Thursday, June 4, 2015

The Bluegrass Grave



Several years ago my wife and I took a vacation. Our eventual destination was Floydfest in Southwest Virginia. We decided to travel through the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains in search one of our favorite things, Music! It appropriately began with a bluegrass jam in West Virginia. On to Kentucky with stops at the Master Musicians Festival, to Rosine to visit Bill Monroe’s grave and then up Jerusalem Ridge to his birthplace. Onto Muhlenberg County down by the Green River where Paradise lay, the town of John Prine’s youth that was hauled away and is now a power plant. Next was Nashville to the church of traditional music, the Ryman Auditorium, the Bluebird Cafe and the bluegrass mecca, the Station Inn. From there we moved east and north along the Blue Ridge of North Carolina and Southwest Virginia, the heart of traditional American Music.
RT 62  Rosine, KY ©ricgrass

Bill Monroe's Grave

The Old Home Place.  Birthplace of Bill Monroe



"There's a backwards old town that's often remembered, Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away"  Paradise - John Prine


One of our stops was in central Kentucky near Lexington. Years earlier I read a story about the grave of a racehorse named Ten Broeck. His headstone was the first ever erected for a thoroughbred in the state of Kentucky. I decided to try to visit this grave. My wife thought I was crazy. I explained I was not suddenly becoming a racehorse nut. There were other reasons to visit the grave.
Ten Broeck




Ten Broeck was the famed racehorse that was immortalized in the traditional song Molly and Tenbrooks. This song is a fictional account of the actual July 4. 1878 match race between this Kentucky horse and the California mare Mollie McCarty at the Louisville Jockey Club (now Churchill Downs). The race and song has become legend and part of American folklore. It was an especially popular Kentucky folk tune likely composed by black stable workers in the 1880's. Also known as The Racehorse Song, Run Molly Run, Hole in the Wall, and Tim Brook. It has various melodies and lyrics. 
Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs




The version penned by Bill Monroe is by far the most popular and enduring. Many claim it to be the first bluegrass song. In the 1940's the song was one of the first songs performed by his Blue Grass Boys in what came to known as the bluegrass style. Monroe felt it would be a good vehicle to showcase his new banjo sound and its player Earl Scruggs. In 1947 it was the first recording by the Stanley Brothers and the first time a "bluegrass" song was recorded by someone other than Monroe.  So with this recording, bluegrass was first copied and thus emerged as a distinctive musical form. It has since become a bluegrass standard and an audience favorite. Musicians like it because it is not hard to play. It provides for several instrumental breaks and the story lyrics and quick tempo has the feeling of a horse race.
https://youtu.be/qJ1Rv64Mn6I?si=ABj2RW4FjRjex7Of

     Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Tony Rice,
Mark O'Connor & Jerry Douglass' Version

https://youtu.be/qJ1Rv64Mn6I?si=2dGcj-ESeUoa7xl4

The Ryman Auditorium, Nashville ©ricgrass



Unfortunately the story I had read earlier did not give the exact location of the grave. I knew it was on a long abandoned horse farm on private property and well off the beaten track. I wasn't going to find this in any travel guide!
 I spent some time searching the internet for information on the location and was able to narrow it down to a several square mile area but unable to nail down the exact location. 
I was about to give up and abandon the whole idea when I found a reference to the horse farm in a biography of the outlaws Frank & Jesse James. As it turned out their mother was born at a Kentucky tavern established by the outlaw's great-grandfather. In 1865 Frank James was on the lam from Missouri with a band of anti-Union bandits and returned to his family's Kentucky roots. I found an account of them visiting the family's tavern and then moving on, plundering the area robbing several nearby farms including the farm of John Harper the future owner of Ten Broeck. James and his men shot and killed Harper's brother and stole several horses. Luckily the story referenced the farm's location and included a map!

Frank & Jesse James




Those were the days prior to an having an auto GPS and it took some searching of the Kentucky bluegrass countryside to locate the still standing historic tavern. From there we followed the directions given in the James brother's bio and ended up on a road surrounded by fields but no sign of any graves or horse farms.

 What now? After some discussion we decided to go to the nearest house and inquire. We drove up the long driveway of a residence and knocked on the door. No one answered. We were just about to leave when noticed a woman around back weeding her garden. We walked around and asked: "Excuse me. I wonder if you can help us.  We're not sure if this is even the right area but do you know of any horse graves around here?” She looked up smiled and said "You're in the right place". After some conversation we found out her family were the owners of the surrounding property which was now a cattle ranch and got permission to visit the grave site. She said we were not the first. That an occasional traveler would come searching. Sometimes their interest was horse racing. Others like us were drawn by the music connection. She added that there are actually two graves at the same location. The equally famous racehorse Longfellow was also buried there.

 Following her directions we drove down the road, turned onto a dirt drive, entered a cattle farm, opened and closed some cattle gates, and even had to wait for some cows to pass. Well off the main road we found the original Harper farm house and nearby in a middle of a field was a small grove of trees and two tall gravestones surrounded by fences.

                                                                             ©ricgrass
                                                                        ©ricgrass



We stood there paying our respects, in the middle nowhere, on a very still and quiet summer afternoon. Musing on how serendipitous it was that we even arrived at this place. I thought about some of the traditional figures portrayed in American folk and how seldom it is that anyone makes direct connections with them. I pondered if people like Sally Goodin' or Old Joe Clark were real and how their lives ended up as the subject of song? Who was Diamond Joe? Did Rueben have a train? I wondered if there was a John Henry? Where were John Hardy, Stagger Lee and Casey Jones buried and have their graves also faded into obscurity? Their songs have been sung and heard millions of times, but only a few ever stop and think about the people and honor their memory.

 

MOLLY AND TENBROOKS @ Blll Monroe l947
Run oh Molly run, run oh Molly  run
Tenbrooks’s gonna beat you to the bright shining sun
To the bright shining sun oh Lord, to the bright shining sun
Tenbrooks was a big bay horse, he rode a shaggy mane
He run all around Memphis, he beat the Memphis train
Beat the Memphis train oh Lord, beat the Memphis train
Tenbrooks said to Molly what made your head so red
Running in the hot sun with a fever ln my head
Fever ln my head oh Lord, fever in my head
Molly said to Tenbrooks, you’re looking mighty squirrel
Tenbrooks said to Molly. I’m leaving this old world
Leaving this old world oh Lord, leaving this old world

Out in California where Molly done as she please
Come back to old Kentucky, got beat with all ease
Beat with all ease oh Lord, beat with all ease
The women’s all a’ laughing the children’s all a’ crying
The men’s’ all a ’hollering and old Tenbrooks’ a’ flying
Old Tenbrooks’ a’ flying oh Lord, old Tenbrooks’ a’ flying

Kuiper. Kuiper--you’re not a’ riding right
Molly’s a’ beating Tenbrooks clear out of sight
Clear out of sight oh Lord, clear out of sight
Kuiper, Kuiper, Kuiper my son
Give old Tenbrooks the bridle and let old Tenbrooks run
Let old Tenbrooks run oh Lord, let old Tenbrooks run

Go and get your Tenbrooks and hitch him in the shade
We’re going to bury old Molly in a coffin ready-made
Coffin ready-made oh Lord, coffin ready made
(Extra verse)
See that train a’ coming--it’s coming ‘round the curve
See old Tenbrooks running, straining every nerve
Straining every nerve oh Lord, straining every nerve