The International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Owensboro, KY.
I drove down to southern Indiana today to check out a company that I might want to work for. I wasn’t far from Owensboro so I thought I’d cross the river and check out the museum.
It’s a pretty cool place. They have exhibit panels for each of the genres that fed into the evolution of bluegrass and all of the major bands and performers. Also a lot of interesting relics including Mother Maybelle’s Autoharp, Pete Seeger’s famous longneck banjo, and Uncle Pen’s fiddle.
One of the more amusing things that they had was the headstock face from Bill Monroe’s mandolin. He had sent it back to Gibson for some work and wasn’t happy with the results so he took his pocketknife and scraped their name off the headstock.
They also had a couple of walls with nice photos of many of the younger players. People like Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, and Punch Brothers.
If you’re a fan of Bluegrass or Americana it’s definitely worth a visit if you find yourself in the area.