Description of Ralph Stanley's Music:

Bluegrass

Comparisons:

Ralph Stanley started his career as one half of the Stanley Brothers (along with his brother Carter), and folks interested in his contemporary work would be well-advised to dig back into some of those old Stanley Brothers records. The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys (their backing band) were contemporaries of bluegrass innovator Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys from Kentucky.

As such, fans of the Stanley Brothers may be interested in the work of that band, as well as Flatt & Scruggs and more contemporary artists heavily influenced by them - Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Del McCoury Band, and others.

Recommended Ralph Stanley CDs:

The Very Best of Ralph Stanley (Audium Entertainment, 2002)

A Distant Land to Roam: Songs of the Carter Family (DMZ, 2006)

A Mother's Prayer (Rebel Records, 2011)

Purchase/Download Ralph Stanley MP3s:

"Pretty Polly" (from The Very Best of Ralph Stanley)
"Blue Moon of Kentucky" (from Lonesome and Blue: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys)
"Can't You Hear the Mountains Calling?" (from Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys featuring Charlie Sizemore)

List of Pickers Who Played with the Clinch Mountain Boys:

The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys helped launch the careers of some of bluegrass music's greatest players. Among them were mandolin players Curly Lambert and Pee Wee Lambert, and fiddlers Leslie Keith, Les Woodie, Joe Meadows, Paul Moon Mullins, and Vernon Derrick.

Mike Seeger (of New Lost City Ramblers) played bass for a time, and Larry Sparks, Keith Whitley, and Ricky Skaggs all played guitar for the group. (Skaggs also played mandolin, as he does now with his band Kentucky Thunder).

Ralph Stanley Biography:

Ralph Stanley was born in February 1927 in McClure, Virginia (Dickenson County). Though his family wasn't very musical when Ralph was a boy, they were inclined toward hymns and other church music. His mother taught him how to play the banjo when he was a teenager and, after he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the military. He only stayed in the Army for a year or so, though, before returning to Virginia and seeing off on his musical career.

There, he teamed up with his brother Carter, who had learned to play the guitar, and formed the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1946. In their earliest incarnation, they were heavily influenced by the area heroes - the Carter Family - and began singing gospel-infused traditional tunes on local radio stations. They played traditionals and cover songs for that first year before realizing they could do just as well writing their own songs.

They signed a deal with Columbia Records and started recording as the Stanley Brothers, and later King Records where they claim to have developed their signature Stanley Brothers sound. Eventually, though, Carter was offered a gig singing and playing with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. He left the Stanley Brothers and Ralph continued as the frontman for the Clinch Mountain Boys. Nonetheless, Carter would continue to perform with the Stanley Brothers until 1966, when he died of cirrhosis of the liver.

After some consideration, Ralph decided to continue on without his brother and presented some of the Clinch Mountain Boys' most impressive lineups after his brother's death.

In 1970, Ralph Stanley ran for Clerk of Court and Commissioner of Revenue in his hometown. He was not elected, however, and continued right on making a living as a bluegrass picker.

Stanley has released more than 40 albums in his career - both solo and with the Stanley Brothers and Clinch Mountain Boys. He's been inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Honor and the Grand Ole Opry. He won a Grammy Award in 2002 for his performance on the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and a National Medal of the Arts in 2006. His 2011 release A Mother's Prayer is nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album.