He encountered Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley arriving late to his own show: "They were about 16 or 17, and they were holding the crowd 'til we got there. Larry Sparks, Roy Lee Centers, and Charlie Sizemore were among those with whom he played in the revived band. He decided to go it alone, eventually reviving The Clinch Mountain Boys. 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.'" But boy, I got letters, 3,000 of 'em, and phone calls. "I was worried, I didn't know if I could do it by myself. Ralph kept the band name when he continued as a solo act after Carter's death, from 1967 until his death in 2016.Īfter Carter died of complications of cirrhosis in 1966, after ailing for "a year or so", Ralph faced a hard decision on whether to continue performing on his own. Ralph and Carter performed as The Stanley Brothers with their band, The Clinch Mountain Boys, from 1946 to 1966. At King Records, they "went to a more 'Stanley style', the sound that people most know today." "James and his band were poppin' their fingers on that" according to Ralph. In fact, James Brown and his band were in the studio when the Stanley Brothers recorded " Finger Poppin' Time". The Stanley Brothers joined King Records in the late '50s, a record company so eclectic that it included James Brown at the time. Bill Monroe loved our music and loved our singing." Ralph Stanley gave his opinion on Bill Monroe's apparent change of heart: "He knew Carter would make him a good singer. Later, Carter went back to sing for the "Father of Bluegrass", Bill Monroe. I guess I wrote 20 or so banjo tunes, but Carter was a better writer than me." When Columbia Records signed them as The Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe left in protest and joined Decca. So we started writing songs in 1947, 1948. They soon "found out that didn't pay off-we needed something of our own. Īt first they covered "a lot of Bill Monroe music" (one of the first groups to pick up the new "bluegrass" format). They first performed at Norton, Virginia's WNVA, but did not stay long there, moving on instead to Bristol, Virginia, and WCYB to start the show Farm and Fun Time, where they stayed "off and on for 12 years". Drawing heavily on the musical traditions of the area, which included the unique singing style of the Primitive Baptist Universalist church and the sweet down-home family harmonies of the Carter Family, the two Stanley brothers began playing on local radio stations. Clinch Mountain Boys Īfter considering a course in "veterinary", he decided instead to join his older guitar-playing brother Carter Stanley (1925–1966) to form the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1946. So I sung a song with Carter on the radio before I even got home. 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. He graduated from high school on May 2, 1945, and was inducted into the Army on May 16, serving "little more than a year." He immediately began performing when he got home: But I think I developed my own style of the banjo. She tuned it up for me and played this tune, "Shout Little Luly," and I tried to play it like she did. She played gatherings around the neighborhood, like bean stringin's. She had 11 brothers and sisters, and all of them could play the five-string banjo. He learned to play the banjo, clawhammer style, from his mother: had a little store, and I remember my aunt took it out in groceries. paid $5 for it, which back then was probably like $5,000. My aunt had this old banjo, and Mother bought it for me. I got my first banjo when I was a teenager. And I'd hear him sing songs like ' Man of Constant Sorrow,' ' Pretty Polly' and ' Omie Wise.'" As he says, his "daddy didn't play an instrument, but sometimes he would sing church music. The son of Lee and Lucy Stanley, Ralph did not grow up around a lot of music in his home. How Can We Thank Him for What He Has Doneġ6.Stanley was born, grew up, and lived in rural Southwest Virginia-"in a little town called McClure at a place called Big Spraddle, just up the holler" from where he moved in 1936 and lived ever since in Dickenson County. Ralph Stanley - Clinch Mountain Country ġ7.
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