The Dr. Ralph Stanley
Hills of Home Bluegrass Festival
The Dr. Ralph Stanley Hills of Home Memorial Day Weekend Bluegrass Festival held at the Hills of Home Park in McClure, Virginia is one of the longest running bluegrass festivals in the United States. With the exception of the 2020 and 2021 events being cancelled due to the pandemic, the festival has been held every year since 1970. Originally titled the “Carter Stanley Memorial Festival,” Ralph Stanley’s son, Ralph II, explains that Carter and Ralph had plans to produce this festival even before Carter passed in 1966. Ralph II said, “Larry Sparks told me that Ralph and Carter had planned to do a festival. Larry was staying at my grandma’s house and Carter took him to look over the site and told him that he and Ralph had plans to start a festival there.” After two or three years, the festival name was changed to “Hills of Home.”
Carter and his brother Ralph were born in Dickenson County, Virginia—Carter in 1925 and Ralph in 1927. Ralph II explained, “My dad and uncle was born at the bottom of the mountain on the McClure side. Then, I think that my grandmother must have inherited the farm from her family or something. They moved up there when they were very small. Dad was probably two and Carter was four. They lived there from then on. It was her land. She was a Smith and the family cemetery is right there on the campground. One of the pluses to coming to the festival is that we have the music playing in the graveyard and it will put chills up and down your spine. Dad and Carter are right there side-by-side with my grandma and Carter’s wife, Mary. A lot of people enjoy seeing that when they come to the festival.”
The original festival stage was on the property at the bottom of a hill. In about 1990 the park was remodeled and a new stage was built in an area that was more easily accessible. Ralph II said, “Ricky Skaggs and his daddy, and my dad, and Keith Whitley and his daddy—and maybe Jack and Curly Ray—and a few of dad’s handymen built that old stage.” He added, “I’ve dedicated some time and money to re-open that stage. We’ve got it looking real good. It is pretty much all original and still standing. The last time Ricky Skaggs came, he couldn’t believe it because I had it cleared it out enough that you can get down in there again. He went and spent two hours down there. He couldn’t believe that it was all still there.”
Regarding the new stage, Ralph II said, “The old stage was down in the holler. It was used for about twenty years and then the new stage was built in a new location. It is a lot better. It is more convenient and we have a big shed that people can get under to get out of the weather. It is real nice.” On a good year, the festival will attract in the neighborhood of five to six thousand people, but even in a “bad year,” the crowd is a respectable three thousand to thirty-five hundred. Ralph II said, “It has never been a failure, there has always been a decent crowd that has shown up to it. Everybody that comes loves it. People are treated good and you can still feel the Stanley Brothers in the air. You don’t get many people that come up there and don’t like it and don’t return.”
When the festival first started it was a four-day event. Later, it turned into a three-day Thursday-to-Saturday event, but in May of 2022—in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the festival (which should have happened in 2020, but had to be postponed)—the festival will be four days again (Wednesday-to-Saturday). The festival always includes a very solid line up and the music on stage starts at ten in the morning and goes until nine or ten at night. There is also plenty of jamming in the campground. If you bring a camper to the festival, you are welcome to arrive the Saturday before the festival starts and stay until the day after the festival ends. The newest addition to the festival site is a bathroom and shower facility. During future festivals Ralph II also intends to open up the old stage for workshops.
Ralph Stanley II has been running the festival since 2012. He said, “In August of 2011 my dad called and asked me to come over to his house. I went over there and sat down with him and he said, ‘How would you feel about running the festival?’ I said, “Dad, I think you are doing the best job that can be done, I think you should keep running it.’ He said that he felt like he was getting too old and he didn’t know if he could keep running it. I had a wife and two kids, had just built a home. I was also getting my own band started, which was difficult. I knew that the festival was expensive to run so I was kind of scared. I was thinking, ‘Can I pull this off financially?’ Then Dad said, ‘Ralph, if you don’t want it, I’m going to have to close it down. I can’t do it no more.’ I said, ‘Well Dad, since you put it that way, I will do my best to see that it goes on.’ That was a big jump in life for me, but I’ve been blessed to do it for nine years now. Another thing that he told me is ‘Ralph, I’ll be there and I’ll play for you every day. You pay my band members what I would usually pay them, but I’ll play for you and won’t charge you a dime. But, don’t ever ask me for a dollar. It is yours. I’m not involved financially.’ That come out of his mouth when he turned it over to me. Something else he asked was that I never sell the land.”
Although the Memorial Day festival was not held in 2020 or 2021, when the Governor of Virginia lifted the pandemic restrictions in June of 2021, Ralph II felt like he wanted to still hold some kind of event at the park. Instead of attempting to rush to put together the Dr. Ralph Stanley Hills of Home Festival, he gathered together some sponsors and teamed with the local law firm of Wolfe, Williams & Reynolds—who specialize in representing local coal miners—to hold the 1st Annual Coal Miners Appreciation Bluegrass Festival. The event was held in August 2021 on the same site as the Memorial Day event. Ralph II said, “We had a good event. It was two days of music with bands like Sideline, Junior Sisk, the Alex Leach Band, the Clinch Mountain Boys and some others.” Ralph II intends on continuing this event in the future and thus holding two events every year at the Hills of Home park.
Ralph Stanley II is dedicated to carrying on the tradition of the The Stanley Brothers, Ralph Stanley, and the Clinch Mountain Boys through his music and the events that he continues to run at the Hills of Home Park in McClure, Virginia. The 2022 Memorial Day Weekend event promises to be one of the best ever as it will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the festival. Attendees will not only have the opportunity to see a great weekend of music, but also have the chance to spend a few days in the hills where the music was born, visit the graves of Carter and Ralph Stanley, and ride a trolley to the nearby town of Clintwood to visit the Ralph Stanley Museum and Traditional Mountain Center. To find out more about the 2022 event, visit drralphstanleyfestival.com.
