20 Years Ago Today: Bluegrass Loses Its King

Bill Monroe will forever be the Father of Bluegrass. But it was Jimmy Martin, who studied under Monroe, who was able to rear back and declare himself “The King of Bluegrass.” And though some might have written it off as bluster from one of country music’s most colorful characters, or seen it as presumptuous, eventually the nickname stuck. And that’s how he was remembered when he passed away on May 14th, 2005 at the age of 77, twenty years ago today.

The death of Jimmy Martin was met with the sadness that the passing of any country or bluegrass great comes with. But it was also met with not a little bit of anger. Though Jimmy Martin lived a full life, was a rags to riches story, and was revered by many of his peers with a legacy that still lives on today, he died without his greatest wish ever being fulfilled: becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

Jimmy Martin was born into a poor and hard working east Tennessee farming family in Sneedville on August 10th, 1927, not too far from the Cumberland Gap. His dad died when he was only four. Jimmy grew up singing Gospel in church, and both of his mother and stepfather were Gospel singers. By his teenage years, Jimmy Martin had picked up the guitar and was playing in local string bands, eventually making some of his first public appearances with Tex Climer and the Blue Band Coffee Boys.

It was Country Music Hall of Famer Mac Wiseman leaving Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys backing band that inspired Jimmy Martin to take a bus to Nashville and try to fill Mac’s spot. This was a year after Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Bill Monroe’s band to form Flatt and Scruggs. Jimmy sneaked into the Ryman right before a Grand Ole Opry performance, and after quickly befriending banjo player Rudy Lyle, was introduced to Bill Monore. The story goes that it only took Jimmy Martin singing two songs with Monroe before he was hired. It was 1949, and the two were about to change the sound of bluegrass.

It was Bill Monroe’s band, but when Jimmy Martin was in it, he was the lead singer most of the time, with Monroe singing tenor harmony. It was Martin’s high pitch and lonesome tone that resulted in the “high lonesome” sound as it’s referred to in bluegrass today.

With Rudy Lyle on banjo and Charlie Cline of fiddle, the Jimmy Martin-led lineup of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys was legendary … though so was the conflict. Jimmy Martin was known for being wild, cussy, moody, and most disruptively, prone to drunkenness—all things Bill Monroe detested. Monroe only kept him around so long because he was so talented.

Along with his singing, Jimmy Martin was a top-caliber guitar player. He was a flatpicker. He had a drive to his playing that brought some muscle to the bluegrass sound. Martin has been given credit for innovating the well-recognized “G Run” in country and bluegrass by some, though it probably predates him.

Though Martin would play with Bill Monroe on and off again, he’d more or less left the band for good by 1955, and after a short stint with the Osborne Brothers, formed his own Sunny Mountain Boys, and started calling himself the “King of Bluegrass.” J.D. Crowe, “Big” Paul Williams, and other bluegrass greats would get their start in the band. Martin would help make “Freeborn Man” a bluegrass standard, along with the truck driving songs “Widow Maker” and “Truck Drivin’ Man.” Martin became known for a more accessible and less stuffy version of bluegrass. He was a show man, shorter than most players, but larger than life.

Martin also broke rules by putting a snare drum in his band. As opposed to forcing the mandolin to constantly “chuck” on the strings to give the music a percussive rhythm, Martin decided an actual snare drum did a much better job. This wasn’t a drum set. The snare usually was slug around the players neck, and played it like any other bluegrass instrument. He also regularly featured women in his band, both playing and singing, which was rather unprecedented in those days.

Jimmy Martin was brash, with a checkered hat tilted to one side, and white shoes or boots. He rarely had a filter, and sometimes would swear right into the microphone. All this and his snare drum ran afoul of the bluegrass purists, and the Grand Ole Opry. Though it depends on who you speak to, either Martin’s unruly behavior, or Bill Monroe’s refusal to allow Martin in made an Opry membership Jimmy Martin’s “white whale” that he never would catch.

And it wasn’t like Jimmy Martin was shy about the situation. In moments public and private, he let everyone know that becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry is all he ever wanted. He regularly played the Opry, but always as a guest. Though Bill Monroe would let duos and other bluegrass acts become Opry members, he came to see Jimmy Martin and his “King of Bluegrass” moniker as a rival to his legacy. But in truth, Martin’s behavior was probably just as much of an impediment to him getting passed over as anything.

Jimmy Martin’s Opry snub is the prevailing theme of a documentary on Martin called King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmy Martin released in 2003. A few years after Jimmy Martin passed away, folk/Western/country artist Tom Russell put all of his into a song called “The Death of Jimmy Martin.” It has since become one of the most potent and cherished country protest songs of the genre. No words are minced in the passages.

Hey, God’s gonna burn down Nashville, boys
Cause Jimmy Martin’s dead
Ah, the great Jimmy Martin’s gone dead
You got twenty twenty vision
but you’re walkin’ ’round blind
You Grand Ole Opry fools
With your hypocritic judgments
and your self righteous snobbery.
Your God damned false hearted rule
You scorned Hank Williams,
You shunned Jimmy Martin,
Boys who sang with tongues of fire.
So god’s gonna burn down your Grand Ole Opry
Hear the screams of the hypocrites and liars
They feel safer now that Jimmy has expired.
Run, Pete, run, your master’s callin’ you,

Oh, The great Jimmy Martin’s gone dead.
Yeah, don’t call me no country singer
Those are poison words to me
‘Cause I ain’t heard a good country song
Since nineteen seventy three
The King of Bluegrass has died for your sins
The whore of Babylon is sleepin’ in your bed
So God’s gonna burn down Nashville tonight, boys,
Cause Jimmy Martin’s dead

Who is the “Pete” referred to in the song? It’s Pete Fisher, who was the Grand Ole Opry General Manager from 1999 to 2017, and when Jimmy Martin died. As Saving Country Music recently highlighted, even The Opry acknowledges Pete Fisher’s tenure was one of the most polarizing in Opry history. This is also when the Reinstate Hank movement started, with Hank Williams III acknowledging Jimmy Martin’s Opry anger (and his surly mouth) in III’s own protest song “The Grand Ole Opry (Ain’t So Grand).”

Jimmy Martin never got to see his dream of being a Grand Ole Opry member fulfilled, just like he never got to experience being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In fact, despite being the “King of Bluegrass,” you rarely even see his name mentioned as a strong candidate for the Hall of Fame due to the severe backlog to get into the institution.

Many performers try and fail to launch careers in country and bluegrass. But even many that succeed and even excel like Jimmy Martin pass away without receiving their proper flowers. That was the assessment of many on May 14th, 2005, and when many other country and bluegrass greats move on.

Martin is laid to rest at Nashville’s Spring Hill Cemetery north of downtown, and nearby many other country music greats. Martin infamously erected his own headstone many years before he died. If nobody else would honor his legacy, Martin would make sure to honor his own.

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