- 5 weeks ago
February 13, 1973: A KCET-TV program is scheduled to feature Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys. The hour long program is scheduled to feature a live half-hour of Monroe, with an opening live "tribute" set by younger musicians. The group assembled is the basis of the "Muleskinner" group, but they do not use the name Muleskinner. Monroe's bus breaks down in Stockton, and the openers play the entire hour instead.
The band for this show was
Peter Rowan-guitar, vocals
Clarence White-lead guitar
David Grisman-mandolin, vocals
Richard Greene-violin, vocals
Bill Keith-banjo
Stuart Schulman-bass
While most of the songs were bluegrass standards, Rowan's "Land Of The Navajo" was a recent song that would only become well known through the Old And In The Way record. Fortunately, video and audio of the entire show remains (and has been released). Intriguingly, Grisman is introduced as "David Diadem," for whatever significance that may hold.
Its important to recognize that the musicians went to great lengths to perform this show. Clarence White was a member of The Byrds at this time, and according to Christopher Hjort's definitive chronology (So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star, Jawbone 2008), The Byrds were at Cornell University on February 10 and Rockland Community College in Suffern, NY on February 16, so White had to log some serious air miles to make the broadcast. Grisman and Rowan lived in Northern California, as probably did Greene, and they would have had to drive down. Keith usually lived on the East Coast, so he most likely had to make a special effort as well. Its a sign of how much respect they had for Bill Monroe and each other that they made that effort.
The band for this show was
Peter Rowan-guitar, vocals
Clarence White-lead guitar
David Grisman-mandolin, vocals
Richard Greene-violin, vocals
Bill Keith-banjo
Stuart Schulman-bass
While most of the songs were bluegrass standards, Rowan's "Land Of The Navajo" was a recent song that would only become well known through the Old And In The Way record. Fortunately, video and audio of the entire show remains (and has been released). Intriguingly, Grisman is introduced as "David Diadem," for whatever significance that may hold.
Its important to recognize that the musicians went to great lengths to perform this show. Clarence White was a member of The Byrds at this time, and according to Christopher Hjort's definitive chronology (So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star, Jawbone 2008), The Byrds were at Cornell University on February 10 and Rockland Community College in Suffern, NY on February 16, so White had to log some serious air miles to make the broadcast. Grisman and Rowan lived in Northern California, as probably did Greene, and they would have had to drive down. Keith usually lived on the East Coast, so he most likely had to make a special effort as well. Its a sign of how much respect they had for Bill Monroe and each other that they made that effort.
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LearningTranscript
00:00the actual
00:02Mules Ginner Blues that we do.
00:04Yeah.
00:05That's a lick that I got from the opening lick.
00:08Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
00:11-da-da-da-da-da.
00:12Yeah.
00:12I got that from Charlie Waller.
00:37And then, at some point, the Mules Ginner thing happened.
00:43Who got the record deal with Warner Bros.
00:46Okay, so, okay, originally Mules Ginner didn't have a name, and we played a, Richard Green
00:53put it together, with the help of a man named Joe Boyd, who I think he had been doing the
00:59incredible string band, he moved to England, I think he did Fairport Convention, he was
01:05in, and he's just written a book about world music, and it's like 1,500 pages, it's a book
01:12out there.
01:14But Joe Boyd and Richard had become friends in L.A., and, you know, that's how it was, people
01:23were hanging out and being in different places at different times, and there would be the
01:28local scene, and so, Richard being in L.A. was on the local scene, and got friends with
01:35Joe, and they, I think Joe probably, in talking to Richard, said, man, no, you ought to put
01:43together this thing.
01:45Well, there was no record deal, but there was a TV show, and it was Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass
01:52Boys with the sons, we were the sons of Bluegrass, me, Clarence, Bill Keith, David Grisman, Richard
02:02Green, Steve, Shulman, Steve, no, Stuart, Stuart Shulman, who was playing with Jonathan Edwards
02:12at the time, and he was, I think, a New England guy.
02:18You know, we're at the radio station, or TV station, actually, and we're rehearsing, and
02:26we're waiting for Bill Monroe to show up, and he's driving down from Stockton, which is not
02:30that far, and there's a call comes in, and the people in the studio say, Pete, Rowan,
02:40and I go, yeah, and they go, there's a phone call for you, and I go to the phone, and
02:44it's
02:44a pay phone, so I don't know how that they, you know, it was in the studio, just pay phone,
02:50and I go, hello, and then, Pete, this is Bill.
02:54I said, all right, man, we're looking forward to getting together with you tonight.
02:59And he said, well, I don't believe we're going to make it.
03:02I said, what?
03:06The bus has broken down, you know, and I said, well, can't they fix it?
03:16He said, I don't know, Pete, and I said, well, why don't you just, you know, rent a car and
03:22come on down, just, well, I, you know, I can't leave the bus here, and
03:29it was like, it was going to be no, but I didn't, I didn't take, I wouldn't, I wouldn't
03:35take no for an answer, so, and he wouldn't say no, that was the weird thing, it was one
03:41of those things, you know, and so the way we left it was, I said, well, look, I'll call
03:46you back in an hour and see how it's going, right, and maybe by then it's all fixed, and
03:51he goes, well, all right then, and he gave me the number, and it was another pay phone
03:58in the garage, so when I called back after we'd been rehearsing at the studio, and we
04:04just started dolding in the way at the time, David and I would, we didn't know, like, would
04:08this be kind, would this be it, Muleskin, you know, what became Muleskin, would this
04:13be the band we were going to be doing, or was this thing with Jerry that was that every
04:17evening, we'd just go up to the house and pick, was that, we didn't know, we'd had
04:22no idea what, what it would be, and so in an hour, I'd call back, and it was this classic,
04:30you know, hello, oh, I'm trying to reach Mr. Monroe, who, Bill Monroe, he's there with
04:38his bus, broke down, and you hear the sound of tire irons in the distance, clang, you know,
04:45all the sounds of a garage, clanging, and I said, well, Mr. Monroe is there with his
04:53bus, they're from Nashville, and how long, you know, and you hear the guy go, and you
05:00hear him going, well, Bill Monroe, I don't know, you know, clang, irons, you know, sounds
05:06of tires bouncing, you know, it's a garage, you know, a big garage, because it's a bus
05:11terminal, you know, repair, and, and after about 10 minutes of this, this background
05:20symphony of tire irons and machines, you know, you know, the, the machine that puts
05:29the lugs on a big tire, you know, all these sounds, and finally, hello, hi, Bill, it's
05:39Pete, well, hello, hello, Pete, I said, well, do you think the bus is going to be ready, he
05:45said, I, Bill could not say no, but he, I, I, I don't believe it, it will be ready, Pete,
05:53you know, so, and yet, in the end, he wasn't going to make it, you know, howdy, folks, howdy,
06:12thank you for the nice hand, we appreciate that a lot, and before we go any further, I
06:16would like to introduce the Bluegrass Boys, and what state they're from, with the guitar
06:21on the left-hand side, from the state of Tennessee, is Joe Steer, give him a hand, here, everybody,
06:31and the next federal line, he's from the state of Alabama, his name is Monroe Fields, make
06:36him welcome, and with the five-string banjo on the right-hand side, from the state of Kentucky,
06:45Jack Hicks, give Jack a hand, and with the little fiddle from the state of Kentucky, the
06:55greatest fiddle in Bluegrass music, Kenny Becker, make him welcome, and with Steve, you know,
07:11Steve Shulman, Stuart, so Stuart went back to playing with Jonathan Edwards, who had some
07:20hits at the time, and, and me and David went back up to Marin County, and started hanging
07:29out with Jerry again in the evenings, and, oh, well, that, of course, that was after we did
07:35the show by ourselves, yeah, forgot that part, yeah, yeah, so we, we did the show, and I'd
07:41had to do that before, when Bill was sick, when we played Berkeley, I had to front the
07:45show, so it was like, yeah, it was like, we weren't strangers to putting on a show, but
07:51this was kind of on another level, it was up, no, well, I had been in C-Train, you know,
07:57and we did TV, and we toured Europe, and we're on European television, and so we, we've got,
08:03I've gotten used to some of the, some of the, well, you have to just say the, the, a successful
08:13touring, yet not so successful that it's a given, right, you still got to do promo and
08:20talk on the radio, and this, or do a podcast, ladies and gentlemen, so, so there's, you know,
08:31the, the film, it was filmed, I have vinyl, I have some vinyl, the worst, ugliest album
08:39cover ever invented by the horse face, oh, yeah, it's brown, the cover is this terrible
08:46brown with a picture of a donkey, donkey, yeah, and blue mule, it was, I mean, I threw
08:55that in as, as a, as a title, blue mule, I thought would be good, but here's a couple
09:01of the other titles, Joe Boyd, he, he suggested, uh, soft pour corn, you know, hillbilly joke,
09:13right, you know, moonshine, yuck, yuck, mountain dew, and, uh, so I guess what happened, Richard
09:22being in LA, it's just kind of a, they knew somebody at Warner Brothers, and, uh, you know,
09:27it's all, you know, he was well connected in the studios, Richard, Richard, he was a studio
09:33guy, he knew everybody, yeah, and, uh, he was working on something called The Zone, uh,
09:41and, but he came up and played with Old Man in the way, okay, yeah, yeah, so you, you were
09:48sharing with me, uh, like, you, you all went to Clarence's house, and, and you kind of met
09:54with, okay, so, so there's a little bit of a, you know, maybe a month or two later, there's
10:01a possible record deal, and then there's a real record deal, and we're all into it, and
10:07it's all the original band, except for Stu Shulman, and the first bass player we got was
10:14Canned Heat's bass player, oh, really, yeah, and somebody took exception to the electric
10:23bass, so what we did was we had John Kahn of Old Man in the way, which was still just
10:30forming, John came down and played on the record, did, I think there's one track maybe
10:38with the original guy, he's a super nice guy, um, and, but, you know, this was the world
10:45of music, so, uh, Warner Brothers, you know, they agreed to record the record, and I came
10:53down and we had it all set up to meet with Clarence over at his house, and, um, my impression
11:00of Clarence at that time up close was, I mean, he had done the gig in the studio, at the
11:06TV
11:07station, just like, boom, you know, but I didn't realize how far away from acoustic music he
11:14had seemed to have gotten, um, in that, uh, that rock and roll life, playing electric guitar,
11:24I mean, first of all, it's very loud, and can probably destroy your hearing, you know, quicker
11:30than anything, and, uh, he seemed fragile, and he and his wife sat very close together, like,
11:41she was protecting him, and here was another project, that's the way I felt it was, like,
11:46we weren't, like, oh boy, you know, it wasn't, they weren't, like, jumping at the chance to
11:51make another project, it was, like, he just quit the birds, and here's another, what, is
11:57this another career move, is this, it's, like, is this another band that's gonna happen, is
12:03this gonna take my husband away, and Clarence didn't know either, and, um, they were, I appeared
12:09to be very kind, but a little apprehensive about what were we doing in their living room
12:15and stuff, and so there was you and Richard, me and Richard and David, and, um, and maybe
12:22Bill Keith, but I know the three of us were there, um, we thought we were gonna rehearse,
12:27and we didn't, we just took out, he took out an instrument, and showed it to us, and played
12:32a little bit, and we didn't, uh, well, I think we better tried one song, but it was
12:37like, this is, this is somebody's private home, and just got the feeling that the rock
12:43and roll life had really entered into their privacy, and, uh, and here was this, this next
12:49group of insane bluegrass players, uh, but he took out this, this guitar that he was using
12:57at the time, and we traded it off, and played a little bit, and I think we might have gone
13:02over a song, but it wasn't, it was a meeting of more personal, and, and we sort of passed
13:11the test, I think she had to kind of, I, I think she was trying to protect him, you know,
13:17because Clarence, he, he was gone a lot, I think with the birds, he was gone a lot, you
13:22know, and that life had, it's not a good life, it's just, it's a grind, and, um, so we all
13:30left there, you know, going like, well, all right, I guess we're on, you know, I mean, we
13:34were like, almost auditioning as people for Clarence and his wife, you know, they, I don't
13:40think Clarence wanted to get too involved in anything at that point, because he had his
13:45own direction, you know, Nashville, the last solo album coming up around that time.
13:50Is that Ryan?
13:51Yeah.
13:53That.
13:54Did he ever do it?
13:55He didn't finish, there was some finished, Silver Meteor is the name of the album, I, and
14:03it's got, uh, Wright, Wright Cooter is on there, and Don Berline, and.
14:08Oh, okay.
14:10Someone was trying to do the right thing by him.
14:12And I could see that the music business world was in, you know, infiltrating their privacy.
14:25That's how I felt.
14:26And, but it was all fine.
14:28We went in the studio, and he was charming and funny.
14:32Very, very soft-spoken, but very funny.
14:35And, uh, Roland came by, played on a couple of tunes.
14:40It was a good, really good sessions.
14:43Uh, and, and we got to sing together, which was, I sang tenor to Clarence and.
14:49Dark Hollow.
14:50Dark Hollow.
14:51Yeah.
14:51Footprints of the Snow.
14:53Huh?
14:54Footprints of the Snow.
14:55Footprints of the Snow.
14:56Yeah.
14:56I mean, they're such a classic album.
14:59I mean, like, Blue and Lonesome, too.
15:03Oh, yeah.
15:04Richard Green is on fire in that kickoff, you know.
15:08Oh, well, that's Richard playing Scotty.
15:10Yeah.
15:11And, uh, all these were tunes that we would always play at a jam session.
15:17Did you know that, uh, Bill Monroe and Hank Williams wrote Blue and Lonesome?
15:21I didn't know that.
15:22Yeah.
15:22It's Hank and Bill.
15:24It sounds like it, you know.
15:27Yeah.
15:28Yeah.
15:29Um, no, those are, they're great sessions.
15:33And, and it's also having been in like a band like C Train with George Martin producing
15:39and the band and who's in control and who wants it to go this way or that way.
15:44Mule Skinner, it was that delicacy of string band music, you know, it was like,
15:50how about this key?
15:51Yeah.
15:52Oh, that's good.
15:52You know, and we do a take in that key.
15:54And then we just find where every song needed to be comfortably without any pretense.
16:03I think that's what you like about that.
16:05It's not like a rock band trying to play bluegrass.
16:08No.
16:09It's bluegrass players just saying, staying right there with it, but new material and,
16:14uh, new combinations.
16:17Oh, yeah.
16:18Yeah.
16:19I mean, you know, the steel guitar by Bill Keith.
16:22No, Bill Keith on steel guitar.
16:24I mean, just that alone.
16:25Yeah.
16:26And then Clarence on the B Bender.
16:27Yes.
16:28And then Gridsma's Tremolo.
16:30Yeah.
16:30I mean, the actual, uh, Mule Skinner blues that we do.
16:36Yeah.
16:37That, I, that's a lick that I got from the opening lick and the da-da-da-da-da-da
16:41-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
16:43Yeah.
16:44I got that from Charlie Waller.
16:46That's how he kicked it off.
16:47I, and I learned it.
16:49And, uh, and I asked Clarence to play it and he said, no, you play it.
16:53I'm like, I'm so intimidated.
16:56It's like, please play it, Clarence.
16:59He said, okay, teach it to me.
17:00And it was like, oh, I have to teach it to you.
17:02Okay.
17:03That's interesting.
17:04That's classic.
17:08that's charlie wallace yeah that's the best one of the best albums ever i mean i've had it since
17:141975 and i i love it as much now it would be it would benefit from a remastering yeah because
17:25things it was of its time and yeah the reverb and the the scope of you know when you could
17:32do vinyl
17:33you have to sacrifice either the lows or the highs to kind of get you know or then then the
17:41middle's
17:41too hot so you gotta you gotta bring out the highs and you know but it was very hard in
17:47those little
17:47grooves in the vinyl to to get the the really uh the quality of
18:22of
18:24you
18:28you
18:29you
18:34you