The Archives
Larry Sparks
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine December 1972, Volume 7, Number 6 The remarkable entry of young and talented musicians into the ranks of professional bluegrass in the last few years has been marked by progressively larger and larger steps away from the traditional roots from which the music has grown. This is a natural and…
Dr. Ralph Stanley: Generations of Influence
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine August 2016, Volume 51, Number 2 Just one day before Dr. Ralph Stanley passed on June 23, 2016, musician Lucy Cochran posted the now-famous video of Stanley singing “Pretty Polly” with Patty Loveless and the Clinch Mountain Boys on Facebook. Cochran is an excellent fiddler whom I first saw play…
Ralph Stanley: The Tradition From The Mountains
By Ralph Rinzler Smithsonian Institution Division of Performing Arts Washington, D.C. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys will be presented in a musical workshop and a full solo concert March 10th at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, Baird Auditorium, Washington, D.C. While bluegrass has been heard for seven years at the Smithsonian’s…
The Lonesome Sound of Carter Stanley
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine June 1976, Volume 10, Number 12 One chilly afternoon last November I drove the sixty-or-so miles from my home in central Ohio to The Country Palace, a tavern on the southeast edge of Columbus, to talk with Ralph Stanley, who was booked there for the weekend. I had been asked…
The Bailey Brothers: Part 1
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine July, 1970. Volume 5, Number 1 (This article was compiled from an interview with Charles Bailey in Wilmington, Delaware and a letter written by Danny Bailey, Knoxville, Tennessee.) If you should ever sit down and compose a list of musicians undeserving of neglect, Charles and Danny Bailey could not…
Starvin’ to Death
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine February 1967, Volume 1, Number 8 “You know, the best music that bluegrass musicians ever played or recorded seems to have been when they were starvin’ to death.” This comment was made to me by my good friend the late Don Owens of WAKL/WAVA, in Arlington, Virginia once while we…