New Project: Rare & Fine: Uncommon Tunes of Bill Monroe.

This project has been years in the planning stages, and in August of this year, I gathered a group of stellar musicians to finally record this project titled: Rare and Fine: Uncommon Tunes of Bill Monroe.

“Rare & Fine” is an effort to bring to life and present some of the more uncommon instrumental works of the late Father of Bluegrass, Mr. Bill Monroe. Over the course of his life, Mr. Monroe wrote hundreds of instrumentals for the banjo, fiddle, and mandolin. he even wrote one for the trombone! Followers of his music are dedicated listeners and fanatic collectors. Many are players themselves. Unfortunately, Monroe passed in September of 1996 and left us with a short list of remaining works. There are only a few more melodies left to play and the tunes on the “Rare & Fine” project are some of them. There are enough rare tunes to cut another project at some point, but the gathering up is still going on for that. We’ll just start with this album and see how it goes first!

I’ve been a fan and collector of Monroe’s music since I was a teenager and after moving to Tennessee, I met a number of local musicians that helped me build my music collection to include some of the numbers on this project. I’ve had some of these tunes rambling around in my head for the last 20-30 years and have reached the point I need to present the music the way I want to hear it played. It just won’t leave me alone any longer. Most of these tunes have not been recorded by Mr. Monroe, although he was the author. Some have been on projects that were not released, some on recordings by acquaintances, and a couple have never been recorded by anyone.

Stay tuned for more!