A book with such a simple and definitive title might seem overreaching. But the book in question is an updated and widely expanded version of Rosenberg’s original discography titled Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys: An Illustrated Discography (1974). The Music of Bill Monroe earns its title. Focusing on Monroe’s sixty-year recording career, from 1936 to 1996, the book is not only a clearly organized and detail-laden reference work, but also an expansive and unpretentious musicological history of the “Father of Bluegrass.” The nine chapters are arranged by the natural progression in Monroe’s music. For instance, his work with brother Charlie Monroe (1936-38) makes up chapter 1 (“What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul?”) and perhaps his creative pinnacle, his work with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs (1946-1949), is located in chapter 4 (“Heavy Traffic Ahead”). Each chapter provides a discography and musical history of less than ten years in Monroe’s mercurial career during which his band members, producers, and even recording technologies changed markedly.

Bluegrass, of course, has a tradition of being treated hermetically by scholars, popular writers, musicians, and fans. Perhaps the first law of bluegrass is to define what is or is not. However, such definitions are usually descriptive rather than proscriptive. Bluegrass is traditional or “old-time” string band music, ramped up (or played on top of the beat) and often featuring vocal harmonies. To purists, that means no drums or electric instrumentation and only the simplest of amplification. Bluegrass songs, often thematically nostalgic, are built around relatively standard chord progressions within traditional modal keys. Finally, bluegrass is an ethos built around the dynamic of individual technical expertise in musicianship and a group identity that subordinates the parts to the whole. Bill Monroe, in short, is bluegrass, in the way that Bob Marley might be reggae.

Rosenberg and Wolfe seem to accept this standard description of bluegrass (and Monroe as its Alpha and Omega); yet at times their attention to detail subverts it. A core tenet of bluegrass, as least over the past three decades or so, seems to be its lack of commercialization. According to such logic, sell-outs can try their hand country music or morph bluegrass into some unappetizing goulash with folk or alternative-rock. However, Rosenberg and Wolfe intimately document the commercialization of Monroe’s career from the very beginning--the capitalist chalk circle in which the performer needs to secure a recording contract and release records in order to get a regular radio show (hopefully with a sponsor) to support record sales and live performances in order to maintain a recording contract....

Similarly, the attention to detail regarding the songs which Monroe recorded also belies many preconceptions about bluegrass and illustrates the wide variety of song style and type--from “ancient” Irish fiddle music to remakes of the latest Music Row hits, from sentimental nineteenth-century ballads to songs bought for cash outside the KNOX radio station from the mysterious alcoholic genius Arthur Q. Smith. In sum, Monroe is revealed not as a hard-nosed bluegrass doctrinaire but rather as a quirky eclectic willing to draw from many sources to create and innovate a musical sound.

Rosenberg and Wolfe might have included more personal information regarding Monroe’s “true life songs,” autobiographical songs of love and loss that he wrote in the 1950s (influenced by and influencing Hank Williams). Similarly, the creative conflict between Monroe and his partners Flatt and Scruggs--which produced some of the greatest recorded music of the twentieth century--is largely glossed over. Similarly, while the authors provide extensive (almost exhaustive) histories of particular songs, they do not address in depth such basic musicological issues as how Scrugg’s three-finger banjo-picking style affected Monroe’s mandolin work or the overall sound of his band. If Monroe is the “father” of bluegrass, what familial relationship does Scruggs play? Finally, in an age dominated by visual media, The Music of Bill Monroe is devoid of photographs and other visual documents and artifacts.

However, the breadth of information provided, and the thematic divisions of Monroe’s career, make this book an indispensable reference work for scholar or fan. While the reader may not learn much personally about Monroe, the effect of the work is to create a vast penumbra of the man from his sixty-year body of work. The Music of Bill Monroe is a title, one thinks, that the ambitious yet self-effacing Monroe would have approved. He certainly would have approved of the focus on his collaborators--musicians, producers, music publishers, managers--and the quick glimpse of a true love or two hidden behind the arras of a song.

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[Review length: 757 words • Review posted on February 20, 2008]