Master of Bluegrass
Master of Bluegrass is the 14th studio album by American bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and his band, the [List of List of Blue Grass Boys members|Blue Grass Boys members|Blue Grass Boys]. Released by MCA Records on July 2, 1981, it features ten songs recorded over three sessions at The Music Mill in Nashville, Tennessee, on February 3, 4 and 19, 1981. Produced by Walter Haynes, the album features a number of guest musicians, including guitarist Norman Blake, mandolin player Jesse McReynolds and the Sheldon Kurland Strings.
Background
By early 1981, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys had not recorded new material since 1978, and had not released an album since the live collection Bean Blossom '79. The band's lineup had remained stable throughout much of this period, with guitarist/vocalist Wayne Lewis, banjo player Joseph "Butch" Robins, and fiddler Kenny Baker joined by bassist Mark Hembree in June 1979. Despite not recording for a few years, Monroe wrote several new songs between album releases, which were collated to form the basis of a mandolin-focused instrumental album. Robins used a portable tape recorder on tour to record Monroe's ideas so he could learn them.Recording
The first recording session for Monroe's 14th studio album took place on February 3, 1981 and was Monroe's first at The Music Mill in Nashville, Tennessee, after Bradley's Barn burned down in 1980. Three tracks were recorded that day: first was "Old Ebenezer Scrooge", which Monroe had written after watching A Christmas Carol on TV in a motel; next was "Come Hither to Go Yonder", which was mistakenly listed on the album sleeve as "Go Hither to Go Yonder"; and last was "Right, Right On", which had been written a few years earlier. The band returned to the studio the next day, when they recorded three songs named after notable locations: "Lochwood", named after a park near Chatom, Alabama, which served as the site of the Dixie Bluegrass Festival; "Old Danger Field", named after Daingerfield, Texas, near where Monroe's girlfriend Julie LaBella's grandfather lived; and "Fair Play", named after Fair Play, South Carolina, not far from the site of several other bluegrass festivals.After a two-week break, the third and final session for Master of Bluegrass took place on February 19, 1981. In addition to Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, the session featured guest musicians Norman Blake, Jesse McReynolds and Larry Sledge — the former on second guitar, the latter two creating a mandolin trio with Monroe. The full lineup performed on the recordings of "Melissa's Waltz for J.B." and "Lady of the Blue Ridge", before Monroe, Blake and Hembree recorded "My Last Days on Earth", which did not yet have a title. Monroe wrote the track "around two or three o'clock" in the morning during the winter of late-1976, as he recalled in an interview ten years later:
The final song recorded on February 19, with the full band and guests, was a rendition of DeFord Bailey's "Evening Prayer Blues" — the only song on the album not written by Monroe. Two further sessions were scheduled for overdubbing on "My Last Day on Earth": on April 7, Bobby Hardin, Arlene Hardin, Curtis Young and Cindy Nelson recorded backing vocals for the song with Blake on guitar and Hembree on bass, and on April 28, the Sheldon Kurland Strings recorded their parts for the track. The song got its name around this time, when Monroe underwent an operation for colon cancer in early-March; he was able to assist with the album's mixing at the end of April, during the same session as the recording of the strings.