Articles

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…

Photos Courtesy of Ralph Stanley Museum Nestled in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains about eight miles northeast of Ralph Stanley’s birthplace, McClure, Virginia, sits a bastion of traditional mountain music.  Old familiar dirt roads wind through the piney glade Where all the longings of childhood dreams were made Where we passed the mossy mounds where I…

Bluegrass Innovator Seventy-five years ago the Stanley Brothers developed a distinctive sound in country music (a music that would later become known as bluegrass).  Carter’s lead voice, sparse rhythm guitar style and songwriting combined with Ralph’s soulful tenor voice and distinct approach to the five-string banjo to deliver a unique style of bluegrass music that…

University of Illinois Press Don’t let the subtitle of this important book possibly turn you away. Yes, potent blends of electrified country and rock provided cornerstones for the “Americana” genre, a comparatively recent musical edifice. (The Americana Music Association wasn’t founded until 1999, and a matching Grammy Awards category had to wait another decade.)  But…

Any tribute to The Stanley Brothers calls for an inside look at a favorite Stanley Brothers song. I’m not the expert some are on The Stanley Brothers or Ralph Stanley, but I’ve always enjoyed their lonesome, high-in-the-mountains sound on songs like “Rank Stranger,” “Angel Band,” and so many others. In looking back through some of…

Photos by Jamie Alexander For many of us, the first-generation bluegrass pioneers were the link that pulled on our heart strings and gave us a lifetime infatuation for bluegrass music. Whether it be Flatt and Scruggs, Monroe, The Stanley’s, Reno and Smiley—or whoever it may have been—it seems that each individual connects in some way…