|
Bean Blossom: Its People and Its Music
|
by:
ISBN:
0-7414-3210-2
©2006
Price:
$10.95
Book Size:
8.5" x 11"
, 77 pages
Category/Subject:
MUSIC / History & Criticism
This is a photographic history of Bean Blossom, IN, as the site of musical performances since 1940, with emphasis on bluegrass music and friendship of Bill Monroe and author’s family.
|
|
|
Abstract:
This photographic history of tiny Bean Blossom Indiana highlights many of the interesting people, including Bill Monroe, who have contributed to its success as a venue for the performance of music, including bluegrass, since 1940. The oldest continuous annual bluegrass music festival in the world is held here every year in the month of June. Now played all over the world, bluegrass music has become a unifying force between people of very different backgrounds and Bean Blossom is an important center of this unifying force. The author includes a short story about the friendship between his family and Bill Monroe.
Click Here for a SNEAK
PEEK of this book.
|
Customer Reviews
Bean Blossom Memories
,
07/27/2006
|
|
Reviewer:
Tom Adler
|
|
I couldn't wait until the festival this year -- I had to order Jim Peva's book ahead of time, and when it came, I read it right through. [Great job, Jim!] Later, I brought it to Bean Blossom for Jim to autograph.
Even later, he asked me to consider writing this short review, and said to "be honest," and not to give it five stars as the others so far have all done. Sorry, Jim-- they were right to do so, and I agree.
The book is a wonderful compilation of "precious memories" from my favorite music park, with an evocative photo on just about every page, many of them taken by Jim himself at the park since he began coming in 1961. The text and stories also explain why this park, of all the music parks and festival parks scattered across the country, deserved the title Jim gave it: "the Mecca of bluegrass." Jim Peva and I have talked Bean Blossom history for years now, and this book contains a very accessible selection of what he knows about and has experienced at Bean Blossom: the stories, recollections, and photos (Peva's and others) all make it much more than a souvenir booklet -- it is a compact history in its own right, and Jim's vivid memories (as well as those of others he quotes) bring the park and festival grounds to life.
If you've been to Bean Blossom, you *need* this book. If you haven't been to Bean Blossom, you *still* need this book, and you also need to go there in June or September, and hang out with Jim at his festival campfire and experience the magic he describes. You won't regret it.
|
Was this review helpful?
|
|
It will take you to Bean Blossom
,
08/03/2006
|
|
Reviewer:
Doug Hutchens
|
|
I first heard of Bean Blossom from Bill Monroe on Friday and Saturday nights on WSM as he would advertise who would be appearing at the Brown County Jamboree each Sunday afternoon. By this time I was about 15 or 16 (67-68) and really wanted to go to the festival there. I wrote the Bean Blossom Chamber of Commerce asking if there was a bus or train service nearby. I knew it was 40 miles south of Indianapolis on 135 because Bill always mentioned that. Little did I know that there was no Bean Blossom Chamber of Commerce but the kindly postmaster forwarded my request to the Brown County Chamber of Commerce and they contacted me and told me the bad news so I did not get to go. But thanks to two folks who were to become great friends as the years went by, Frank and Marty Godbey did a two page spread of photos from the festival in Blue Grass Unlimited and I have always said that Frank and Marty took me to Bean Blossom the first time.
My first trip was in 70 with Calvin Robins who was a friend of Bill's. We went two weeks early and helped mow the fields, patch the fence, clear brush for more camping, string lights and pull lines for Spur's PA horns. We would eat breakfast with Bill in the little cabin near the lake; biscuits, red eye gravy, salt port shoulder, molasses, and coffee, then work all day, late in the evening we might pick a tune or two then go to bed and then do it all over again the next day. Bill and I became close friends that summer working out on the grounds and he asked me if I would like to work for him next summer . (71) I went down to Nashville in April and he said when I got out of school to go on to Bean Blossom and work with Birch and Bertha and get the grounds ready for the festival. I stayed there a month before the festival and then I took over duties of Joe Stuart playing Bass as he and Kenny Baker started played Twin Fiddles.
I've done about everything that could be done there on those grounds, sat out on the cabin porch with the sun going down and Bill talking about the old days, and Uncle Pen, dug fence post holes, got up hay in what is now the parking lot, fed the stock when Bill wasn’t there, worked out in the lake to put down a line to pump water for the new restroom that Kenny Baker and I did the plumbing on (that was a disaster as neither of us had ever done any plumbing and didn't know about flux) sold tickets and played on the stage. Those grounds are magical to me and I have so many great memories and Jim Peva has taken me back with his wonderful publication Bean Blossom: Its People and its Music. This publication is the closest thing to being there during the days with Birch, Bertha, Spurs and Marvin and the others. The presence of Bill Monroe can be felt within these pages and if he could speak today he would say while grinning from ear to ear "Now Jim I don't know what I'm going to do with you boy, you're really working with me now". He would be so pleased.
Jim thanks for allowing me to again visit each time I pick up the book and get lost in time among my friends and my hero’s on that patch of ground I love so well.
Anyone who ever wants to understand Bill Monroe and his Music must have a copy of this book.
Doug Hutchens
August 3, 2006
Spencer Va.
|
Was this review helpful?
|
|
Bean Blossom: Its People and Its Music
,
08/06/2006
|
|
Reviewer:
MaryE Yeomans
|
|
Colonel Jim Peva is a man who knows what he loves and he's not the least bit afraid to share his passion for the music of Bill Monroe - and the music park Monroe held dear to his heart - with any and all who will listen. Here in Peva's captivating book of memories and anecdotes, illustrated with photographs he and others have made, is a gem of a book that each and every bluegrass lover should well consider adding to their collection.
Here's a bare bones Bean Blossom history from a man who has well earned the right to share it. Along the way Peva dishes up some general bluegrass history as well. Written in a casual, down home style, you'll find this right-priced guide to Bean Blossom an exceedingly easy read. Go sit out under a tree and read this book from cover to cover, linger over the photographs contained herein and take yourself back to a time when the world was content to move a little slower. Savor the precious moments Peva shares and dream about having similar times at Bean Blossom or a bluegrass festival near you.
Peva's book is especially noteworthy for his keen insights into the heart of Monroe. I particularly found Jim's perception of the way Monroe took the sights and sounds of the natural world, filtered them through his soul and then gave them a voice through his fingertips on the fretboard of his mandolin as a true revelation; on that could only be made by a person who had the good fortune to know Mr. Monroe well.
In this book Jim Peva talks about the musical melting pot at Bean Blossom - and it surely is. With more than a few Bean Blossoms under my belt I can attest to his assertions. Peva points out that Monroe's music bridges "social, economic, educational, political cultural and international boundaries." Mr. Peva pays special homage to the Japanese visitors who have been making pilgrimages to Bean Blossom since 1971 (in fact, this year Bluegrass 45, the Japanese group that played at BB 35 years ago, returned to BB and put on wonderful shows which were very well-received). Along the way Peva points out some thought-provoking political insights.
I enjoyed the anecdotes Jim shared about Monroe's life as a farmer and the way he liked to drive fans at Bean Blossom around the grounds in a wagon pulled by a team of mules. Peva offers in this book a good picture of Monroe - the man - a clear sense of the ambiance and grounds that make up Bean Blossom, the people who come again and again to share memories on this hallowed ground, and the special feeling we return to there among the trees. Peva has a nice, easy way with words and his photos convey a clear sense of "what is Bean Blossom." In additon to his many photographs and long-ish story captions, Peva adds 9 pages of narrative further describing his heartfelt, personal connection with the place - and with Bill Monroe.
This may be Peva's first book about Bean Blossom, but I hope it won't be his last. It's that good. Buy it!
|
Was this review helpful?
|
|
Jim Peva's Long Awaited Book
,
08/20/2006
|
|
Reviewer:
Jerry R Paul
|
|
Having just finished Jim Peva’s long overdue book, “Bean Blossom Its People And Its Music”, I sit here in reverent awe, both of Bill Monroe and Jim Peva’s remarkable ability to accurately capture the mental and physical essence of the Father Of Bluegrass, and all that he represented. Many of these rare and historic photos I have never seen before, some I have, as the privileged guest of Jim, while gathered around his campfire at one of the many Bean Blossom festivals, absorbing his fascinating and treasured recollections of his long term friendship with Bill Monroe. I do not know of any other person more qualified to honor Bill Monroe’s story than Jim Peva. I say this because Jim Peva did not write this wonderful book as a result of compiling a borrowed fact here and there, nor accumulated articles from a variety of sources. Jim truly writes from the heart, his own, driven with a respect for accuracy unknown to most people, unless you are in the “inner circle” as well. As I was reading, there were countless references about Bill Monroe that Jim made, often times as subtle passing statements, that I happen to know is absolutely true, but little known by the general public. This is what makes this book special, the absolute detail of it, nothing embellished, nothing added, only documented priceless recollections of one of Bill Monroe’s best friends. I’m not going to tell you that you should buy this book. The mere fact that you are reading my review exposes you as Monroe enthusiast, earning this historic archive a mandatory addition to your bluegrass library. I have waited years for this book, pestering Jim Peva every inch of the way. Thank you Jim Peva.
|
Was this review helpful?
|
|
"Bean Blossom: Its People and Its Music"
,
08/20/2006
|
|
Reviewer:
Martha H. Adcock
|
|
Author Jim Peva has long been a friend of Bean Blossom, the most tradition-rich place on earth for bluegrass music. Mr. Peva was a personal friend of bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe, who bought the old Brown County Jamboree Park property in south-central Indiana and turned it into a mecca for bluegrass fans and musicians.
In Mr. Peva's slender volume of remembrances and photos, he manages to give us more than a sketched-in account of the park's history and its magnetic charm. Though this book's author has seen, and here conveys, the changes the place has undergone, he also presents convincingly the sense of why we are continually drawn to this spot in Indiana's wooded hills: it is the spirit of Bill Monroe himself, added to the camaraderie of the musical events, and good old bluegrass music in its most natural home.
This book is recommended as an introduction to this fabled place, or as a souvenir of a cherished visit.
|
Was this review helpful?
|
Have you read this book? Write a review and share your thoughts with other customers!
|