There are few who know hard times like Bluegrass music legend Ralph Stanley. He grew up in the hills and coal fields of Southwest Virginia. To quote the movie, Coal Miner's Daughter, a man's choices were "coal mine, moonshine, or gettin' on down the line." Ralph chose a fourth option, making a living playing music about the trials and hard times living in Appalachia.
Today in Southwest Virginia, Ralph endorsed Barack Obama for president. Celebrities and musicians often make political endorsements, but for my money, Ralph's endorsement means more than most.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
Ralph grew up in Dickinson County, Virginia, way down in the tip of Southwest Virginia, where Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia come together. It is really the birthplace of original country music and near the home of the first family of country music, the Carter Family.
Ralph started a band with his brother Carter, the Clinch Mountain Boys singing the music of their region and the gospel songs that were an integral part of the music. There has been a tradition of brother harmony singing in country music that the Stanleys fit right in to. Ralph played the banjo and his brother Carter played guitar. Ralph has a tenor harmony voice that sends chills down your spine. There really is no one who sings like Ralph Stanley. Arguably one of the best and most distinctive voices in American music, a voice that carries with it significant emotion. When Ralph Stanley sings a song, you feel what he feels in the song.
Like Bill Monroe before him, he innovated and developed what became bluegrass music, drawing on the music of his region and updating it, while honoring the traditions on which it was based. In his shows, Ralph includes a few songs using the older "clawhammer" style of banjo playing rather than the "Scruggs style" finger picking popularized by Earl Scruggs and which is one of the foundations of bluegrass. Ralph highlights the earlier roots of the music when he does this, one of the few bluegrass musicians who does this.
Ralph's brother Carter died in 1966, but Ralph continued on. When they performed together, Carter was the more prominent of the two, the lead singer and writer of many of their songs. Carter's death pushed Ralph into the lead role and, in my opinion, made him a better and more influential musician. This clip from Youtube highlights Ralph's singing and one of the traditional gospel songs he is famous for. http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Rank Stranger is another of his classic gospel songs. http://www.youtube.com/...