by Ricky Skaggs
And then Flatt & Scruggs came to Bristol to play on WCYB, and Carter sure didn’t like that. So Lester and Carter got into a shouting match about Carter singing songs that Lester had sung with Bill. Jealousy was at the root of it all, but that shouting match caused Carter to start writing his own material, and he became one of bluegrass music’s finest songwriters.
With Lester gone and Carter gone, I think Bill realized he was running out of time to make up with the people who were still around. So he starting making calls to say he was sorry, and he did his best to mend those broken fences, with Earl Scruggs, Kenny Baker, and others.
So I got close to Monroe at a special time in his life when he was given the chance to grow as a person. We became real good friends, me and Mr. Bill. I’d go to his place, the farm he had a few miles away in Goodlettsville, and we’d play music the whole afternoon. At night, we’d set out by the fire and turn his dogs loose and let ’em run. We’d listen to the hounds in the woods, and we’d talk about life and music and whatever came to mind. Now, he couldn’t explain much about his music, and I’m the same way. Sometimes I’d go over to his house early in the afternoon before I had to pick up the kids at school. We’d sit there and swap tunes back and forth and maybe fifteen words would pass between us, and when I’d get up to leave, he’d say, “Believe we done good today.” It was his way of talking, all through his music.
He had his own way of expressing things, too. If he was talking about how Kenny Baker was one of his best fiddle players, he might say, “Kenny sure could drive a nail.” Talking about another Blue Grass Boy, he wouldn’t mention the guy’s musical ability at all, he’d just say, “He was a powerful bus driver.”
Mostly, we just spent enough time together that stories started to come out of him. Things from his childhood, memories he treasured, and things he wanted to share. He told me about a time when he was growing up in western Kentucky. After his folks died, he was a teenaged loner living with his uncle Pendleton Vandiver, the fiddler he later immortalized in “Uncle Pen.” Bill said he used to go out in the woods by himself and cut big timber down and saw the limbs off the trunks and roll ’em down the hill and pile ’em up and then load these huge logs on a wagon. All by himself. The only help he had was a team of workhorses pulling the wagon.
“Ricky,” he said. “I’d ride that wagon out of the woods, and when I got close to Rosine, I’d stand up in the driver’s seat, and I’d let everybody see the man that cut them trees and loaded that wagon. Them people would start clapping their hands when they seen me comin’. It was something powerful, man!”
He was as strong as a brute, but he had a soft heart. Sometimes I’d take him out to lunch, and I used to watch him hand out quarters to little kids. It was a kindness in him that went back to his lonesome upbringing. Folks in the restaurant would say, “What you all doin’ today?” I’d say, “Just the student following the teacher around.”
Sharon and I used to invite Mr. Monroe to prayer meetings at our house, and he always brought his mandolin. He wasn’t playing as much then, but he still never left home without his instrument. Once we were praying for each other and all of us husbands and wives paired off. Well, Bill was odd man out, ’cause he didn’t have a spouse, so he asked, “Would you all pray for me?” and we all huddled around him and prayed. He was so appreciative.
I remember one night getting on my knees at his feet, and asking him, “Would you bless me like a father blessing a son; would you pray that I’ll be a caretaker of this old music?” And he said, “Why, yes, I will.” He bowed his head and said these words I’ll never forget: “Lord, would you just give Ricky the love for the old music, like you’ve given me through the years, and help him carry it on? Bless him and his family.” With hands laid on me, he gave me his blessing.
I needed it, too, ’cause those were some real trying times for me. All I could do was focus on my music, but it was hard. I felt like the times had passed me by. There was a real change on country radio, and my records weren’t going to the top anymore. I was waiting for what would come next. I toured, I played my songs, and I dabbled with the old bluegrass music, but I was far from certain about what lay ahead.
With Mr. Monroe ailing, I’d talk about him from the stage and give the audience an update on his health condition. Once he was supposed to headline a show with me at Wolf Trap in northern Virginia, but he got sick and had to cancel. We had him call in from the hospital, and we plugged him into the sound system so he could say hi to everyone. The crowd started singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” and he could hardly believe it.
My band started going out and doing bluegrass shows. We’d go without a drummer or a piano player. The steel player would take over on Dobro. But we were still doing quite a few country shows as well. I was happy getting to switch it up. The promoters didn’t really care what configuration we showed up with. The fans loved getting to hear the old bluegrass songs and seeing me have such a good time.
Doc Watson invited me to MerleFest and asked if I’d bring a bluegrass band. So I did, and the crowd response gave our confidence a big boost. Then we did a tour in New Zealand, where we sort of opened the shows for ourselves as a bluegrass band. After that, we’d do some shows where we’d open as a country band, talk about the music’s roots, and then finish the night with a good dose of bluegrass. We were having a blast as a band, mixing it up. Whenever I played bluegrass, folks in the audience started telling me there was a look of joy on my face they hadn’t seen for a long time.
In the spring of ’96, Bill suffered a stroke. He was losing his strength and his will to go on, that much was clear. I’d go visit with him at the nursing home outside Nashville where he resided then. He’d fret about his horses back at the farm, but after a while I came to see it was the future of bluegrass that had him worried. He’d given his whole life to this music, and now he was worried it was going to die along with him.
I told him that all of us in the bluegrass community, myself included, would work hard to keep his music alive. There were times he seemed so depressed, and I would reassure him that the music was bigger than any one person, even him, and it would never die as long as people kept it going. I told him he just needed to rest and not worry, to trust the one who entrusted the music to him, and that was the Lord.
Before he lost his ability to talk, I wanted to know if Mr. Monroe had really given his heart to Jesus. I was really concerned about him and where he was going to spend eternity. At first, he said he was looking forward to seeing his father and his mother and his brothers and sisters in heaven. Then I asked him if he was looking forward to seeing Jesus, too, and he said, “Oh, yes! He’s the one I sung so many gospel songs about!”
And we talked about the little community church in Rosine, Kentucky, he visited as a boy the night he got saved, and I asked him if he remembered the sermon the preacher preached. He said, “No, but I remember the song they sung.” He was out in the churchyard, as youngsters often were during service, and he heard the hymn “What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul” coming from inside the building. The power of those words drove him into the church house to commit himself to Christ. That was the first record that he and Charlie cut back in the ’30s, the bestselling gospel song that launched the Monroe Brothers’ career and set Bill on his path. It was through music that Mr. Monroe found the Lord and his calling.
Many of the old-time preachers in Kentucky would frame their sermon with a hymn that echoed the verses from Scripture they were preaching on. I’d heard them do it that-a-way many times as a child. It’s very possible that the preacher Bill heard that night was preaching out of Matthew 16:26: “What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
After he told me about that precious moment so long ago but still so fresh in his mind, I knew in my heart that Mr. Monroe was all right. He’d made Jesus his Lord, and I knew I’d see him in heaven. Even with all his health problems, he st
ayed creative right till the end. At the nursing home, he had scraps of paper all over the room with ideas and song titles jotted down. His body was failing him, but his mind was still creating.
It wasn’t too long before he couldn’t talk much anymore, so whenever I visited I’d play music to pass the time and get him to join me. Sometimes he’d want to get up and walk around, but he really wasn’t able to. Then the caretakers would have to restrain him, and it’d break my heart. He’d look at me so sad, and then he’d look at those leather straps on his arms. I’d say, “I’ll take ’em off if you’ll stay in your bed and not try to get up.” He just wanted to stretch his arms and legs.
I’d get my mandolin out and play for a while to try to lift his spirits, maybe a hot instrumental from his glory years, like “Roanoke” or “Raw Hide.” Hearing the mandolin would usually get him feeling better. After a few songs, he’d grab the mandolin from me and play a few chords of a familiar tune, just to let me know he still remembered and still could.
It was his way of telling me he was hanging in there and wasn’t whipped yet. On the outside he might have been a frail old man, but on the inside he was still the same ol’ Bill, and there was still a fire in his soul. He’d survived car wrecks, a broken back, open-heart surgery, even cancer. I really hoped he’d get better and get to go home to his farm, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t gonna happen.
The last time I saw him alive, Bill was alone in his wheelchair. He didn’t have many visitors anymore. He had on his Blue Grass Boys hat, that old white Stetson, but he couldn’t talk and could barely move. He looked so depressed and so lifeless, you could tell he didn’t want to be in the nursing home anymore. When I walked into the room, he looked at me kinda strange and then he looked away.
It just about killed me to see him like that, but I tried to stay cheerful. I got his mandolin from the night table, and I played “Raw Hide,” his signature instrumental tune. He’d written it in the backseat of a limousine before he was forty, when he was strong enough to carry all the Blue Grass Boys on his shoulders. I thought for sure “Raw Hide” would pep him up. I held the mandolin out to him and said, “All right, Bill, I want you to play one for me now.” But he didn’t even reach for it.
I asked the nurse how he’d been feeling. “Not good,” she said. “You know, a while before he stopped talking, he kept saying how he was wanting to be going home.” I said, “He ain’t wanting to go to Goodlettsville, is he?” She shook her head, and she pointed up to heaven. I said, “Well, if he don’t want to play music anymore, he’s ready for the Lord to take him home.”
So I hugged and kissed him and told him I loved him, and I said a prayer. Then I blessed him, same as he’d blessed me at my house, and I said I’d play his music as long as I lived. I promised I’d take bluegrass everywhere I played, and I’d tell the story of how he started it. He didn’t say a word, but I know he heard me.
When I left his room that day, I knew I wouldn’t see him again on this side of heaven. But I thanked the Lord for all He’d done through Mr. Monroe’s life and music. Then I had a good long cry driving home.
That was on a Friday morning, and I had to go on the road that weekend. Bill died on Monday. His memorial service was at the Ryman Auditorium, and it was one of those occasions that only could happen at the Mother Church. There were lots of artists and Opry stars there to pay tribute: Ralph Stanley, Marty Stuart, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, and many others who loved him. Emmylou sang “Wayfaring Stranger,” which Bill had requested, and we joined in for an a cappella rendition of “Angel Band.”
While the preacher spoke his eulogy, we were gathered backstage. I looked at a digital clock on the table, and it glowed “11:11.” Eleventh chapter, eleventh verse. The numbers were illuminated, and it was speaking to my heart like it was a sign. I told Marty it was a Scripture that I had to look up when I got home. The memorial service was almost over, and we’d sung all these mournful songs, and somehow it didn’t seem right to end on such a sad note. So when we went back on stage, Marty made an announcement over the microphone. “We’re gonna send Mr. Monroe home with a fiery tune to celebrate his life. Let’s do ‘Raw Hide,’” and I said, “Yeah, let’s do it!”
First, though, I warned anybody in the crowd who might be offended. “If you have a problem with this, well, just get over it. It won’t last long.” Then we went for broke and played “Raw Hide” fast and furious and flat-out hog wild, and the audience packing the Ryman felt an electric shock. We all did. It was a holy-ghost experience.
They escorted Mr. Monroe’s casket out of the Mother Church of Country Music with a bagpipe ensemble. It was like a king or a chieftain being honored. The highlands pipers played “Amazing Grace,” and I thought of the grace God had shown him all through the years—from the Ryman Auditorium, where on the Grand Ole Opry the world heard bluegrass for the very first time, to Rosine, where Bill played his very first notes on the mandolin.
When I got home, I took out my Bible and looked at some Scriptures. Then my eyes fell on Isaiah 11:11: “And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall reach out his hand again the second time.” The second time. That’s what caught my attention. It was the Lord’s way of saying that Mr. Monroe’s music was the seed and that there was going to be more fruit to come from it in the future than there was in the past.
I felt like it was the Lord saying, I’m going to bless this music again that I birthed through Bill Monroe, but it won’t be for Bill Monroe’s or any man’s glory. It will be for My glory. I felt like I’d been called to help spread the music, and to do my part in that evangelization. Today I look back and see how bluegrass music has exploded in popularity since 1996, the year Mr. Monroe passed away. There are now more people playing it and hearing it and loving it than ever before!
Not too long after Mr. Monroe’s passing, I was with Ralph one night, and he asked me, “Did you get Bill’s mandolin?” It was a good question, ’cause Bill knew how much that mandolin meant to me. It was like King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, to me. Well, there was no doubt it was headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame, not to a person, whether it was me or anybody else. “No,” I told him. “But I got his blessing, and that’s better than the mandolin.” And Ralph said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Rick.” He understood what I was talking about, but I have to tell you, I’d a-sure loved to have that legendary Loar! That was the same mandolin I played in Martha, Kentucky, when I was six years old!
In his last years, my dad was laid back and happy as could be. He was a homebody, and he was very content with family life back on the creek. He puttered around and worked on the house and played his music and hunted a little ginseng. With the exception of his back giving him pain, he was healthy as a horse into his late sixties, when he was diagnosed with a disease called myelofibrosis. It’s a type of leukemia, a blood cancer that affects your bone marrow stem cells. It’s a progressive disorder, and very debilitating. Even after he got sick, though, he did his best to keep to his routine. He’d take shots to boost his white-cell count, and he’d feel good for a while. But the disease gradually wore him down.
Sharon and I would often take the kids and go up to Brushy and spend time with him. He still had his passion for music, only now he’d get to where he was too tired to play. He’d sit there and play his guitar till he dropped his pick. Then he’d sit and listen to us for a while. It lifted his spirits, for sure, but it just wasn’t the same as the old days, when he was the ringleader and the last man standing.
One time I went by myself for a visit. I got alone with him, ’cause there was a question I really needed to ask. I wanted to make sure there weren’t any bad feelings or grudges between us. Maybe there was something I’d said or done that had hurt him. A wound that was festering, that he hadn’t been able to let go of.
He and Mom had gone through a lot of pain watching every one of their children struggle with divorce and broken families. He was supportive, but I kno
w it hurt him deep down. You suffer seeing your kids suffer, and you want to help, but you really can’t do much as a parent. He and Mom were such an example of love and trust and friendship, but that wasn’t enough, ’cause my siblings and I all fell short. It took more than what Mom and Dad had mirrored.
And then there was that time at Frontier Ranch when Dad reached for his guitar from the trunk of the car and I had to put my hand on his arm and tell him that Ralph Stanley just wanted me and Keith to play. I could see the hurt in his heart then, and I felt it, too. It was the first separation that had to come between us. It was hard on us both when I started to pull away into a life of fame. He’d been with me the first time I picked up a mandolin.
These painful memories had been weighing on my mind. I wanted a chance to apologize and ask him to forgive me for anything that I had done to hurt him.
When it was just the two of us in the room, I took a deep breath and asked him, “Dad, is there anything bad or strained between us that we need to get cleared up?” He gave me a funny look and said, “Why, no, son! Everything’s good!” I told him, “I just wanted to make sure there was nothing that could come between us on this side of heaven.” He smiled, paused for a second or two, and said, “There ain’t nothin’ between us. It must have been hard for you to ask me that, son!”
Well, it was kinda hard to press him on such a thing, I guess, but probably not as hard as it must have been for him to forgive and let go after all the pain that we kids had put him and Mom through. Somewhere in his life, he’d dealt with all that hurt, but all was forgiven. Now there was only love. That lifted a heavy burden off my shoulders. It was another gift from my dad, and I was so grateful to have received it.