Brown County Jamboree. Photo by Frank M. Hohenberger, courtesy The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
bill monroe park spring festivals
~ by Jeff Tryon
Two festivals are coming up at Bean Blossom’ s Bill Monroe Music Park this spring of 2025. The first is the Americana Bean on Memorial Day weekend, followed by the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Festival, beginning Wednesday, June 11, and continuing through Saturday, June 14.
Bean Blossom music has deep roots in the Brown County soil, reaching back even before Bill Monroe,“ the father of Bluegrass music,” purchased the property back in the 1950s.
One day in the early 1940s, a man came to town in a panel truck with horn speakers on the roof that projected sound from a record player and microphone located inside. People gathered at the filling station to listen to the music and some of the locals got the idea to put on a free show.
Musicians congregated on the Bean Blossom property of Francis and Mae Rund and organized performances that became known as the Brown County Jamboree. The show was modest but successful, with a single microphone and amplifier. Performers played popular songs both live and on recordings.
One of the original founders and performers, Guy Smith, had some experience organizing country
44 Our Brown County • May / June 2025 band performances and dances. Another, Denzel Ragsdale, also known as“ Spurts” or the“ Silver Spur” was a performer and took on the role of soundman and promoter. Ragsdale created a series of“ ballyhoo cars” painted with the words“ Brown County Jamboree,” that projected sound from inside the car.
For the first couple of years the regular Sunday shows were held in an enormous circus-style tent. Shows were presented on Sundays from April through October. There were afternoon and evening shows, and in the early years( 1941 – 1957) a one-hour portion of the show was often broadcast over various local radio stations.
The Indianapolis Star described the Jamboree as“ a co-operative program providing real, homespun talent, rail-fence variety of music and frivolity, old fiddlers and rural crooners, who would sing and warble Brown County ballads brought over the mountains by their pioneer ancestors.”
The artists appearing at the Brown County Jamboree were local, regional, and national in reputation, including well-known names such as Uncle Dave Macon, Curly Fox and Texas Ruby, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, Pee Wee King, and Little Jimmy Dickens.