Ralph Stanley's voice is not of this century. Nor of the last one, for that matter. Its stark emotional urgency is rooted in a darker time, when pain was the common coin of life and the world offered sinful humanity no hope of refuge. Preserved in the cultural amber of remote Appalachia, this terse, forlorn sound is the heartbeat of Ralph Stanley, the great stylist's debut album for DMZ/Columbia Records.

Although Stanley has recorded nearly 200 albums, this is the first one released solely under his own name. No Stanley Brothers. No Clinch Mountain Boys. Just Ralph Stanley. "Well, I think it probably should be that," quips Stanley, "because I did most of it."

Helping Stanley do his most was executive producer T Bone Burnett, the seer and musical genie behind the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the multiple Grammy Award-winning (including Album of the Year) package that has so far sold more than 5 million copies in the United States. Instead of using Stanley's silk-smooth Clinch Mountain Boys to back him, Burnett opted for a more subtle and minimalist approach, drawing on four endlessly inventive musicians he worked with on the O Brother project: Norman Blake (guitar, Weissenborn, mandocello), Stuart Duncan (banjo, fiddle), Mike Compton (mandolin) and Dennis Crouch (string bass).

"Part of envisioning it out of the bluegrass box was to think of it as a string quartet," says Burnett, "to think of it as classical music, to take a very intimate look at Ralph Stanley, who he is and where his music comes from." For harmony vocals (on "Look On and Cry" and "Calling You"), Burnett turned to sisters Evelyn and Suzanne Cox of the Cox Family, an act also featured on O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

Burnett calls Ralph Stanley "…one of the two or three most important figures in country music today…. he's a punk singer or a rock & roll singer or a country singer…. he's a mountain singer is what he really is. He's way closer to Elvis Presley than the notion of 'Dueling Banjos."

Except for Hank Williams' old time gospel-sounding hymn, "Calling You," all the songs on Ralph Stanley have long and tangled histories. The oldest of these, the chilling revenge ballad, "Mathie Grove," dates back at least to Shakespeare's time.

The remaining songs were firmly embedded in American folklore by the time the first generation of recording artists committed them to discs. Uncle Dave Macon recorded "The Death of John Henry" in 1926; Washington Phillips "Lift Him Up, That's All" in 1927; Doc Boggs "False Hearted Lover Blues" in 1929; Dick Justice "Henry Lee" in 1929; Blind Gary Davis "Twelve Gates To The City" in 1938; Wade Mainer and the Sons of the Mountaineers "Look On And Cry" in 1939; and the Carter Family cut a variation of "Girl From The Greenbriar Shore" in 1941.

The words to "I'll Remember You Love In My Prayers" were first copyrighted in 1869 and have since been sung and recorded to a variety of melodies. The origin of the majestic "Great High Mountain" remains unclear.

"These were all old songs," Stanley observes. "I'd heard some of them when I was a boy. But some I'd never heard until [T Bone] sent them to me. He sent me 40 or 50 songs, I guess, to choose from." Of these, Stanley recorded 19, from which the final 11 were selected.

"One of Ralph Stanley's gifts is to be able to contain and express grief," observes T Bone Burnett. "There's just such deep grief in his tone. That's what we were looking for in all of these songs. The natural extension of what 'O Brother' was doing."

Born February 25, 1927, in Stratton, Virginia, Ralph and his older brother, Carter, formed the seminal bluegrass ensemble the Stanley Brothers, who made a series of watershed recordings for Columbia Records from 1949 until 1952. Now 75 years old, Stanley has been performing professionally since he and Carter, formed their first group in their native southwestern Virginia in 1946. Between that date and 1966, when Carter died, the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys became the most celebrated bluegrass groups in the world, ultimately rivaling in popularity such titans as Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Jim & Jesse and the Osborne Brothers.

After Carter's death, Ralph shifted the band's musical emphasis from bluegrass to an older, sadder, less adorned mountain style. As a bandleader, he nourished such young and promising talents as Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Larry Sparks and Charlie Sizemore, all of whom eventually graduated to distinguished solo careers.

While he has long been revered by enthusiasts of folk, bluegrass and country music, Stanley has lately been commanding the kind of honors due a musical original. In 2002, he won Grammys for Best Country Male Vocalist Performance (beating out Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Tim McGraw, Lyle Lovett and Ryan Adams) and Album of the Year (for his part in the O Brother collection). Last year, he was the subject of an admiring profile in the New Yorker, written by novelist David Gates, who traveled with Stanley for months gathering material. He is the central figure in the D. A. Pennebaker/Chris Hegedus documentary "Down From The Mountain."

In January, 2000, Stanley became the first artist to be inducted into the historic Grand Ole Opry in the new millennium. He holds the Living Legend award from the Library of Congress and was the first recipient of the Traditional American Music award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. One of his proudest achievements is the honorary doctorate in music Lincoln Memorial University conferred on him in 1976. In addition to all these honors, Stanley was chosen to be the closing act for the 2002 Down From The Mountain Tour, a sold-out series of concerts inspired by the success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? album.

"Well, it's true these awards have been coming pretty fast," says the reticent, plainspoken Stanley, "but I enjoy every one of them." Of his Best Country Male Vocalist Grammy, he notes, "I was a little surprised, but that was the one I really hoped to win. It just felt so good I can't hardly tell you." He acknowledges that there are few major recognitions he still aspires to but adds, "Well, there is the Country Music Hall of Fame. I'd like that to happen some day."

Stanley still lives near the spot where he was born in a mountainous, tucked-away corner close to the rugged Virginia-Tennessee border. It is his secluded retreat from the rigors of the road and the 150 to 200 shows he continues to do each year.

"I've enjoyed doing this album," Stanley muses. "I like the songs, and I think the music fits my voice. It's a real good idea to do this old-time stuff. I don't think there's anything else like it."

"When Ralph does what he does, it is what it is. And the sound of it is beautiful," wrote T Bone Burnett in the liner notes for Ralph Stanley, "Ralph has been keeping this flame for fifty five years, an heroic task, and he has done so with humility and a deep love that has only gotten deeper over time. This is an extraordinary thing. On this album, he goes backward to go forward."

 

Copyright © 2002 Sony Music Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.  
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