Monroe Crossing 

Celebrating 25 Years

The Minnesota-based bluegrass band, Monroe Crossing, is celebrating its 25th year in the entertainment business. Three founding members, Matt Thompson-mandolin, Lisa Fuglie-fiddle, and Mark Anderson-bass, were joined by Derek Johnson-guitar in 2011. The group utilizes a cadre of very talented banjo players, all of whom are alumni of the group, most recently it’s been Graham Sones.

Fuglie explained their origins. “Back 25 years ago, Mark and Art Blackburn were part of a band called the Pretty Good Bluegrass Band. When that was nearing the end of its course, they still had a season of shows on the books. I stepped in to fill in for the fiddle player, Matt joined on mandolin, and several banjo players stepped in. We just realized that we dug the sound and we enjoyed playing together so we decided to keep it going. We figured with this new rebirth, we should have a new name and Monroe Crossing was the one we settled on. Matt came up with that because it paid homage to the founder of bluegrass music, Bill Monroe, but it also recognized that we step outside the genre from time to time. We cross over. 

“Over the years, we’ve just kept on going. We found ourselves doing multiple tours of Europe, South Korea, Canada, and Caribbean cruises. We’re having such a ball with it and meeting so many wonderful people. I just can’t imagine doing anything else after all these years. I’m thankful our fans have followed us along on our journey. We’re going to keep on doing it as long as we possibly can.”

All the band members hail from Minnesota.  “It makes it easier to get together and practice,” Fuglie admitted. “In the summertime, most of our shows are in the region because our outdoor time is more limited than our southern friends. We tend to stay closer to home in the summer months.”

Anderson and Fuglie are husband and wife. They married before the band formed. “We met at Fishin’Frank’s Home Brew Hoedown. A friend would have old-time and bluegrass jams in his house. It was about 4:00 in the morning and I was about to head home when I still heard this rocking jam happening in the basement. I had to go check it out. I stayed another couple of hours and ended up meeting my future husband. We’ve been together since 1995,” Fuglie explained. “We got married in ‘98 and we started in the band in 2000.  It’s great. Mark and I were actually in a different band before this. I was a full-time musician when I met Mark, but I was reticent to be in a band with him because I didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on both the music and our relationship. But we had so much fun and it worked out so well! So when the chance came to work with Monroe Crossing, I didn’t think twice about it.”

Fuglie, who spent her early years in multiple foreign countries since her dad worked for USAID, began her musical career through her mother who was a piano teacher.  “I do have a classical background in piano. I studied other instruments, too, but I came to bluegrass through my oldest brother. He got turned on to bluegrass while we were living in Africa through a Baptist missionary who gifted him a mandolin and a Bill Monroe LP. He was the first one in our family to get into the music. He, in turn, gifted me a mandolin and a guitar for my tenth birthday. I think the first song I learned on the mandolin was ‘Cripple Creek.’ It’s always a real source of joy in our family when we get together and play music.”

As a young adult, Lisa had the opportunity to get her hands on a fiddle.

“I picked up the fiddle when I was 25. I had always loved the sound of a fiddle. That was the one thing that I gravitated to listening to my brother’s bluegrass band when I was a kid, but it was always in the back of my mind that you had to be born with a bow in your hand in order to make any good sound.

“A friend of mine had a fiddle that he wasn’t playing. He said, ‘Here, just fool around with it for a while and see what you think.’ I got obsessed. I dove into it, head first, full time.”

She found herself with a break from her day job. “I took that time off as permission to play my fiddle for eight hours a day. Which I did! I jumped in pretty deep right away. When I find something I like I go whole hog on it!  I did a Folk Arts apprenticeship through the Minnesota State Arts Board in 1995 with Minnesota region fiddling legend, Bill Hinkley, who was featured on Prairie Home Companions for many years, and the Powder Milk Biscuit Band. We did an intense study for a year.”

Mark Anderson, her husband, began playing music in his youth in Wisconsin. He started playing in a ‘50s cover band when he was just ten years old. His friend’s dad owned a bar in their little hometown and would hire the band to entertain the clientele. Then he became heavily involved as a drummer and bassist in punk rock during his teenage years.  “When I discovered bluegrass, the intensity of the down strokes and the energy was really reminiscent of the Ramones of early punk rock. That’s what drew me in,” Anderson admitted.

Matt Thompson has always been a devotee of traditional music.  “I started playing violin during fifth grade in the school orchestra.  Soon after I got a mandolin because I learned the fingering was the same.”  Lisa interjected, “He picked up his first mandolin from the Sears catalog and called it his ‘Kenmore.’ He dove in head first and got his parents to take him to Bean Blossom every summer. He would spend several weeks down there and just soak up bluegrass: listening to all the greats and jamming with anybody and everybody. He actually backed up Mac Wiseman one time and jammed with Mr. Monroe.”

Matt affirmed his passion for the instrument and the man who introduced it to him. “When I was about 16, I saw a record in a discount record bin picturing a man holding a mandolin. The record was Bill Monroe: Bluegrass Instrumentals. It changed my life. I started ordering every single Monroe record I could get my hands on. Then, thanks to Jack Tottle’s Bluegrass Mandolin instruction book, I added groups like Jim & Jesse, Seldom Scene, Osborne Brothers, and more. My three main influences as a mando picker were: Monroe, McReynolds, and Osborne, plus others.”

In Minnesota, Matt was just one of a handful of bluegrass pickers in his youth and started picking in bands as a teenager.  “I have played in several groups over the years.  One of those groups, The Bluegrass Connection, which included fiddler Brian Wicklund (author of the American Fiddle Method). We won the 1982 Minnesota State Fair talent contest. Next, I played in River Basin Bluegrass. A very young fiddler by the name of Becky Buller would often be seen in the audience for shows during my early years.

Matt said, “Mark and Lisa were in the local acoustic music scene at the same time.  I thought they were cool people and incredibly talented. At one point, we were all between bands and decided to put a new band together, along with guitarist Art Blackburn. I came up with the name Monroe Crossing due to the fact that we all met because of the music of Bill Monroe. We had a Monroe Crossing. Over the years, we became a musical family.

“Playing with Monroe Crossing has brought me all across the country and around the world. It has given me wonderful experiences I will never forget. Since we’ve had little turnover in personnel, we have a sound that has remained consistent over the years. We’re not traditional enough for some and not progressive enough for others. We just do what we do, and our devoted fans seem to like it. My biggest joy is bringing bluegrass music to new fans.”

Derek Johnson, guitarist, came into the group a decade later replacing Monroe Crossing’s original guitar player when Blackburn elected to leave the cold north to retire in sunny Hawaii. Blackburn continued to book the band until Johnson assumed the role. Derek, who has been in MC for 15 years, shared a little of his own personal history.  Derek recalls, “I started playing and singing when I was just a kid. I bought my first guitar at the age of 12. I started out playing rock & roll and had a rock band through high school and college. After college, I moved to Minneapolis and continued to perform in rock & roll bands. Ever since falling for Bob Dylan’s music in high school, I had a great appreciation for folk and acoustic music. I appreciated bluegrass music, but really didn’t start playing it until attending some festivals. I really appreciated the community surrounding bluegrass. I was impressed by the quality of musicians I came in contact with and how friendly and inviting they were.”

Lisa noted, “He came to Bluegrass after going to a Del McCoury concert and that sound really tickled his fancy.”   Derek stressed, “I started playing bluegrass music, for real, at the dawn of the century, the 2000s. By 2006, I was one of the founding members of The High 48s.  In 2011, I was asked to join Monroe Crossing which allowed me to be a ‘full-time’ musician. I traded the ‘day job’ for a lot of hours riding in a van. At the time, Monroe Crossing was performing over 125 shows a year.

“Monroe Crossing is the sum total of its parts. Many bluegrass bands have a leader or front person, who carries the weight of the show. Behind them is often a rotating cast of support characters. Monroe Crossing is more of a collective. We have two lead singers and multiple songwriters. Although Matt Thompson is the main emcee, we all, at times, contribute to the stage show. It’s this interplay between the members that makes Monroe Crossing stand out. It’s also this interplay which makes every show a unique experience for not only the audience, but the band members as well.”

The one variable in Monroe Crossing’s 25 years is its banjo pickers.  Lisa explained, “We’ve had a number of banjo players. One has cycled through the band several times. The first one, Benji Flemming, was with us when he joined the band as a young guy at 18 years old. He rejoined the band when we did the premiere of ‘Bluegrass Mass,’ a fantastic classical piece that has really brought us to audiences that would not normally hear bluegrass such as our South Korea trip. It’s a classical piece that we perform with a choir. Another who is pretty much with us full-time now is Graham Sones. Other banjo players we work with are Jake Ashworth when Graham can’t make it and David Robinson was with us for a number of years. He also joined when he was 18. He is busy with about seven other bands but will step in and help us out, too.  We also had Jeff Whitson join us from Arkansas, too, for a couple of years and he brought a real southern flavor to the band.”

And for those who think you can’t make a decent living playing music, Monroe Crossing has stood the test of time and done just that.  “I haven’t had a secondary job in about 35 years,” admitted Lisa. “It’s a full-time gig for Matt and Derek. Graham is also a landscape architect and my husband, Mark, has also been a computer consultant. Music is pretty much most of our income.”

Where are they headed?  “We just love playing,” Lisa admitted. “We will just keep doing what life presents as long as we’re physically able and as long as audiences join us. We are excited to be going up to the Yukon Territory for the first time in June and back to Europe in November. Both Derek and I have been writing and have new material we’d like to record.”

For 25 years, this Minnesota-based band has averaged over 100 shows a year performing in intimate rooms, community theaters, major venues, and outdoor festivals. They are favorites among bluegrass connoisseurs and non-bluegrass audiences alike. They love introducing newcomers to bluegrass music. They have recorded 17 CDs and one DVD that sold out several years ago.

“We’ve averaged out that we have done one show every 3 days over 25 years,” Lisa shared. “And we raised our kids (she and Mark have 23-year-old twins) while traveling on the road.”

Monroe Crossing’s sound is best described by Lisa Fuglie.  “We have a deep and abiding love and respect for the first-generation bluegrass masters and we’ll draw on their repertoire as well as songs that we write ourselves. We’re from the north so we don’t automatically sound like a southern band because we don’t have southern accents. Our music comes from the heart. I think people will recognize bluegrass in our styling, but we also have different backgrounds so you’re going to hear different influences there, too. Mark is probably the most aggressive bass player you’re going to hear. Being a former drummer, he puts in a lot of percussion in his bass lines. It is kind of unique in bluegrass. I also worked as a singer in a jazz club in Arizona so you’re going to hear some of that in what I do.”

Minnesota-flavored bluegrass admittedly has a little different feel. One of the songs MC sings about “cornfields and snow.” Lisa and Derek handle the bulk of the songwriting, but Mark has written a few as well as Matt. 

Lisa continued, “We just try to approach it with integrity. We’re not trying to sound like someone else. We’re going to give our honest experience through the songs that we write.”

Mark reflected on 25 years with the same band. “It is most unexpected. When you put a bluegrass band together in Minnesota, you don’t expect to go off and do the various things that we’ve done. It’s been a real pleasure that people like what we’ve done enough to support us for 25 years.”

“We have played in all (contiguous) 48 states. We have another trip to Switzerland and Germany coming up, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands.  We have so many friends that we have met in Europe. They have a great bluegrass scene. We do the Bahamas and have been to Mexico and South Korea.”

In two and half decades, there have been many memorable experiences.  Mark reflected, “I remember playing a festival in northern Wisconsin and getting away right before a tornado came through. That was exciting! Then there was a tornado in Forest Lake that came by about a mile south of us while we were on stage. We saw the storm come through but didn’t realize there was a tornado in it. Minnesota has its fair share of tornados and you just never know!”

Monroe Crossing has played at some impressive venues such as the Kennedy Center once and Carnegie Hall twice.  Mark stated, “Standing on the Carnegie Hall stage and looking out at all the things that have happened there was pretty remarkable. Then it comes time to play and you realize it’s just another show. You have to address the audience and draw them in and do what you do. That’s pretty cool to be in the moment deliberately.”

Monroe Crossing has had a successful run perhaps due to their unique management strategy of self-promoting, self-recording, and self-booking.  Mark explained, “Our whole career we’ve been an independent band and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We don’t have a label. A lot of our recording has been done by me in our basement in Minneapolis.”

The band travels in a sprinter van. “We’ve always just done what we do counting on if you make an audience happy, they’re going to bring their friends and come back to see you again. You need to know people and make connections. Being a fully independent band, I think is a model going forward that will be a big thing. We’re going to keep doing it as long as people continue to come.”  Matt Thompson joked, “We have no other marketable skills.”

Monroe Crossing consists of four distinct personalities with differing musical backgrounds. When combined, their individual histories make for a unique sound. The three founding members are: Mark Anderson (bass), Lisa Fuglie (fiddle & lead vocals), and Matt Thompson (mandolin & harmony vocals). Derek Johnson (guitar & lead vocals) joined in 2011 and handles booking duties for the band. The group utilizes a cadre of very talented banjo players, all of whom are alumni of the group. They are: Benji Flaming, David Robinson, and Graham Sones.

In 2007, Monroe Crossing was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame. They have twice been selected to showcase at the annual World of Bluegrass convention hosted by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA). They have also appeared twice at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In 2016, Monroe Crossing had the honor of being the first Minnesota bluegrass band to perform in South Korea.