Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. New Mule Skinner Blues
2. My Little Georgia Rose
3. Uncle Pen
4. Rawhide
5. Kentucky Waltz
6. When the Cactus Is in Bloom
7. Get Down on Your Knees and Pray
8. In the Pines
9. Footprints in the Snow
10. Walking in Jerusalem
11. Get Up John
12. On and On
13. I'm Working on a Building
14. Blue Moon of Kentucky
15. Roanoke
16. Goodbye Old Pal
17. Molly and Tenbrooks
18. I'm Sitting on Top of the World
19. I Saw the Light
20. Scotland
21. Panhandle Country
22. Gotta Travel On
23. Big Mon
24. Linda Lou
25. Lonesome Road Blues

Disc 2:

1. Time Changes Everything
2. I'm Going Back to Old Kentucky
3. Toy Heart
4. Live and Let Live
5. Old Joe Clark
6. Columbus Stockade Blues
7. Drifting Too Far From the Shore
8. Somebody Touched Me
9. Jimmy Brown the Newsboy
10. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
11. Devil's Dream
12. Highway of Sorrow
13. Roll on Buddy, Roll On
14. (We're Goin') Just Over in the Gloryland
15. Fire on the Mountain
16. Long Black Veil
17. I Wonder Where You Are Tonight
18. Dusty Miller
19. Midnight on the Stormy Deep
20. Sally Goodin
21. Walls of Time
22. I Haven't Seen Mary in Years
23. With Body and Soul
24. Walk Softly on My Heart
25. My Last Days on Earth

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32451 in Music
• Released on: 2003-04-22
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.com
Distilling the four-disc Music of Bill Monroe down to 50 songs, this double-disc Anthology is a fine survey of the bluegrass pioneer's career. Picking up in 1950 after Monroe's breakthrough Columbia tenure, this set documents his 30-year Decca period and its song list reads like a Bluegrass 101 songbook, offering classic after classic. Like the greatest of jazz bandleaders, Monroe's Blue Grass Boys band was a proving ground for aspiring bluegrass musicians and a springboard for their future solo success, with each incarnation of the group displaying its own distinct character. Vocal powerhouse Jimmy Martin helped propel Monroe's stellar early-'50s band while other contributors include singers Del McCoury and Peter Rowan and elite pickers such as banjoists Bill Keith and Don Stover and fiddlers Richard Greene, Kenny Baker, Bobby Hicks, and Vassar Clements. Of course, Big Mon's fiery high tenor vocals and feverish mandolin are the common threads. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

Essential
Combining hillbilly, blues, gospel and folk ballads, Bill Monroe made his lightning mandolin a lead instrument within his tightly syncopated acoustic stringband style. In the process, he singlehandedly create his own genre of music. Well annotated and remastered, Anthology starts chronologically with "New Mule Skinner Blues" from his debut 1950 Decca session and ends with 1981's eerie "My Last Days On Earth" (inspired by a bout with colon cancer).

Monroe redid for Decca some songs he'd done on Columbia before angrily leaving that label after it signed the rival Stanley Brothers. The 1954 version of his signature "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" - recorded right after Elvis' did it for Sun - picks up speed compared to his 1946 original on Columbia. One surprise is a 1951 rendition of his standard "Kentucky Waltz" with drums and organ. Some songs are autobiographical: "Uncle Pen" honors the uncle who took him in as a cross-eyed teen-aged orphan while "My Little Georgia Rose" refers to the daughter his long-time bassist Bessie Lee Mauldin bore him.

Half the 50 cuts found here aren't on his most extensive package, MCA's four-CD The Music Of Bill Monroe: 1936-1994, making this an essential purchase for Monroe fans.

A compact, satisfying overview of Monroe's Decca/MCA years
Quite possibly the ideal Bill Monroe set... This 2-CD retrospective is probably the perfect middleground between the humongous, ultimo-collector's box sets put out by Bear Family (or MCA's previous "Music Of Bill Monroe" collection, which clocked in at four whole CDs) and the more demure cheapo single-disc "best-ofs" that lie at the other extreme. Fifty songs on two CDs is probably just about right for most eager, twang-loving record buyers: maybe not every great, classic song is on here, but chances are you'll actually listen to this collection more than once. Nice sound quality and great song selection: the 1940s and 1970s are both skipped in their entirety, but one disc covering the 'Fifties and a second one covering the 'Sixties is still pretty sweet. The friendly, generous liner notes also provide all the info on recording personnel, which is particularly useful when tracking the efforts of young'uns such as Peter Rowan, Richard Greene and Bill Keith, who apprenticed in the mid-'60s editions of the Blue Grass Boys, before going on to get found the modern bluegrass movement. Truly, a top-notch collection... highly recommended!

Good Buy
I purchased this set of CDs to replace the ones that were stolen. Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass music, will always be one of my favorite singers/instrumentalist of bluegrass and gospel. Having listened to his singing at the Grand Old Opry, on an old Victrola radio, during the 40s then watching him perform on TV has been very satisfying to me. This CD is definitely a good buy if you like Bluegrass music.