Bill at the Opry 1946-1965 Bill Monroe Compilation from Grand Ole Opry Performances COMPILER NOTES: To the best of my knowledge, all of these materials are in public domain. Any copyrighted material in this collection is used in "fair use" and in free distribution for the purpose of noncommercial study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Quality here varies from song to song; all are taken from radio transcriptions. There are still pops and clicks evident in the earlier material. For some reason, the highs are simply not there, which makes it difficult for any de-clicking process to operate without losing music. I opted not to de-click by hand because it would have taken months. Each song was restored differently; I was able to get rid of a lot of the hiss, but there is still quite a bit of noise. The post- 1948 material is much cleaner. By the 1960s, the high frequency material is there, and I was able to de-click much of it. Part 1 - 1946-1948 (exact broadcast dates unknown). 1) Molly and Tenbrooks 2) Wicked Path of Sin 3) Remember the Cross On Which Jesus Died 4) Little Community Church 5) Blue Yodel #4 6) Will you Be Loving Another Man? 7) My Dixie Home 8) Just a Little Talk with Jesus 9) Sunny Side of the Mountain 10) Little Maggie 11) Careless Love 12) Shine Hallelujah 13) Mother's Not Dead (She's Only Sleeping) 14) Roll in My Sweet Babyís Arms 15) True Life Blues 16) Why Did You Wander? 17) Little Joe 18) Love Grown Cold Part 2 Broadcast 6/17/1950 and 10/28/1950 ñ 19) John Henry 6/17/50 20) Alabama Waltz 6/17/50 21) Alabama Waltz 10/28/50 22) Brakeman's Blues 10/28/50 Part 3 Broadcasts from approximately 1959 to 1965 (exact dates and order unknown) Discs-> ? ->CD 23) Can't You Hear Me Callin' (cuts incomplete) 24) I Live in the Past (Earnest Tubb intro) 25) Seasons of Love 26) Shady Grove 27) Somebody Touched Me 28) Old, Old House (Leroy Van Dyke intro) 29) True Life Blues (w/Peter Rowan 10/64-3/1/67) 30) Uncle Pen Transfer Notes: Part I taken from radio transcriptions (since thought to be lost), unknown cassette and possibly other media generations. Transferred from my cassette copy at 24-bit, 96 kHz, edited and modified, then down-converted to cd quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) using DC Artís Pro conversion setting with Triangular Noise Dithering. My Cassette -> Wav (24-bit, 96 kHz)-> Wav (CD Quality)-> CD. Part II - Radio Transcription Disc -> Open Reel -> Cassette -> Wav (24-bit, 96 kHz)-> Wav (CD Quality)-> CD. Transferred to CD in the order performed on the program. Part III Exact dates and performance order is unknown; All of these were taken from a 16-CD compilation of clips of Opry Performances. These were all the Monroe performances in the set. Music Notes: Part I All of the banjo should be Earl Scruggs as he was with Monroe during this entire period. Lester Flatt is probably on guitar for most, if not all, of these songs. Birch Monroe, who started out playing fiddle with Bill and Charlie as the Monroe brothers, had given up being a professional musician in 1938, so this is a nice treat to have him sing on Just a Little Talk with Jesus. Sometimes the music sounds a little fast, but I believe it is at the correct speed. The fast sound is mainly Bill's voice, which is almost shrill at times, but the banjo and other instruments sound right to my ears. Molly and Tenbrooks is based on the true story of a horse race. I have read that it took place on July 4,1878 between the Kentucky horse Ten Broeck (Tin Brook, Ten Brooks, etc.) and Miss Mollie McCarthy from California at Churchill Downs. Iíve also read that the race was in Colonial America, and the horse was Ten Brooks versus Queen Molly. Not being a racehorse historian, I donít know which (if either) is true. In any event, the Stanley Brothers recorded the tune in September 1948 after hearing Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys perform it. Monroe's recording was made in October 1947 but not released until September 1949. The performance here should be from before the record was released. The song is nearly legendary in its role in establishing bluegrass as a musical genre. Some of the mandolin breaks and banjo breaks here are just phenomenal. Part II ñ Flatt and Scruggs left the Bluegrass Boys in 1948, primarily because they were tired of traveling all the time; they got together shortly after leaving the Bluegrass Boys. The fiddle player on all the Part II cuts should be Vassar Clements. Vassar began playing with Bill Monroe when he was 14. The two versions of Alabama Waltz are here because the first version (6/17/50) has a mandolin break while the second version (10/28/50)has a fiddle break rather than mandolin. Part III Peter Rowan is on 2 cuts here, which dates those cuts to sometime between 1964 and 1966. Peter Rowan and Vassar Clements were in Old and In the Way together in the early 70s (with Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and John Kahn), and are currently (2003) touring with Grisman as Old and in the Gray.