Ralph Stanley | |
|---|---|
 Stanley in 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Ralph Edmund Stanley |
| Born | (1927-02-25)February 25, 1927 McClure, Virginia, U.S. |
| Origin | Big Spraddle Creek, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | June 23, 2016(2016-06-23) (aged 89) Sandy Ridge, Virginia, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation | Bluegrass musician |
| Instrument | Banjo |
| Years active | 1946–2016 |
| Labels | |
| Spouse | |
| Website | drralphstanleymusic |
Ralph Edmund Stanley (February 25, 1927 – June 23, 2016) was an Americanbluegrass artist, known for his distinctive singing andbanjo playing. He began playing music in 1946, originally with his older brotherCarter Stanley as part ofThe Stanley Brothers, and most often as the leader of his band,The Clinch Mountain Boys. Ralph was also known asDr. Ralph Stanley.
He was part of the first generation ofbluegrass musicians and was inducted into both theInternational Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor and theGrand Ole Opry.
Stanley was born, grew up, and lived in ruralSouthwest Virginia—"in a little town calledMcClure at a place called Big Spraddle Creek, just up the holler" from where he moved in 1936. Before that he lived in another part ofDickenson County.[1] The son of Lee and Lucy Smith Stanley, Ralph did not grow up around a lot of music in his home. As he said, his "daddy didn't play an instrument, but sometimes he would sing church music... I'd hear him sing songs like 'Man of Constant Sorrow,' 'Pretty Polly' and 'Omie Wise.'"[1]
I got my first banjo when I was a teenager. I guess I was 15, 16 years old. My aunt had this old banjo, and Mother bought it for me ... paid $5 for it, which back then was probably like $5,000. [My parents] had a little store, and I remember my aunt took it out in groceries.[1]
He learned to play thebanjo,clawhammer style, from his mother:
She had 11 brothers and sisters, and all of them could play the five-string banjo. She played gatherings around the neighborhood, like bean stringin's. She tuned it up for me and played this tune, "Shout Little Luly," and I tried to play it like she did. But I think I developed my own style of the banjo.[1]
He graduated from high school on May 2, 1945, and was inducted into theArmy on May 16, serving for "little more than a year." When he got home he immediately began performing:
... my daddy and Carter picked me up from the (station), and Carter was playing with another group, Roy Sykes and the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys, and they had a personal appearance that night. So I sung a song with Carter on the radio before I even got home.[2]
After considering a course in "veterinary", he decided instead to join his older guitar-playing brotherCarter Stanley (1925–1966) to form the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1946. Drawing heavily on the musical traditions of the area, which included the unique singing style of thePrimitive Baptist Universalist church and the sweet down-home family harmonies of theCarter Family, the two Stanley brothers began playing on local radio stations. They first performed atNorton, Virginia's WNVA, but did not stay long there, moving on instead toBristol, Virginia, andWCYB to start the showFarm and Fun Time, where they stayed "off and on for 12 years".[2]
At first they covered "a lot ofBill Monroe music" (one of the first groups to pick up the new "bluegrass" format).[3] They soon "found out that didn't pay off—we needed something of our own. So we started writing songs in 1947, 1948. I guess I wrote 20 or so banjo tunes, but Carter was a better writer than me."[2] WhenColumbia Records signed them as The Stanley Brothers, Monroe left in protest joiningDecca Records. Later, Carter went back to sing for the "Father of Bluegrass", Monroe.
Ralph Stanley gave his opinion on Bill Monroe's apparent change of heart: "He [Monroe] knew Carter would make him a good singer... Bill Monroe loved our music and loved our singing."[2]
The Stanley Brothers joinedKing Records in the late 1950s, a record company which was so eclectic that it includedJames Brown at the time. In fact, James Brown and his band were in the studio when the Stanley Brothers recorded "Finger Poppin' Time". "James and his band were poppin' their fingers on that" according to Ralph.[2] At King Records, they "went to a more 'Stanley style', the sound that people most know today."[2]
Ralph and Carter performed as The Stanley Brothers with their band, The Clinch Mountain Boys, from 1946 to 1966. Ralph kept the band name when he continued as a solo act after Carter's death, from 1967 until his death in 2016.
After Carter died of complications of cirrhosis in 1966, after ailing for "a year or so",[2] Ralph Stanley faced a hard decision on whether to continue performing on his own. "I was worried, I didn't know if I could do it by myself. But boy, I got letters, 3,000 of 'em, and phone calls... I went to Syd Nathan at King and asked him if he wanted me to go on, and he said, 'Hell yes! You might be better than both of them.'"[4]
He decided to go it alone, eventually reviving The Clinch Mountain Boys.Larry Sparks, Roy Lee Centers, and Charlie Sizemore were among those with whom he played in the revived band. He encounteredRicky Skaggs andKeith Whitley arriving late to his own show, "They were about 16 or 17, and they were holding the crowd 'til we got there... They sounded just exactly like (the Stanley Brothers)."[5] Seeing their potential, he hired them "to give 'em a chance", though that meant a seven-member band.[2] Eventually, his son, Ralph Stanley II, took over as lead singer and rhythm guitarist for The Clinch Mountain Boys.[6] His grandson Nathan Stanley became the last lead singer and band leader for The Clinch Mountain Boys.[citation needed]
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About 1970, Ralph Stanley ran for Clerk of Court and Commissioner of Revenue inDickenson County and said:
What happened is, somebody traded me off—they used my popularity and money to elect somebody else. I was done dirty. And I'm so proud that I was done dirty, because if I had been elected ... I woulda had a job to do ... maybe woulda finally quit. So that's one time I was done dirty and I want to thank them for it now.[5]
Stanley's work was featured in the very popular 2000 filmO Brother, Where Art Thou?, in which he sings the Appalachian dirge "O Death". The soundtrack's producer wasT-Bone Burnett. Stanley said the following about working with Burnett:
T-Bone Burnett had several auditions for that song. He wanted it in theDock Boggs style. So I got my banjo and learned it the way he did it. You see, I had recorded "O Death" three times, done it with Carter. So I went down with my banjo to Nashville and I said, "T-Bone, let me sing it the way I want to sing it," and I laid my banjo down and sung ita cappella. After two or three verses, he stopped me and said, "That's it."[5]
With that song, Stanley won a2002 Grammy Award in the category ofBest Male Country Vocal Performance. "That put the icing on the cake for me," he said. "It put me in a different category."[5]
He was known in the world ofbluegrass music by the popular title, "Dr. Ralph Stanley", having been awarded an honorary doctorate in music fromLincoln Memorial University[7] ofHarrogate, Tennessee in 1976. Stanley was inducted into theInternational Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1992 and in 2000; he became the first person to be inducted into theGrand Ole Opry in the third millennium.
He joined producersRandall Franks andAlan Autry for theIn the Heat of the Night cast CDChristmas Time's A Comin', performing "Christmas Time's A Comin'" with the cast on the CD released on Sonlite and MGM/UA; it was one of the most popular Christmas releases of 1991 and 1992 with Southern retailers.[8][9]
He was featured in theJosh Turner hit song "Me and God" released in 2006, the same year he was awarded theNational Medal of Arts.
On November 10, 2007, Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys performed at a rally for presidential candidateJohn Edwards inDes Moines, Iowa, just before theDemocratic Party's annualJefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. Between renditions of "Man of Constant Sorrow" and "Orange Blossom Special", Stanley told the crowd that he had cast his first vote forHarry S. Truman in 1948 and would cast his next for John Edwards in 2008.[citation needed] In October 2008, he performed in a radio advertisement forBarack Obama's presidential campaign.[10][11]
Country singerDwight Yoakam said that Stanley is one of his "musical heroes".[12]
In 2012, Stanley was featured on several tracks of the soundtrack forNick Cave's filmLawless, with music by Cave andWarren Ellis. His solo track "White Light/White Heat" is prominent in several scenes of the movie.
Stanley maintained an active touring schedule; appearances in his later years included the 2012Muddy Roots Music Festival inCookeville, Tennessee and the 2013 FreshGrass Festival inNorth Adams, Massachusetts. In June 2013, he announced a farewell tour,[13][7] scheduled to begin inRocky Mount, North Carolina on October 18 and extending to December 2014. However, upon notification of being elected as a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (awarded on October 11, 2014) a statement on his own website appeared saying that he would not be retiring.[14]
After two previous marriages ended in divorce, Stanley married his wife, Jimmie, in 1968; he had four children.[15][16][17]
Stanley's autobiography,Man of Constant Sorrow which was coauthored with the music journalist Eddie Dean, was released byGotham Books on October 15, 2009.[18] On June 23, 2016, Stanley died fromskin cancer at his home in Sandy Ridge inDickenson County,Virginia; he was 89.[19][20][21]
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Stanley created a unique style ofbanjo playing, sometimes called "Stanley style". It evolved from theWade Mainer style two-finger technique and was later influenced by theScruggs style, which is a three-finger technique. "Stanley style" is distinguished by incredibly fast "forward rolls", led by the index finger (instead of the thumb, as in Scruggs style), sometimes in the higher registers using acapo. In "Stanley style", the rolls of the banjo are continuous, while being picked fairly close to the bridge on the banjo, giving the tone of the instrument a very crisp, articulate snap to the strings as the player plays them.
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| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Grass | US Country | US | US Heat | US Indie | ||
| Cry From the Cross |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| Clinch Mountain Gospel |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| I'll Answer the Call |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| Clinch Mountain Country |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| Man of Constant Sorrow |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| Clinch Mountain Sweethearts |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| Ralph Stanley |
| 3 | 22 | 163 | 5 | — |
| Poor Rambler |
| — | — | — | — | — |
| Shine On |
| 6 | — | — | — | — |
| A Distant Land to Roam |
| 4 | — | — | — | — |
| Mountain Preacher's Child |
| 9 | — | — | — | — |
| A Mother's Prayer |
| 6 | — | — | — | — |
| Old Songs & Ballads |
| 12 | — | — | — | — |
| Old Songs & Ballads: Volume Two |
| 14 | — | — | — | — |
| Side by Side(with Ralph Stanley II) |
| 3 | — | — | — | — |
| My Life & Legacy: The Very Best of Ralph Stanley |
| 9 | — | — | — | — |
| Ralph Stanley & Friends: Man of Constant Sorrow |
| 1 | 14 | — | 1 | 17 |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||
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| International | |
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| National | |
| Artists | |
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| Other | |