The Stanleys’ 1953-58 recordings for the label were works of rare beauty and power, and even exhibited a rare departure from their tradition-based sound, on the steel guitar-inflected “If That’s the Way You Feel.” The bluegrass elder even offered to hire both brothers and feature them in the Blue Grass Boys with joint billing, but the Stanleys regrouped for a final session for Columbia in 1952.Īfter a short return to Rich R Tone and regional radio work, the brothers were inked by Mercury Records, where Flatt & Scruggs had recorded their first high-voltage sides.
The brothers were briefly separated when Carter signed on with a forgiving Monroe for a brief stint as lead singer. A 1950 session marked the recorded debut of “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow,” with a lead vocal by Ralph. The Stanley Brothers’ 1949-50 Columbia sides showed their swiftly developed mastery of the bluegrass style, featuring both secular and gospel songs executed with high energy and intensity. Bill Monroe, who was a star on the label’s roster, viewed the Stanleys as formidable competition, and soon exited the label in a huff for Decca. The records put the brothers on the map, and in 1949 the Clinch Mountain Boys were signed to Columbia Records. The Stanleys’ 1947-48 recordings for Rich R Tone Records, an independent label in Johnson City, Tenn., included covers of some of Monroe’s early sides and Carter Stanley originals like the chilling murder ballad “Little Glass of Wine.” (Earl Scruggs joined the latter station during the Stanleys’ tenure there, and was undoubtedly instrumental in Ralph’s adoption of Scruggs’ sophisticated “three-finger” banjo style.) The act - which took its cues from the recent groundbreaking sides recorded for Victor by Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys - garnered attention with their radio performances on WNVA in Norton, Va., and WCYB in Bristol, a town divided by the Virginia-Tennessee border. Carter usually took lead vocals, with Ralph contributing high harmonies. But instead he decided to join his brother, already a veteran of the string band the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys, in a new unit, the Clinch Mountain Boys. While his father, Lee, was not a trained musician, he sang at home, and Stanley would later credit him for introducing the brothers to the old-time songs that would appear in their repertoire, most notably “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow.”Īfter graduating from high school and serving an Army hitch in occupied Germany, Stanley contemplated enrolling in veterinary school. His mother, Lucy, played banjo in the early two-finger “clawhammer” style, and she bought Ralph his first banjo from an aunt for $5. He was raised in the Primitive Baptist Church, which favored the close-harmony singing that would feature in his later work.
He was born 18 months after his brother, in Dickenson County, Va., in the Appalachians. Winner of three Grammy Awards, Stanley was honored with the National Medal of the Arts in 2006. Stanley - known thusly in the bluegrass community for his honorary doctorate from Tennessee’s Lincoln Memorial University - witnessed a remarkable career resurgence after his music was featured in the Coen brothers’ 2000 film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and its blockbuster soundtrack album.
WHEN I WAKE UP TO SLEEP NO MORE RALPH STANLEY SERIES
They recorded prolifically for Columbia, Mercury and King Records into the ’60s.įollowing Carter’s death in 1966, Ralph Stanley struck out on his own, recording a highly prized series of albums for the independent label Rebel Records.ĭr. Initially performing under the sway of Monroe (with whom Carter Stanley later sang in the early ’50s), the Stanley Brothers and their band the Clinch Mountain Boys formulated their own distinctive approach to the bluegrass genre, and developed a memorable original repertoire. In “Man of Constant Sorrow,” his 2009 memoir penned with Eddie Dean, he wrote, “If you press me on it, I’ll tell you the same thing I always tell the crowd at a show: ‘ old-time mountain style of what-they-call-bluegrass music.’ It’s a mouthful, I reckon, but it’s about the best I can come up with.”
The flinty Stanley always backed away from the “bluegrass” label, however, choosing to associate his highly personalized style with a more venerable type of music.
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