Music News	Music Venues	Search Events

E-mail story

comment

Printer-friendly version

Living legend, Stanley will headline Sunday's event at Boone Hall

By KEITH RYAN CARTWRIGHT

He's 81 years old and has been performing for 62 of those.

Simply referring to him as legend or an icon would be to understate what his career has meant not only to the bluegrass genre, but also the craft of songwriting, the art of storytelling and the importance of being a performer in the grandest sense.

That said, Ralph Stanley, who has been the subject of numerous documentaries, is as relevant today as he's ever been.

This is one of those rarified musicians who continue to influence one generation after another. Take for instance the popularity of his participation in the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, for which he won two Grammy Awards in 2002.

So revered for his formidable style, he's recorded duets with the likes of Bob Dylan, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, among others.

He's received numerous honors, including the prestigious Living Legend award from the Library of Congress and is a member of the Grand Ole Opry. However, he's still awaiting induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Setting all the accolades aside, the most impressive achievement regarding Stanley is that all these years later he still performs 150 shows a year. But that's what it's always been about — whether it was the 20 years he spent with his brother Carter, who passed away in 1966, or the 40 years since — Ralph Stanley has always been focused foremost on entertaining crowds.

And that he's done.

In fact, he continues to do so and Sunday he'll headline the celebration at the Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant.

It's equally important to know that Stanley created a unique style of banjo playing, sometimes called the "Stanley Style." It's an evolution of the three-finger technique and is distinguished by incredibly fast forward rolls that are led by the index finger and sometimes in the higher registers utilizing a capo.

It's a near impossible task to adequately recall the full significance of his presence, but the following is just a sampling of the musical accomplishments that highlight his career:

--Stanley has performed continually since 1946. The patriarch of traditional and bluegrass music still does over 150 dates a year.

--He has recorded over 170 albums.

--Has written or co-written (with this brother Carter) and recorded many songs that have since become bluegrass standards.

--He is one of the last living founders of a distinctly American art form known as bluegrass, which blends rural-based lyrics with fluid, jazz-like instrumental improvisations.

--His music - particularly his high, mournful vocals - is so raw, powerful and authentic that it has moved and inspired performers from all musical genres. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Dwight Yoakam, Vince Gill and even Jerry Garcia credit Stanley as a major inspiration.

--Stanley's band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, has been the incubator for two generations of country and bluegrass superstars, including Ricky Skaggs and the late Keith Whitley.

--Stanley continues to live in and draw strength from the country, in his case the remote mountainous region of southwestern Virginia, where he still makes his home not far from where he was born along the Virginia/Tennessee border.

Keith Ryan Cartwright is a Colorado-based freelance entertainment journalist.