Embedded Files
Unfortunately, mistakes happen. Some of them that have been found so far in the book are my own clear errors, others resulted from erroneous facts or provided by others, at the Press or elsewhere. Regardless, I take full responsibility.
This page provides a place to list errors found in the first printing of Bean Blossom, in the sincere hopes, first, that others will forgive me, and second, that a future printing or future edition will enable their correction in the actual book.
Known or suspected errors:
Page 38: The plan of the Brown County Jamboree Barn has several errors in the southwest corner: it fails to show both the steps leading UP from the back hallway to the control room, and likewise omits the lightly-partitioned "women's dressing room" that was in that area. Thanks to Neil V. Rosenberg and David Hedrick for pointing out these problems. A REVISED barn plan is now on this website, under Graphics and Images/1977.
Page 49: Birch is misidentified as Bill's "oldest" brother. He was older, but not the oldest; that would have been Harry, born September 8,1893.
Page 61: Carlton Haney did come to Bean Blossom in 1955; but the successful Stanley Brothers show of June 27 was actually a 1954 show. Thanks to Gary Reid for this correction.
Photo page: Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys
(Kenny Baker, Butch Robins, Randy Davis, Wayne Lewis) on the old outdoor stage is probably from 1977, not 1974.
Page 81: After 1963, when Neil ceased as manager of the Jamboree, the management duties reverted to Birch, not to Ken Marvin. Marvin became Bill Monroe's personal manager that year, but did not serve, as the first paragraph implies, as the regular full-time manager of the Brown County Jamboree; at most he might have helped with some bookings.
Page 100: Glen Duncan here discusses seeing/hearing Baker with Bill for the first time "in the fall of 1967." But this really had to have been sometime after March 23, 1968 (when Baker rejoined the band). Further research by Tom Ewing suggests that the show Duncan remembered, featuring both Monroe and Stanley, was actually one of the shows at the "end of the season" mini-festival of November 4-6, 1971.
Page 101: The park map circa 1968 lacks the identification of site "F" in the key; that was where the "Bean Shack" was erected for Tex Logan's annual "Barbecue Bean Day" cookery beginning in 1969.
Page 105: The text states that in 1968 the workshops and the Sunday "church service" were held on the outdoor stage. But all the workshops that year, and the Sunday service as well, were actually held in the barn. For the banjo workshop the flyer advertised "Vic Jordon" and "Neal Rosenburg" but also on stage were Bobby Thompson, Ralph Stanley, and Dave Garrett (with George Winn). Larry Sparks played guitar. Alan Munde was in the audience -- he reminded Neil Rosenberg about that recently. Thanks to Tom Ewing for these corrections.
Page 108: Banjo player Larry Marschall questioned Butch Robin's "winner" status noted in my text for the 1969 banjo contest: ". . . you mention Butch Robins winning the 1969 banjo contest, and taking home an RB-100. It's possible that he won TWO contests---but that's not the way I recall it. I was in the 1972 banjo contest, one of the finalists--along with Alan Munde, Louis Popejoy, Dick Smith, and Butch----he won the contest and took home the banjo. That fits the brief description you give, though it's three years later."
In a later email communication, Marschall retracted this correction, saying he was confused; so Butch really did win the 1969 banjo contest.
Page 110: The list of acts appearing at the June 1969 festival was based, in part, on the Bluegrass Unlimited festival ad published in May. The list includes Wade and Julia Mainer, but some 1969 festival attendees recently mentioned that they didn't recall seeing the Mainers there that year. While the book's text is based on the fact that "Wade Mainer and family" were advertised to be there for Monroe's Sunday morning festival services, Ken Landreth and Frank Godbey have now turned up solid evidence that Wade Mainer was indeed there that year!
Page 126: Tom Ewing has pointed out that an alternate (and perhaps more correct) story about Bill Monroe's acquisition of his second F-5 mandolin was offered in Jim Rooney's "Sketches of Bill Monroe," in the magazine Country Music 1, no. 2 (1972), pp. 47-49.
On p. 47, Rooney describes Bean Blossom's Friday night post-midnight scene during the June festival:
"Bill's New Mandolin" --
"Just to one side, a little out of the light, Bill is sitting alone playing a mandolin. Not his regular one.
"A couple from Detroit had inherited it and brought it down to Bill.They told him that it had belonged to the wife's mother. She left it to them to pay back for taking care of her in her last years. They knew he would recognize it for what it was--a Gibson F-5 made in the mid-twenties. When he opened the case he could smell the must of forty years of lying in an attic unused. There was a picture inside of the mandolin orchestra in which the woman had played years ago along with some mandolin sheet music for a tune called 'The Gibson Girls.' Touched by the couple's story and knowing full well the worth of the instrument, Bill bought it from them."
Page 128: In the middle of the last paragraph: "For two instrumentals in the finale" -- actually there were three ("Down Yonder," "Soldier's Joy," and "Grey Eagle").
Page 129: Jim Peva witnessed Monroe's stern disciplining, but did not actually hear Bill Monroe say "You're fired" to the two errant Blue Grass Boys. Bill pointedly excluded them from a steak fry and told them to find their own way back to Nashville. The two were, however, fired in Texas about a month later, and were replaced by Dwight Dillman and Randy Davis.
Page 155: Paul Birch has volunteered that it may have been 1978 (rather than 1973) when he observed Birch Monroe "fixing" the white plastic letter-openers by cutting off the embossed 1972 date. Paul Birch attended the June festival in 1972 and 1973, then again from about 1978 through 1988.
Pages 176-77: Per Tom Ewing: In the "summer of six festivals" (1993), the first of the six festivals, planned for May, never took place; and the country music event in early July lasted only four days, not five.
Page 234: Index entry "Pines, in the" should be indexed under "I" as "In The Pines," -- the famous song title.
Page 235: Index entry for the tune "Sally Goodin" has a typo in the opening quote mark.
Owner: Thomas A. Adler
Lexington, Kentucky
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