Duncan was a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys in 1957 and 1960

By DAVE PAYNE Sr.
KENNA — Kenna resident Bill Duncan has led quite a life as a musician — he’s been shot at while on stage, had pistols pulled on him at other times, and has played with some of the best musicians of all time.

“Being a musician is a hard life, but it was a lot of fun,” he said.

Bill Duncan was a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys in 1957 and again in 1960, played on numerous radio shows, including the Ernest Tubb Record Show, and was a Grand Ol’ Opry regular with Monroe.

While the hours may have been long and the work hard as he toured with Monroe, at least the venues were somewhat civilized, not something one could say about the local venues he played in the 1950s with his Harmony Mountain Boys and other groups, where many in the audiences had whiskey-fueled tempers and concealed firearms or knives.

“It got so bad in Charleston, they had to put a screen up so people couldn’t throw beer bottles at us. The trouble would always start when some drunk guy went to the jukebox and picked a song. It didn’t matter if it just came out that day, if you said you didn’t know that, all hell would break loose,” Duncan recalled.

Once in a bar near the Coal River in Kanawha County, a man was about to shoot Duncan while he was singing, but the female owner of the bar shot the would-be killer with a shotgun just in time.

“He fell straight back, just like they do in the Westerns,” Duncan said.

There was another unrelated incident when Duncan literally dodged a bullet.

“I was on stage singing and this guy pulled out a pistol. I knew he was going to shoot me, so I moved to the side and held the guitar up. The bullet went right through the guitar,” he said.

Duncan’s career as one of the Bluegrass Boys began when he traveled to one of Monroe’s shows at Camden Park in Huntington in 1957. Duncan had known Monroe since the 1940s and Monroe was well aware of Duncan’s talent.

“I watched the first show and was making some fun of it. Bill asked me if I brought my guitar with me. He said, ‘I need you bad. I’ve got my banjo player trying to play guitar.’ He wanted me to go to Nashville and I’d always dreamed about playing on the Grand Ol’ Opry and I said I’d try it,” Duncan said.

Monroe was rarely friendly, but always respected, he said.

“He didn’t talk much and he was all business. When he was through with a song, he had in mind what he was going to do next. He’d hit the mandolin on that chord and if you turned your head, you didn’t know where he was going to be. I remember on the Grand Ol’ Opry, Joe and Kenny were playing twin fiddles, on ‘Rose of Old Kentucky’ I knew he played it in B. But I was talking to George Jones and when I went to put the clamp (capo) on in (the key of) B, I put it on B flat. My microphone was high and the guitar was picking up something fierce. Bill recognized it right away and dropped to B flat to match the guitar. When the fiddles came in, they stayed right in B. After it was over, he jumped on them and ate them all up bad. I said ‘Bill, it was my fault. I’m the one who made the mistake.’ Bill said ‘I pay them for first-class musicians. When they heard that guitar in B flat, they should have played the same,’” Duncan said.

Duncan said Monroe scolded players with an icy stare whenever they played something he didn’t like. One did not touch Monroe’s 1923 Gibson Lloyd Loar mandolin — something Duncan learned the hard way when he tried to help out by replacing a broken string.

What Monroe lacked in charm, he made up for with musical genius and a photographic mind.

“He had a mind like a steel trap. George Jones came up to him and said he had a song that would be a good bluegrass number, Bill said ‘Sing it for me.’ It was ‘Breaking in a New Pair of Shoes.’ George sang it once for Bill. Then, a while later, Bill was planning to play it and he saw George again and asked him ‘George, what was the the last line of the second verse?’ He had remembered that entire song from just hearing it that one time — all except that one line. He also knew every shortcut in the country,” Duncan said.

During his time as a member of the Bluegrass Boys, it was hard work, especially since Duncan had to do most of the driving.

“I had to do most of the driving. Bill (Monroe) had had the car wreck not long before that and he couldn’t drive. Kenny (Baker) couldn’t stay awake to drive. Joe was the same way. He’d lay up and just go to sleep while he was behind the wheel. That really wears you out, when you have to drive 500 or 600 miles, then go on stage and play,” he said.

“There’s not much money in music, but you have a lot of fun. I liked it except for a few run-ins, it’s hard to get four guys to work together. Bill (Monroe) was starting the dual-fiddle sound and Kenny Baker had just started. Kenny was a Western swing fiddler and couldn’t play much bluegrass. It would drive you nuts, those two fiddles going and they (Baker and Joe Meadows) be arguing, ‘No, it goes like this.’ ‘No, it ain’t. It goes like this.’ I got along good with Joe (Meadows), except he wore my clothes. Everytime I would go to look for a white shirt, Joe had it on. When I left the Bluegrass Boys, I left him nine white shirts. I guess he didn’t have to buy any for years. Kenny (Baker) was into the alcohol heavy, he’d want me to smuggle beer into the hotel for him in my guitar case. I told him ‘No, I don’t do that stuff,’’’ Duncan said.

Contact Dave Payne Sr. at

dpayne@newsandsentinel.com