that he remove four of the mandolin's eight strings so he would not play too loudly.

Monroe's mother died when he was ten, and his father died six years later. Eventually, his brothers and sisters moved away, leaving Monroe to bounce between uncles and aunts until finally settling in with his disabled uncle Pendleton Vandiver, whom he often accompanied when Vandiver played the fiddle at dances. This experience inspired one of Monroe's most famous compositions, "Uncle Pen", recorded in 1950, and the 1972 album Bill Monroe's Uncle Pen. On