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Bluegrass Underground Welcomes Dr Ralph Stanley
RALPH STANLEY COMING TO BLUEGRASS UNDERGROUND MARCH 12
“I’ve just seen the Rock of Ages, Jacob’s Ladder hanging down.” Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys; “I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages” recorded in 1977.
March 12, bluegrass music’s own Rock of Ages comes to Bluegrass Underground. Dr, Ralph Stanley, the last surviving leader of the original four bands that formed the cornerstones of bluegrass’ first generation, will make his debut at Cumberland Caverns.
In 1946, Dr. Ralph and his guitar-playing brother Carter were the first band to copy Bill Monroe’s new bluegrass sound. In 1947, they were the first to record Monroe’s signature song, “Molly and Tenbrooks,” scooping the Father of Bluegrass himself (they learned it from a live performance of the original bluegrass band, Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Chubby Wise and Howard “Cedric Rainwater” Watts).
That Ralph Stanley is still on the road, still leading his Clinch Mountain Boys 65 years later is amazing. That he is enjoying the widest recognition and greatest popularity of a career that began when Harry Truman was president is a bona fide miracle.
Ralph almost retired when Carter died 45 years ago this year, but he persevered, with an array of lead singers and bandmembers that included Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Larry Sparks, Charlie Sizemore, Roy Lee Centers, Curly Ray Cline and Jack Cooke. And while, for most of his career, Ralph was best known for his tenor harmony singing and alternating hard-driving bluegrass banjo with old-time clawhammer style, his unlikely crossover success and Country Male Vocal GRAMMY came for his eerie, a cappella solo version of “Oh Death” in the Coen Brothers’ Oh Brother Where Art Thou. His autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrow, won him the 2010 IBMA Print Media Person of the Year award. I was also a nominee in that category, and I’ve never been happier to lose to anyone.
There is no one like Ralph Stanley anymore, but the truth is, other than imitators, there was never anyone like Ralph Stanley. No one else presented bluegrass with that staunchly old-time approach.
The other three original bluegrass bands, Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, Flatt & Scruggs and Reno & Smiley all updated mountain music, adding contemporary touches. And although Carter had a smooth, radio-ready vocal style, when Ralph stepped to the microphone, it was the purest old-time mountain sound. He composed dozens of beloved banjo tunes – “Clinch Mountain Backstop,” “Hard Times” “Old Time Picking’,” “Master tone March” “Ralph’s Banjo Special.” And his signature songs include “Little Maggie,” “Pretty Polly” “How Mountain Girls Can Love” “If I Lose,” “White Dove,” “Rank Strangers,” “The Fields Have Turned Brown” – the complete list would crash your hard drive.
The Stanleys spawned dozens of imitators. The Southwest Ohio bluegrass scene I played in and wrote about from the late ‘70s through the ‘80s produced two of his best lead singers – Larry Sparks and Roy Lee Centers, part of a Stanley-centric scene that ran up from Kentucky into Michigan along what is now the I-75 corridor. Part of that was due to the fact that Ralph and Carter recorded for Cincinnati’s King Records, their longest and most important association with any record label, and they frequently performed in the region.
Dr. Ralph has always said he wanted to preserve that old-time style of singing and picking and he has succeeded far beyond his wildest dreams. The Stanley Sound is alive and well.
And best of all, despite some health setbacks, including the installation of a pacemaker in January, the 83-year-old creator of that Stanley Sound is also alive and well and still on the road.
When I interview artists who come to Bluegrass Underground for WSM’s Bluegrass Underground radio show, the common thread that runs through all of them is that, even for musicians who practically live on the road, their visit to the BGU stage in Cumberland Caverns’ Volcano Room, 333 feet underground, is one show they’ll never forget.
March 12, when the Rock of Ages himself comes to Bluegrass Underground, that promises to be an event that no one there will ever forget.
Larry Nager
Ralph Stanley’s Bluegrass Underground Top 10
“Dream of a Miner’s Child”
“How Mountain Girls Can Love”
“Hide Me Rock of Ages”
“Rocky Island”
“Stone Walls and Steel Bars”
“Great High Mountain”
“Mountain Picking”
“On a High, High Mountain”
“Breaks of the Cumberland”
“I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages”
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