Old-Timer, Still Telling Mountain Tales
By CHARLES McGRATH
Ralph Stanley is one of the last, and surely the purest, of the traditional country musicians. He’s such a stickler that he has no use for the dobro, let alone electrified instruments, and he’s not overly fond of the term bluegrass. He prefers to call what he performs “that old-time mountain music.” He plays the five-string banjo in the claw-hammer style he learned from his mother — or he used to, until arthritis caught up with him — and he sings in a raw, keening Appalachian tenor.
The songs tend to be about hard times, unfaithful lovers, deceased children, lonely graves. One of his most famous, “O Death,” is a pleading dialogue with the Grim Reaper himself. It used to be said that when you heard a Ralph Stanley tune, you either wanted to get drunk or...
Complete article in The New York Times
By CHARLES McGRATH
Ralph Stanley is one of the last, and surely the purest, of the traditional country musicians. He’s such a stickler that he has no use for the dobro, let alone electrified instruments, and he’s not overly fond of the term bluegrass. He prefers to call what he performs “that old-time mountain music.” He plays the five-string banjo in the claw-hammer style he learned from his mother — or he used to, until arthritis caught up with him — and he sings in a raw, keening Appalachian tenor.
The songs tend to be about hard times, unfaithful lovers, deceased children, lonely graves. One of his most famous, “O Death,” is a pleading dialogue with the Grim Reaper himself. It used to be said that when you heard a Ralph Stanley tune, you either wanted to get drunk or...
Complete article in The New York Times
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