mr. Mac Wiseman.

- You folks help me on the cords and sing along and clap your hands. Will you do that? Keep on the Sunny Side life

♪ There's a dark and a troubled side of life ♪

♪ There's a bright and a sunny side too ♪

♪ Though we meet with the darkness and strife ♪

♪ The sunny side we also may view ♪

- Here we go, friend.

♪ Oh, keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side ♪

♪ Keep on the sunny side of life ♪

- Y'all doing good.

♪ It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way ♪

♪ If we keep on the sunny side of life ♪

- I'm exposed to so many new bands going in as a solo and them backing me. I think we've got a good farm team coming on. Whether there be any more Bill Monroes, or Mack Wisemans, or Lester Flatts, or people like that, I really don't know. But these kids hear things that I didn't realize was ever there.

- [John] We do types of music that have a little wider appeal than a straight traditional band. We've taken rock and roll tunes and made 'em into a bluegrass tune.

♪ I know you, rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone ♪

♪ Gonna miss your baby, from rolling in your arms ♪

- [John] The way we play resembles jazz because for the most part it's free form.

♪ Gonna miss your baby, from rolling in your arms ♪

- Bluegrass has to grow to stay alive just like any music. It has to grow, you know? So new things have to come into it all the time. And it's based on the traditions that have been set, but it also grows with every person who brings something new into it.

♪ I told her I was fishing for an excuse ♪

♪ She know difference, so it ain't no use ♪

♪ Lordy, Lordy, Lordy got them dog house blues ♪

♪ Woo ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Well I went in the house, started a fight ♪

♪ She kicked me out in the middle of the night ♪

♪ Lordy, Lordy, Lordy got them dog house blues ♪

♪ Ain't no use talking, got the dog house blues ♪

- [John] By taking the elements bluegrass was created from and adding to 'em. It can still be bluegrass, and it can be fresh and exciting.

♪ I was out in the yard, mad as I can be ♪

♪ Said, little brother, make room for me ♪

♪ Lordy, Lordy, Lordy got them dog house blues ♪

♪ Oh! ♪

♪ Whoo! ♪

♪ Ain't no use talkin', got the doghouse blues ♪

♪ Ain't no use talkin' ♪ ♪ I got the doghouse blues ♪

- [Bill] High in the heels of old Kentucky, there's a soft spot in my memory. I'm on my way back to the old home, the light in the window I long to see.

♪ And there's an old house that once was a mansion ♪

♪ On a hill overlooking the town ♪

♪ But time left a wreckage where once there were beauty ♪

♪ And soon the old house will tumble down ♪

♪ But when the leaves start to fall in autumn ♪

♪ The rain starts to drip from the trees ♪

♪ There's an old old man who walks in the garden ♪

♪ And his head is bowed in memories ♪

- The father of bluegrass music, Mr. Bill Monroe!

♪ Back in the days of my childhood ♪

♪ In the evening when everything was still ♪

♪ I used to sit and listen to the fox hounds ♪

♪ With my dad in the old Kentucky hills ♪

♪ I'm on my way back to the old home ♪

♪ That road winds on up the hill ♪

♪ But there's no light in the window ♪

♪ That shined long ago where I lived ♪

♪ Soon my childhood days were over ♪

♪ I had to leave my old home ♪

♪ For my dad and mother were called to heaven ♪

♪ I was left in this world all alone ♪

♪ I'm on my way back to the old home ♪

♪ That road winds on up the hill ♪

♪ But there's no light in the window ♪

♪ That shined long ago where I lived ♪

♪ High in the hills of old Kentucky ♪

♪ Stands the fondest part of my memory ♪

♪ I'm on my way back to the old home ♪

♪ That light in the window I long to see ♪

♪ I'm on my way back to the old home ♪

♪ That road winds on up the hill ♪

♪ But there's no light in the window ♪

♪ That shined long ago where I lived ♪

♪ I'm on my way back to the old home ♪

♪ That road winds on up the hill ♪

♪ But there's no light in the window ♪

♪ That shined long ago where I lived ♪

High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Transcript

High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Transcript

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