Southern Agenda—Aug/Sept 2011

The Legends of Bluegrass
Owensboro, Kentucky, September 12–14

The father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, once said, “Bluegrass has brought more people together and made more friends than any music in the world.” And that will never have been more true than in Owensboro come September, when the International Bluegrass Music Museum hosts the pickin’ party of the year to celebrate the centennial of Monroe’s birth. The Bill Monroe 100th Birthday Celebration will, for the first time, present performances from every active living member of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame—Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, J. D. Crowe, and many others. It’s a never-before-seen chance to catch the best of the best all in one place. Held about forty miles from Monroe’s birthplace, Rosine, the three-day celebration will also include the premiere of a new documentary, The Blue Grass Boys: Tales of Bill Monroe, which traces the career of the legend through interviews with several generations of his band members. But of course, it’s the music that promises to steal the show. bluegrass-museum.org

Alabama
Pretty as a Picture

The practice of painting en plein air (“in the open air”) inspired nineteenth-century masters from Monet to Cézanne. Today, a group of artists are capturing the twenty-first-century Southern landscape with their own Impressionistic eyes. At the Huntsville Museum of Art, you can view work from the Plein-Air Painters of the Southeast in the new exhibit A Sense of Place (August 7­–September 23). To try your own hand at outdoor painting, sign up for the workshop (September 20–22) taught by seven plein-air artists. hsvmuseum.org

Arkansas
Cash Bash

Before the Man in Black became, well, the Man in the Black, Johnny Cash was the son of a poor farmer in the New Deal agricultural resettlement community of Dyess. Nearly eighty years after the Cash family moved to the small town, Arkansas State University is restoring the Depression-era community, including Cash’s humble boyhood home. To benefit the restoration project, ASU, with the help of the Cash family, is holding the first Johnny Cash Music Festival (August 4) in Jonesboro. Cash’s friends and fellow country greats Kris Kristofferson and George Jones will perform, along with Cash’s daughter Rosanne, his son John Carter, and siblings Tommy and Joanne. Cash never forgot his roots, and thanks to his friends and family, future generations won’t either. johnnycashmusicfest.com