Owensboro, Ky. — In these parts, he's known as Mister Bill. And although he died in 1996, Bill Monroe — whose old homeplace is in tiny Rosine, just outside Owensboro — left a legacy of global proportions.

"He is the Father of Bluegrass," says Mike Lawing of the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro. "There was no such thing as bluegrass music before Mister Bill. It wasn't even mentioned in print until 1957."

Ohio County Tourism Commission (ENLARGE)

Musicians take to the stage at the Rosine Barn Jamboree.

wensboro-Daviess County Convention & Visitors Bureau. (ENLARGE)

The Owensboro fine art museum is in a 1909 Carnegie Library and in the John Hampden Smith House, a pre-Civil War-era mansion.

Kathy Witt / AJC (ENLARGE)

The rustic Rosine Barn, the last stage on which Bill Monroe, the father of Bluegrass, performed.

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In the intervening 50 years, bluegrass has spawned an international fan base. According to Gabrielle Gray, the museum's executive director, bluegrass festivals are held in every corner of the world, and bluegrass music is played in 75 nations to a listening audience that numbers near 80 million.

And it all began at a trim white clapboard home on Jerusalem Ridge, where family photographs, furnishings and memorabilia, including beds, butter churn and dinner bell, give a glimpse into the life of the Monroe family, whose youngest child would go on to create a musical genre.

Not far away, at the Rosine Cemetery, are the gravesites of Monroe and his Uncle Pen, a fiddler by vocation who had a significant influence on young Bill.

More must-sees

Any pilgrimage to Monroe's former stomping grounds must include visits to two other bluegrass landmarks, each on the National Register of Historic Places: the Rosine Barn and the circa 1920s Rosine General Store, where you can pick up snacks and souvenirs, eat a juicy burger or piece of homemade pie or sip a soda while tapping your toes to an informal jam session.

Both sit side by side in ramshackle companionability just down the road from the Monroe birthplace and both attract bluegrass aficionados from all over the world who want to see and, in many cases, play on the last stage on which Monroe performed.

The barn, with its scatter shot collection of chairs and benches, offers music and dancing on Friday evenings year-round. Admission is free, the talent is local — although during the past year, bands from seven foreign countries have played there. A plate is passed for donations.

"By the end of the evening, everyone will have made it over to the [general] store," says Guynn Cagle of the Rosine Association, who is affectionately known as the local "Fred Sanford" (which sheds light on the barn's decor).

After touring Rosine, head to the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro to read more about Monroe, his Blue Grass Boys Band and key moments in the genre.

The museum houses a variety of historically significant instruments and the Hall of Fame, a tribute to the pioneers of bluegrass music. It also has its own radio station, and its programs include the Video Oral History Project, whose goal is to professionally film each living member of the 232 musicians known as "Bluegrass Music's First Generation."

The museum is downtown, around the corner from the Hometown Hero Hall of Fame, a showcase of locals who have achieved national or international acclaim. You may be surprised to learn über-cool Johnny Depp, born in Owensboro, lived here until he was about 6 years old but never publicized visits to his hometown when he would return to see his grandmother. Also, Florence Henderson (aka TV mom Carol Brady) went to school at Owensboro's St. Francis Academy.

Plethora of music

Entertainment options abound. The family musical variety shows at Goldie's Best Little Opryhouse in Kentucky offer a blend of old and new country, comedy, bluegrass, gospel and old-time rock 'n' roll music. For classical music, there's the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra. You can see ambitious shows in gothic surroundings at the Theatre Workshop of Owensboro — in the renovated circa 1875 Trinity Church. Musical concerts and Broadway touring productions are staged at River Park Center.

The 550-guest room Executive Inn Rivermont is an entertainment dynamo that brings in a variety of acts — including Chris Knight, George Jones and the Black Crowes — to perform in its showroom.

Art and history

The Owensboro Museum of Fine Art is a combination house museum/art gallery. It's in a 1909 Carnegie Library and in the John Hampden Smith House, a pre-Civil War-era mansion.

The museum's permanent collection includes American, European and Asian fine and decorative arts dating from the 15th century to the present, including a major work by French realist/impressionist master Edgar Degas. A stained-glass gallery of late- 19th and early-20th-century German stained-glass windows is impressive in breadth and scope as are the museum's three period decorated rooms.

For hands-on fun, head to the Owensboro Area Museum of Science & History, where a colorful choo-choo train anchors the PlayZeum, an indoor playground with crawl tubes and bridges, riverboat and tree houses. The SpeedZeum is full of racing cars in a gallery devoted to motor sports and local racing history, and the Encounter area is filled with science-based exhibits, including a magnet bridge, puppet theater and shadow room.

Bed and barbecue

Owensboro has just one bed-and-breakfast, but when you have an operation like the circa 1910 Arts and Crafts-style Helton House on a tree-lined corner, you wouldn't want to stay at another anyway.

Innkeeper Grace Helton Conley has created inviting, richly hued public rooms and darling guest rooms that include a two-bedroom suite retreat and cozy attic room.

The sun porch with its sofa piled high with pillows is the perfect spot for curling up with a book — yours, or one borrowed from the inn's many stacks.

A full breakfast is served daily, but on weekends, the innkeeper treats her guests to old-fashioned milk gravy — the kind your Southern granny made in a heavy iron skillet — to pour over homemade buttermilk biscuits. This is accompanied by country ham and eggs, fried apples and a basket of fragrant homemade bread or muffins to hold you until dinner.

That's when one of Owensboro's barbecue joints, the Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn, lays out its buffet. Famous for mutton, beef, chicken, pork and ribs slow-cooked over a hickory log fire in custom-built pits, it has been featured on the Food Network and was selected as one of America's top 10 barbecues by Epicurious.com.

The nightly throw down includes a succulent selection of barbecued meats and buttery go-withs including homemade mashed potatoes. The dessert buffet is not for the faint of heart: cobblers, cakes, puddings, pies (including a lemon icebox cake that nearly floats off your plate) and ice cream.

Barbecue, bluegrass and an utterly pleasing place to lay your head at the end of a full day of sightseeing: Owensboro knows how to cook up a good time.